Tag Archives: Family

August 10, 2011 · 1:48 pm

My Friend, the Neat Freak

I don’t profess to be a perfect housekeeper. My home is lived in and looks it. I can’t keep up with the clutter and frankly, I get tired of asking everyone else to pitch in. When I know no one is coming for a visit, I can live with certain things, like globs of toothpaste cemented to the kids’ bathroom sink and a little dust here and there…OK, everywhere. I don’t love it, but I can let it slide a few days or a week if I need to. I simply don’t look at it. And I have a set list of friends whom I’ll allow to witness the filth. Don’t get me wrong. If I know someone may drop by, I straighten up a little, clear the unfinished crafts off the kitchen counter, put the dirty dishes in the sink, push piles of toys into a bin. You know, hide stuff.

When the kids are in school, the house passes code. I have time to scrub the toilets and dust the fans and wipe who-knows-what from the walls. But sometimes, life still gets in the way and it’s so hectic that my choice is either to cook dinner or clean. Well, I like my food.

So today, while at a friend’s house, I notice that everything is white-glove clean. It always is. I wasn’t even a totally expected guest. Even upstairs, in the kids’ rooms, the playroom, everything is spotless.

“Do you clean every day?” I asked.

Yes, she spot-cleans some. “And I vacuum every day,” she said. Even her closets.

What?

“I have a problem, I know,” she said, but she didn’t seem bothered by this syndrome. Her other friends tease that she never has footprints on her carpets.

Every day. Man, this summer at my house it’s been more like every other week, but I don’t dare admit that to her. Her son was just at my house. She probably had to shower him off when he got home in case he rolled around on my floor.

She showed me new furniture in her bedroom, like a magazine spread where nothing is out of place, not a thread, a hint of stray lint. My dresser always has random bits of paper, jewelry, and receipts spread across it. Magazine articles sit in piles on the floor. But my bed is always made at least. Always. I look on her floor and see I have left a trail of footprints in her carpet, impressions of my bare feet. They stick out like a weed in a Monet.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Now you have to vacuum!”

It’s all right. She does every night, before bed, after she turns down and smooths the sheets.

Well, I’ll be thinking of her vacuuming tonight as I relax on my couch, toys strewn across a floor covered in hair and dust and probably some boogers, eating a crunchy snack that will leave crumbs that I will probably vacuum up sometime next week.

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August 8, 2011 · 1:23 pm

Hang On to Summer

The end of summer is around the corner and I have mixed feelings. Usually around the first week of August, I’m pulling my hair out. My kids are driving each other mad and me with all the “Stoo-op! Don’t touch me! Get off me” business. But this summer, as my time with them starts to dwindle, I dig my heels into the ground because I’m just not ready for our summer to end. The summers when the kids actually want me around are numbered, and I feel guilty for any missed opportunities. I fill our days with a whirlwind of games, activities, crafts, and cuddles, a party of sorts for a mom who knows she has one last hurrah before her freedom is gone and that union between student and school takes over. Soon it will be homework and soccer and not a lot of time for being carefree. Two-plus weeks and counting here until school begins, and I’m squeezing it in: creek time, detective adventures, a birthday party, more crafts, a sleepover…OK, so maybe I’m going a teeny bit overboard.

I’ll admit there’s some good and bad to school starting again, and here’s the way I see it:

Pros
1. I don’t have to sneak handfuls of chocolate chips, slivers of brownies, or other assorted treats. It is all mine for the taking and I can overindulge as much as I want. No one will be around to judge or beg.
2. I don’t have to bring my kids to the doctor with me, sit in a tiny room, and resist the urge to pull my eyeballs out while they ask for the millionth time when the doctor is coming because, God help me, I’m about to find him and yank him down the hall by his tie and ask him the same question.
3. I don’t have to hear another person talk, scream, wail, whine, or fuss for seven and a half hours of my day if I don’t want to.
4. I don’t have to wipe anything on anybody but myself, at least until 3:00.
5. The only questions I have to answer are “Where do you want to meet for lunch today, Dear?” and “Is your credit card company offering you the best rate…?”

