Author: Joyce W.

Some thoughts from a few years back…

I lie there with my 5-year old son, as most nights, waiting to hear the regular breathing that signifies sleep, waiting to sense the quiet stillness that eventually descends when he gives in–at last–to slumber. The light in the hallway is on and the door is open, so it’s not completely dark. I watch the fan turn slow windmill shadows on the ceiling and wrestle with the urge to replay the day in my mind.

Many nights, I doze off before he does (I think), exhausted from the million demands of being a wife and mother and working (another) full-time job. But some nights, like this one, he slips off before me, tuckered out from a full day of Kindergarten and bike riding and basketball practice and trying to explain to me the complex dynamics at play among the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

And so I am left to think for a few minutes about the day. Whether we managed to get through homework battle-free, whether we made it everywhere we were supposed to go, whether I conquered the day without turning into a screaming lunatic. (Sometimes I get so close only to blow it during the torturous brushing and flossing and rinsing of the teeth.) Did we read? Did we cuddle? Did I listen with full attention to their stories and worries?

This quiet time is odd for me. It should come as a welcome respite during a largely chaotic life. Instead I don’t quite know what to do with it. Part of me wants to tiptoe out right away, flee to a book with no rhyming words, escape to a television show for grown-ups, reacquaint myself with my husband’s eager arms. But I convince myself to stay for a while longer. I watch my son’s handsome, peaceful face and run my fingers through his soft brown curls. I detect a slight sucking motion from his mouth every so often. He looks so supremely happy, having transported himself all the way back to the good old booby days when life was simple and his every need taken care of.

I feel silly to be just lying there drinking him in–still signed up for an hour-long bedtime routine when he’s five and my daughter nearly seven. Sometimes, though, it’s the only still time I manage all day. I cannot pinpoint exactly when this went away with my stepdaughters, this labor-intensive phase of parenting when we remain actively involved in bathing and brushing teeth and bedtime. It just sort of melted away, sometime between when they were eight and ten. My littler ones were very little then, even more all consuming of my time than now. I did not register exactly when or how it happened. They gradually ask for less and less help and eventually stop asking nearly all together. And I alternate between thrilled and sad, and wondering which is the correct way to feel…

Three years have passed since I wrote this and I suspect we may be at the tail-end of the phase when I feel like the center of my son’s and daughter’s universes. Some days the other end of the tunnel is visible and other days the tunnel seems another thousand miles long. Many days there’s no tunnel at all; just open road. I can see the horizon but not beyond. I still feel simultaneously excited and terrified about what’s ahead. (And my son is still an absolutely terrible sleeper.)

When Little Big Boss came home from Kindergarten aflutter one February day three years ago with her very first Science Fair packet, I was genuinely excited, too, for approximately 92 seconds. She was learning the scientific method at 5 years old! She would get to develop a hypothesis! There would be an experiment! Yay. Maybe she and her little brother (That Dude) were not fated to inherit my allergy to science. Maybe starting early would light a fire in them that I had no hope of sparking on my own. 

I promised myself as we looked over LBB’s packet together that I would strive to hide my substantial indifference to science. No need for her or That Dude to know that I slipped through my primary and secondary education doing a grand total of one Science Fair project in the course of 13 years. No need for them to find out that the only class I ever dozed off in my entire academic career was a college physics lecture. Twice. (Who could have predicted that a course called “The Physics of Light” would involve spending so much time in the dark? Probably anyone who had any actual interest in or rudimentary knowledge about science. But not me.)

In spite of my lackluster credentials, LBB and I were going to storm the elementary school Science Fair. For sure. We brainstormed our way into a project on assessing people’s ability to taste the difference between a traditional brownie moistened with oil & eggs and a healthier version moistened with puréed black beans. (My apologies to Team Anti-Moist for having now used that word three times in two sentences.) Bake off! This might even be fun! 

Never mind that a Kindergartner truly had no business doing a project that required her to formulate a survey, recruit tasters, compile survey results, and, oh yeah, bake brownies. To her absolute credit, she dove into the baking portion of proceedings with gusto and was even quite deft at convincing passers-by to step into our garage for the taste test. (Super Science Mom failed to calculate that people walking, running, and biking around the neighborhood might not want to eat brownies, even free ones.) Little Big Boss was rising to the challenge. I was feeling good and even slightly scientific. We had data!

