andy

Solo Parenting

I took the kids to Skyline for dinner tonight. Randomly Owen and James started yelling out Reds baseball player names, including Jay Bruce and Johnny Cueto, with great gusto. For Christmas, my dad gave James framed pictures of baseball players to hang in his room. My dad often reminds Owen and James the names of the players. I’m sure this is where the spouting of names came from but I have no idea why it happened in the middle of dinner tonight. But with the snow still falling as we ate, and all of us in dire need of baseball weather, it was insanely cute. So I grabbed my phone and recorded it.

I have no idea why there’s (a) no sound and (b) why it’s posting as a picture and not a video.

If Andy were here, I’m sure he could fix it. Just like he could fix the toilet upstairs that is suddenly constantly running. For now I open the lid and jiggle a wire forcing the stopper to close every time someone flushes. I’m sure there is a better (and easier) way to handle this.

Andy’s been out of town since early Thursday afternoon. And he won’t be back until late Wednesday afternoon.

Seven days.

Six nights.

It’s gone better than I expected. But it’s a long time.

He’s been gone for good reason. He spent several days in Florida, visiting with extended family. And now he’s in Denver, for work.

In some ways, I feel more on top of things. Knowing I’m in charge of everything, and I don’t have anyone else to fall back on, I make sure things get done. I worry too much to let things slide.

Still, Owen’s wearing a pajama top covered in heart stickers in the video/picture. It was a battle I chose not to fight. Owen and James also are wearing their snow boots (because it’s snowing, of course) but sans socks. I’d like to say that was another battle I chose not to fight but in reality, it was a shortcut I insisted on.

I think about all the mamas and papas out there who do this on their own, without any support from the other biological parent, always. Or the ones whose spouse/partner travels for work, or is away for months at a time, with the military. I admire you. And I’m sorry. I imagine posts like these are hilarious or infuriating (or, perhaps, both). It’s a week. One small week.

Still. I look forward to not being the only one running up the stairs every five minutes at bedtime. Sometimes, for good reason: a dirty diaper. Chapped/bleeding lips. A dropped Piglet. But the other times: “It’s important, Mommy!” “What’s important?” “I don’t know. But don’t leave.” Or, “Which engine is this?” while pointing to an engine in a Thomas book. Or, “I forgot to make a mask for Emma today!”

The calories I burn, running up those stairs … it’s how I’m justifying the popcorn drizzled with truffle oil and covered in parmesan cheese, which I’m eating right now.

And in some ways, it’s nice. Andy hates the smell of truffle oil. And now I can eat it without complaint. I can not watch basketball (although I should point out “Peach Baskets”—my bracket—is currently ranked fourth out of 240 entries). And not once in the past five days have I encountered a bathroom sink full of little hairs, which is what I always encounter after Andy shaves.

But then, I like arguing about the merits of truffle oil. And it’s weird to not have basketball on in March. And washing those little hairs down the sink isn’t all that bad, really.

There’s a reason they say absence make the hearts grow fonder.

I miss him. I miss us. All of us, all the ways we work and don’t work together as a family of five.

Soon. (And for that, I know, I’m lucky.)

“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” —Kahlil Gibran

Hocus Pocus

I’m still not over this cold/flu and I need to be up at 4:45am for my flight to San Francisco tomorrow. Hopefully my day of rest (thank you Andy) and prescription meds will work their magic overnight.

In the meantime, while I was sleeping, Sophie found my childhood Hocus Pocus kit and, with the help of Andy, learned how to work some magic of her own.

Tonight she performed a card trick with me.

She gave me a pile of cards and said “pick a card, write the number and shape on the card on this piece of paper, and hide it.”

So I did.

Then she put the cards in three groups, and I had to tell her which group my card was in.

Then she mixed them all up.

And pulled out my card.

I don’t know if my brain is fuzzy because of the cold or the medicine but I, honestly, have no idea how she did it.

“That’s the thing with magic. You’ve got to know it’s still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.” —Charles de Lint

This Week

Last Sunday I spent much of the day in bed, writing. I had a 2,000-word article due first thing Monday morning. I also had a sore throat, runny nose and a terrible headache. Everything ached. I was exhausted.