Cons
1. There are suddenly a lot of places to be, a lot of things to do, and a lot of PTA people looking for me.
2. Homework…and the accompanying fussing for 30 minutes (or more on a very bad day) until they finally give in and do it and realize it takes more time to fuss than to actually do their homework.
3. I have to get up when it’s still dark.
4. Did I say homework?
5. I will miss my kids like crazy.

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August 1, 2011 · 10:00 am

Motherhood: I’m Just Along for the Ride

I have a motto as a mom: It’s just a phase, it will end, and I’ll get through it.

For many months, I’ve been tested on every level known to mom. My eight-year-old son yearns for independence of the college set, wanting to do everything his way with none of that motherly advice thrown in. He pushes my buttons like he’s operating a remote control car and I just try to hang on.

We’ve been butting heads over any issue, big or small. I tell him to stop doing something and it’s like telling a two-year-old he has to take a bath during Barney. I have literally been tiptoeing on eggshells.

Many thoughts have raced through my mind: What is going to set him off next? Is it hormones? At 8? Heaven help me when he’s a teenager. And he’s such a sweet kid. Where did my sweet boy go? Something must be wrong with him. Is this normal?

Just what do you do when you tell him to stop and he says no again and again? By gosh, he’s too heavy for me to carry to his room anymore and he knows it. Yelling makes things so much worse. I tried to stay calm, but that was a big test for me. I screamed inside…and what I said was not very nice. For months, it has been up and down, and I’ve been waiting, knowing my motto has always held true. Is this what my next ten years will be like?

And then, just when I was at my breaking point, the ride ended. At least, I think it did. Do the phases just get longer as kids get older? They certainly get harder. But surely they do end.

Walking through a parking lot the other day, my nearly six-year-old daughter and I held hands like always. Surprisingly, my son grabbed my other and in that instant, life was really good. He said, “I love summer,” and gave my hand a light squeeze.

“Yeah, me too,” I said over the lump in my throat. We kept walking and I thought, “I can make it through any bad day for this tiny moment.” I held on as long as I could. As long as he’d let me.

And just when I started to enjoy the calm and started to relax, my daughter, who has been syrupy sweet all these months, entered a phase. There’s no rest for the weary and it’s time for me to buckle up again. Hopefully it will be a short ride.

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July 22, 2011 · 9:16 am

RIP Little Fish

How could one become so attached to an animal the size of a small paper clip? Ask a kid. A kid who will tell you he just had the worst day ever.

We had just returned from a weekend trip, and my son found his fish at the bottom of the bowl. This is the third fish we’ve lost, but he was just as sad as if it were the first. He recently lost a pet hermit crab, Hermie, that we used to let race across our playroom floor. No tears. After a quick backyard funeral, my son wanted to know when he could get another one.

But these fish that he could never hold had a special place in his heart, a certain distinction: that of first pet. At the end of kindergarten, his teacher gave him two fish that had been used for science lessons in his classroom. Mosquitofish. Nothing fancy, and teeny-tiny. They were babies when we got them. Our family has enjoyed watching them chase each other and seeing their family grow. My son taught us everything he learned at school about them.

Fernick and Sammy, that’s what he named them. Turns out they would be parents the first year we had them, and we had to keep a watchful eye. No eggs, live birth, and these fish eat their very young. Our son told us the mommy fish often die after giving birth. He knew signs to look for when she was about to have the babies. Finally, one day I saw a tail hanging out of her. We scooped her into a waiting bowl of water and watched as she gave birth to three pinhead-size fish that looked like specks of dirt falling to the bottom of the bowl. A wiggle and shake and they took off swimming, all eyes.

Soon, just like our son had said, Fernick was dying. And it wasn’t quick. He took it hard.

Months later, a pregnant fish died before giving birth. He didn’t say much about it. I thought maybe we had that initial pet dying thing over with. But when he saw this time that it was Sammy, the dad, at the bottom of the bowl, his heart broke again. I tried to tell him it was one of the other fish. It had lived two years. That’s amazing for bait. But he loved them. He raised them into adults and saw them have babies. He’d had them nearly the entire span of his school career, an eternity to an eight-year-old. Why tears over two of the fish and not even Hermie? It made sense to his heart.