Then, the weekend before the project was due–AKA Board Weekend–LBB fell hard to what I assessed to be a classic case of SFF (Science Fair flu). A subsequent trip to the doctor pinned it as strep throat, but on Board Weekend, this mama was stone cold convinced it was SFF. We set up shop in our office/guest room to assemble the board. She lay malingering on the sleeper sofa as I typed and printed, cut and glued, developed all manner of bar graphs and pie charts in Excel. She drifted in and out of sleep, lifting her head pitifully from time to time to check weakly on “our” progress, sometimes offering me a bone of encouragement: “We’re doing great, Mommy.” Indeed. Indeed, “we” were. I moped my lonely way to the finish line, all my dark thoughts about Science Fair confirmed. I vowed “never again.”

But a year passed and the sting subsided. Science Fair is perhaps something like labor; a certain time-induced amnesia convinces us to go through it again. A stirring hope that the pain and effort will be worth the outcome. Now I had experience. Now I knew to keep it simple. Now I was hip to the dangers of SFF. And now I had not just one project to shepherd, but two. With That Dude in Kindergarten and LBB in first grade, I had stepped up to the SF Big Leagues. My new approach: step down the level of ambition; step back my level of involvement.

I had them hand write all sections of their display boards–including headings, charts, and tables–and do all their own cutting and glueing. I was proud of their hard work and felt fantastic about their submissions. They looked like–and truly were–Science Fair projects befitting a Kindergartner and first grader. The feedback on each: “Good project; would be even better if you typed up the display.” (Super Science Mom blows it again.)

Back to the drawing board (well, display board). We regrouped for the next year, shamed into returning to typed display boards, to the children’s delight. They knew Mama’s impatience with their 4 wpm typing speeds would mean more work for me and less for them. Still, that year featured no whiff of SFF, and, in hindsight, was probably as close to an SF win as this household will ever come. (By “win” I mean that each child turned in a completed project, no one was injured, and I did not contract laryngitis from all the screaming. I do not mean that anyone actually won or placed in the Science Fair itself. That is not the competition in which we are participating.)

And then there was this year. I have concluded that the “Fair” is some cruel misnomer (possibly a typo for “Fail”?). The process–for us at least–is neither balanced nor carnival-like. Not “fair” in any sense. It is a test of endurance, a battle of wills, an epic struggle. LBB did another baking project this year, largely without incident. But That Dude–that dude, that dude, That Dude. Board Weekend arrived, unhappily coinciding with his half-day First Communion retreat one day and an extra long baseball practice the other. When we at last had a window Sunday afternoon to work on his display, he was stricken out of nowhere with a severe bout of SFF. He’s yelling. I’m yelling. Nothing’s getting done.

The child who never rests–the child who barely sleeps, in fact–was suddenly very, very tired. So tired that he took a two hour nap. Two hours. But I was wise to the hustle and refused to finish for him. Luckily the project wasn’t due until mid-week, so I cornered him Monday evening, determined he would finish. My brilliant strategy to make him do the work without it taking forever: having him use the speech-to-text function to write up the remaining sections. 

Pretty smart, I thought. Super Science Mom will triumph, I thought. Until–that is–“because it has salt in it” came out as “because he’s an a__hole, idiot.” That Dude, being the advanced reader that he is (yay!), catches on before I can delete it. A full 10 minutes of can’t-unsee-it hysteria ensues. He’s on the floor. I’m on the floor. He is beyond delighted at the glorious inappropriateness of it. Tears are rolling down my cheeks. I am done in.

No strategy will prevail. No amount of experience is going to make any difference. We are NEVER going to storm the Science Fair. We are just going to try to survive the Science Fair and accept that every year will continue to be SF hell. Science Fair, I surrender.

I used to feel like a celebrity guest star at the bus stop. My husband typically meets the school bus in the afternoons, but I pinch hit on occasion. When That Dude and Little Big Boss were in Kindergarten and 1st grade, they treated my (admittedly rare) appearances at the stop as if I had returned from a multi-year stint on the International Space Station. They’d scramble down the steps and out the bus door, faces alight with joy, little arms stretched out wide as they could go.