Monday morning, I rallied. I felt (a little) better. Andy went to work. I cleaned less than normal and kept the TV on longer than normal. But, as colds are prone to do, I felt worse as the day dragged on and when Andy came home, I went to bed.

At around 2am I looked up to see him standing next to me. “Bee, Are you awake?” I was. Sore throats and headaches are difficult to sleep through. “There’s a bat in the house,” he said.

And, there was.

(It eventually found the door.)

Tuesday, I tried. I really did. But in the end Andy picked up Sophie from preschool and stayed home the rest of the afternoon, trying to work from the couch and amuse the kids all at the same time. I took NyQuil, at noon, and slept and slept and slept, not hearing and not caring about the chaos that was happening outside my door.

Andy went back to work Wednesday. My mom offered to come over and help but I felt better. I cleaned. Played Candy Land. Put train tracks together. Convinced Sophie to play on her LeapPad next to me in bed while the boys took their nap. But again, by evening, I was miserable (and this didn’t help). Andy came home and I took my shot of NyQuil and went to bed.

Thursday, Sophie woke up with a terrible cough and a 101.6° temperature. I kept her home from school. I bribed the kids with milk and a TV show so I could shower. After my shower I came downstairs and discovered Owen’s entire Thermos of milk had spilled all over the couch, soaking through three down-filled cushions and the frame.

It took more than an hour to soak up the milk and strip all the cushions so that I could wash (ignoring the spot-clean only instructions) and line-dry them.

That afternoon I (finally) had a doctor’s appointment. Despite my flu shot, turns out I had had a mild case of the flu. I was on the upswing, though. No temperature. No all-over achey feeling. Just a lingering cough and a sometimes-headache.

I felt better about having had to ask Andy for help on Tuesday. And I felt worse about not allowing myself to accept help the other days I was truly feeling bad. Even a mild case of the flu deserves time in bed.

That night I ran to Target to pick up some medicine for the kids. They were all feverish now. And coughing. And constantly demanding tissues for their runny noses. Or, as James screams, “MY NOSIES, MOMMY! MY NOSIES!”

This week had been bad. No one felt good, a fact that tinged everything. Owen whined and cried, constantly. James refused to listen, ever, and was put in time-out multiple times each day for hitting. Sophie, more than once would yell “YOU’RE NOT BEING FAIR!” to me when I would ask, quietly, for her to, say, pick up her puzzle before watching a show.

All of this was swirling around my head when I saw the gold stars on one of the $1 shelves at Target. I realized, then, that I had spent much of the week drowning in negativity. From the beginning of this whole motherhood business I’ve put a lot of stock into the idea of a well-timed compliment. And, for the most part, it’s worked well for me. Daily I remind myself to praise my children for their good deeds as much as I (if not more than) scold them for their bad ones. But this week, there was little positive and a lot negative. Coupled with being sick. And it snowballed. The angrier and more frustrated I got with them, the angrier and more frustrated they got with me. The kids needed some gold stars.

Except I got mailboxes instead. Little tin mailboxes for a $1 each. And temporary tattoos and Tootsie Pops and kazoos and lollipops and Silly Putty and bubbles. Nothing expensive. That night I poured all the treats into a bag and hid the bag in the pantry. I put the mailboxes on the stairs. Sophie noticed them immediately the next morning.

I apologized for the rough week. I acknowledged that we were all sick. I reminded them of the things they had done/were doing that turned me into oh-my-god-what-were-we-thinking-having-all-these-kids Mom and how I very much wanted to go back to this-life-I-have-is-pretty-damn-great Mom. I said if they worked on not whining/not hitting/not fighting/not screaming/etc./etc./etc., I would work on taking notice of the times they were being kind, the times they were being good, and acknowledging that.

Cue the mailboxes.

If the flag’s up, that means someone is doing a great job and a treat’s inside. I don’t want to bribe my children (although I fail at that, daily). And I realize this is a form of bribery. But these mailboxes saved me. I never put a treat in the mailbox as a direct result of them doing something good (like not hitting when upset, cleaning up, staying in bed at nap time, etc.). Rather, it’s simply an unexpected middle-of-the-day surprise, after a couple hours without (for the most part) screaming, hitting, whining, talking back.