I guess your first pet is special no matter what it is. And size just doesn’t matter.

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July 18, 2011 · 10:21 am

“Mom, I’m Bored!”

We’re into our unscheduled weeks of summer. No trips, no camps, no real plans. Just me and the kids and some much-needed lazy days. Every summer I forget how hard this new routine can be. Going from the rigmarole of school to wearing your pj’s till lunch is a shock to the kiddies. To me it’s grand. Nowhere to be? I leap with pure joy.

I do freelance work from home and took some mornings recently to finish a project. A highly effective mother would have a plan in place to occupy the kids so she could work. It just so happens, I did have a strategy one day: a kid-friendly camera and a scavenger hunt list for the kids to take pictures of. Their photography exploration bought me enough time to finish work, put sheets on the beds, and trim a bush that was two feet higher than it needed to be. Fantastic!

The next day, no plan. Disaster. I noticed them hovering as I got dressed. They sighed. They paced. We began to fuss at each other. Hmm. My first instinct is always to get them to clean up. They usually find something else to do fast. But they cleaned. Boredom was that bad, huh? Back again, as if being next to me is an exciting alternative to the wonderland we have upstairs. Hmmm. With so many toys they forget they have, it should feel like Christmas.

My next trick is to let them know that whatever they find not fit enough to play with must be ready to give away. That threat always works. When left alone a little longer, the kids find something to do. They always do. And of course it involves an 8-foot-by-10-foot mess that I have to maneuver. Then it sits there like a minefield. I hop through it each time I enter the room, loathing it more and more. That night when I announce it’s time to clean up, I get lots of, “Ah, Mom, we’re going to play with it later” and “It took us so long to set it up.” I get it. I was a kid too. So I let them leave it another day or so…until I realize they aren’t really playing with it. And they’re bored—again.

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July 12, 2011 · 9:11 am

6:25 in the Morning

It’s 6:25 a.m. On a Saturday. It’s summer for Pete’s sake. And he’s up, our son the rooster. My husband and I know this because the toilet flushes. No matter what time he goes to bed, his eyes pop open at the first beam of sunlight. He peeks into our room. We don’t flinch. About 15 minutes later he comes in again. “Go read,” I mumble. It’s not even 7 a.m. I see him quietly peek in one last time a bit later before I finally get up.

When he was younger, he used to come in every three minutes and drive us crazy until one of us got up. And sometimes he’d wake up at 5 a.m.—in the dark. That was rough. Now at age 8, most of the time he’ll read. 

I’m not a morning person. He is. Don’t even talk to me until I’ve eaten and showered. I don’t care to chit-chat. The thing about my son is that he has been up for an hour or more and he is bursting with questions. Every sentence starts with Mom, and there are no breaths in between.

“Mom, if a whale washes up on the beach, probably three or four people have to carry it back out into the ocean.”

Well, they’re too big to lift.

“Mom, what happens if a dolphin washes up on the beach? I bet the lifeguards would have to come pick it up and put it back in the water.”

Well, a dolphin and a whale are pretty heavy and if one washes up, it’s sick or dying. Lifeguards don’t do that sort of thing.

“Mom, probably Animal Control comes and takes it to the animal hospital and they fix it.”

I tell him that marine biologists probably come take a look at it there on the beach. It’s really too early for me to function, but he wants some answers.

“Mom, do they have whale sharks at Sea World?”

I haven’t a clue.

“Mom, whale sharks when they open their mouths, it is bigger than our playroom.”

Man, that is really big.

“Mom, if a stingray washes up on the beach, probably the lifeguards can just pick it up by its tail and throw it back into the ocean.”

I don’t know if the lifeguards would touch it. (Oh, make it stop.)

“Mom, but if it’s a minnow, they can just fling it back in.”

Yes, they can just fling it back in. (My brain is hurting. But I smile.)

“Mom, did you know they make the Knight Bus Harry Potter Lego set and it comes with…”

(Not again.)

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