“Mama, mama!” they’d yell as they flew toward me, “You’re here! You’re here!” I’d crouch down to be at the right height to kiss their round cheeks and then close my arms tight around them. Sometimes they’d run toward me so fast that the force of their greetings almost knocked me over.

You’d think I was the prodigal mother, back after some extended and frivolous absence, instead of the woman who’d tucked them into bed the night before and run her fingers through their sleepy curls  before leaving for the office that morning. The intensity of their happiness to find me waiting for them made me a bit self-conscious — I wondered if the bus stop regulars thought I was getting cheap love. Sure, have Big Daddy do the bus stop heavy lifting, the thankless responsibility of being the everyday greeter. Then I had the nerve to waltz in once in while and reap all the glory.

At least I did two years ago. But That Dude and Little Big Boss are in 2nd and 3rd grade now, and having me meet them after school is apparently no longer the novelty it once was. Practically barreling Mama over at the bus stop was so 2015. I was standing in for my husband today when I realized it.

They came down the bus steps one after the other, no real urgency to their pace. One gave me an almost imperceptible head nod, the other a casual hand wave. Yet both made their way toward me, and I thought I might rate a couple of unsolicited side hugs. Instead, That Dude offloaded his backpack on me and Little Big Boss her violin. I’ve gone in a blink from celebrity to coat rack.

We are “all in the family” this weekend. This is 9-year old Little Big Boss’s term for when both her teenage sisters — my stepdaughters — are home. Big Daddy (my beloved husband) and That Dude (our 7-year old son) round out our band of six. All in the family is a rare achievement these days: the older girls aren’t with us full time and their schedules are demanding between school and other commitments. So Little Big Boss and That Dude look forward eagerly to time with their sissies: 17-year old Drama Queen (who lays claim to not a single diva-ish tendency but does have a passion for the performing arts) and 15-year old Bill (so dubbed because when I asked her how I should refer to her in this series, that was her pick).

The goal this long weekend: to take advantage of the ridiculously mild February weather and use the backyard fire pit that Big Daddy has been working on since October and finally finished. Friday night’s a no go since Bill’s not getting home until around 10 p.m. Saturday seems promising but we end up not getting back from a family shopping expedition until after 6 p.m. and still need to cook dinner and eat dinner and clean up from dinner. Sunday it is. Sunday or nothing. We are going to do some serious family bonding around our brand-spanking new, custom fire pit. 

I’ve got the elements of faux Thanksgiving dinner in the works by 4 p.m. — cylindrical cranberry jelly (a household fave for reasons I can’t begin to fathom) chilling in the fridge; mashed potatoes, gravy, and green beans at the ready; turkey tenderloins in the oven. Also baking away is the piece de resistance: the corn pudding that this whole meal has been built around, the corn pudding that makes DQ so happy she could cry.

I’ve got my s’mores fixings for later prepped: big bowl of jumbo marshmallows, pretty platter of carefully arranged chocolate — graham cracker skyscrapers in the middle separating the milk chocolate (for them) from dark chocolate (for me). (I’m not fancy, but I really, really like to pretend to be fancy once in awhile.) I’ve got things so under control that I have time to go outside and chatter with my sweet neighbors for a WHOLE HALF AN HOUR while I wait for dinner to be ready. I am super mom. I am crushing it.

I’m conversing away–with other grown-ups!–when there’s a DQ sighting. Odd, because the teenagers rarely leave the house voluntarily unless there is shopping or dining involved. “Bill is ill. She may need a pill.” OK, DQ did not say exactly this (Bill’s name is not even Bill after all), but how cool would our family be if we really did speak exclusively in Seuss to each other? (I am going to make this suggestion, although I fear I will be easily voted down.) I head in to find Bill curled up on the floor in front of the kids’ bathroom upstairs, looking very pitiful and quite green. 

I ask (for some reason) if she has ever felt this way before. Only once, she recalls, her eyes filling with tears at the memory: “After I drank 8 free slushies at TGIFridays. The waiter just kept bringing them and I kept drinking them. And then I threw up, a lot.” I give her a hug — despite the high risk of being puked on — because I am sad for her and also because I do not want her to see that I am having difficulty not laughing.

I manage to get Bill downstairs and settled on a couch with a blanket, tunes, and a thrup. (A thrup is a “throw up bowl”. No would-be puker or would-be puker’s caretaker has time or energy to expend three syllables where one will do.)   I return to tending my faux Thanksgiving preparations with the “assistance” of LBB, who is really just hovering in order to try to score  a preview bite of corn pudding. 

Sensing that Bill’s subpar status has disturbed my wa, LBB asks if I like being a mom. “Yes, I do,” I reply immediately and cheerfully, having learned from past experience that a more nuanced answer to this particular question (which LBB loves asking me when I am stressed) can only lead to despair for all concerned. Thinking I have neatly sidestepped this land mine, I ask her with a smile if she enjoys my being her mother. And she actually has to think about the answer –for a long time — before nodding uncertainly. Ouch. I ask TD instead, TD who is currently wearing headphones and is as one with his device. He gives me the prompt affirmation my bruised ego is craving, but then lifts his phones to seek clarification on what he just said yes to.

BD appears for fire pit consultations, hesitant to proceed with Bill in her present state. But I am determined. Fire pit action is happening even if we burn only 3 twigs and a piece of cardboard. He asks “shallow or deep” and I have no idea what he is talking about, having failed –supportive wife that I am — to inspect the fire pit even once during the construction phase. My request was just for a stone ring that we could drop the portable pit into; that way we’d still be able to move it to the front yard when we wanted to. 

I leave ill Bill and an unprotected corn pudding to see what shenanigans BD has been up to back there and discover that he’s been tunneling to the earth’s core. Our fire pit is like “a 1-person hot tub” to borrow LBB’s description and has its own drainage system. We can have bonfires! We are in the big leagues! I asked my baby for the cottage of backyard fire pits and he built me a palace. I now understand why this project has taken 5 months to complete and take back all the mean things I have said in my head about it and about BD in connection with it.

We decide on shallow for tonight, delaying the big bonfire debut for a time when there is less risk of having to ditch the pit for the ER. Bill finally loses her cookies (in the thrup, fortunately) just as the rest of us are sitting down for dinner. BD looks like he may bolt when Bill asks what to do with the thrup, so I retrieve it from her and dispose of it. (Hey, BD, it’s called adulting!) LBB informs us as we dig in that some people start throwing up just from smelling another person’s throw up, exactly the kind of heartwarming conversation all families dream of having around the dinner table. The corn pudding suddenly looks less appetizing than usual.

I set the s’mores makings on the kitchen table once we’ve cleaned up from the meal as the 5 soldiers still standing prepare to process out back. LBB offers to carry the long metal roasting forks. TD, not to be outdone in the helpfulness department, hastily snatches up the chocolate and graham cracker platter and immediately spills 2/3 of its contents on the kitchen floor. Cracker carnage is everywhere. No more fancy skyscrapers. I duck into the pantry for 10 quick deep breaths to prevent me from throttling TD. 

We restock the platter. I go to set up a s’more station on the table on our deck, but find it covered in dirt and rocks. LBB explains without shame that she and some neighborhood playmates were using the table to play family this afternoon, a game which involved spreading dirt and rocks all over the table for dinner. I can’t face cleaning it up just now and bring out a TV tray.

I eventually make it to the pit with DQ and the younger ones while BD checks on Bill, who is feeling slightly better but not fire pit better. I oversee the chaos that is smallish children and marshmallows and long sharp metal sticks and fire. My first hot woozy perfectly toasted marshmallow  slips off my stick and onto the grate before slowly rolling into the dirt that surrounds the pit. Later I step in it without realizing and carry it into the house on my shoe, a dirty souvenir of tonight’s misadventures.

BD manages to join us around the pit at some point, having been assured by DQ that she is keeping a virtual eye on ill Bill.   S’more-filled children drop away gradually, returning inside to get ready for bed. When the last one has gone, BD sniffles, “They all left us.” I am not seeing this as necessarily a bad thing.

I stay up later than I should to begin writing this, laying it aside just after midnight. At 1 a.m. I sense a child’s presence in our room and open my eyes just in time to catch DQ darting for the bathroom. She is sick now, too, really sick — but reluctant to disturb. I get her her own thrup and keep her company for the next 3 hours as we muddle our way to a way for her to go back to sleep. She may never eat corn pudding again.