They loved it. Attitudes changed instantly. Bonus: It was a new plaything. They ran up to the playroom and spent a great deal of time “writing letters” to each other and putting them in each other’s mailboxes.

I was thankful.

Things are still iffy. Today, there was only one mailbox treat (and even Andy said, “Are you sure they deserve one today?”). And I haven’t been able to bring myself to give one child a treat and not the others—rather I wait until everyone has been reasonably well-behaved for a period of time. (Although I imagine singling out positive behavior would make a deep impression.) I’m still on prescription cough medicine. Two of the kids still have low-grade temperatures. And now Andy doesn’t feel well.

But the week is done. We made it, if barely. We made it despite the sickness, potty training mishaps, flying bats, milk-soaked couches and the bead that got stuck up Sophie’s nose. (Saturday Sophie suddenly was in hysterics, going on and on about a bead that she “just put close to her nose, to smell it” but was actually stuck up her nose. Thankfully we were able to get it out our own, although it took a good half hour, several sets of tweezers, a detailed description of the differences between “exhale” and “inhale,” and a lot of tears. She’s promised not to do that again.)

Here’s hoping for a better week this week. Considering I leave for San Francisco to visit my brother, alone, early Friday morning, I’m sure it will be.

And I’m sure, when I return late, late Monday night, I will be more than eager, well, let’s just say eager, for the chaos to resume on Tuesday.

“In spite of the six thousand manuals on child raising in the bookstores, child raising is still a dark continent and no one really knows anything. You just need a lot of love and luck—and, of course, courage.” —Bill Cosby

2-1/2

Tonight Sophie and I went to get haircuts. At 6:42pm I received an e-mail on my phone with the subject line: “Dinner is going well.” I opened it and saw this:

And at 6:48pm I received another e-mail with the subject line: “Even better now.” And then there was this:

We’re having a rough week.

“Temper tantrums, however fun they may be to throw, rarely solve whatever problem is causing them.” —Lemony Snicket

My Kitchen Salon

We often make bread in the bread machine. And mix milk and whipping cream together to make our own half-and-half. And we try, we really try, to never eat out but by never I mean at least once a week at around 6pm we look at each other, exhausted, and we look at the kids, screaming, and we go out.

We have our indulgences. We’ve given things up. And while I don’t think I could ever give up my haircuts with Nicholena at Mitchell’s Salon & Day Spa (see her at the Northgate location, especially if you have curly hair—she’s amazing), I did agree to give up professionally dyed hair purely for budgetary reasons.

Only recently has my mom encountered a few gray hairs on her head. My head, though, has hundreds of them. I’d like to blame my children but she had three children, too, and taught a classroom full of kindergartners for 30 years so I don’t know why she’s just now going gray and I’m long past the plucking stage.

I can’t dye my own hair. I’ve never tried, but I know it would be disastrous. I’m not good with hair. It took me a long time to discover product for my own hair (and my hair needs product). My friend Greg once asked me to cut his hair with seemingly fail-proof clippers in college. He ended up with a bald spot on the back of his head. My sister asked me to dye her hair in high school. I still feel bad about the red streaks that resulted.

So Andy and I made an agreement: I would stop having my hair professionally dyed and he would dye it for me.

And that’s what we do.

I like to pretend I hate it. My kitchen is not a fancy salon. In fact, it’s not even a fancy kitchen, what with its laminate, muddy brown floor and 1980s cabinetry and chipped laminate countertop. Every few months I pull one of the cheap Ikea chairs the kids use at our dining room table and scoot it next to the dishwasher. I grab an old towel—the same towel we use for Tucker’s muddy paws, sick kids and large spills—and, after taking off my shirt, I wrap it around myself securing it with a wooden clothespin. I pour a glass of wine and while the dishwasher cleans the night’s dinner plates next to me, I debate: Garnier Nutrisse Dark Brown or Feria Deeply Brown.

Andy weighs in, takes a picture of the top of my head with his cell phone so I can see the difference between the previous color and my roots. We decide. He opens the box and fights with the plastic gloves designed for women. I note the brown bananas on the plate on the counter and consider making banana bread. He pierces the “colorant” tube and squeezes its contents into the “developer” bottle. I look at the paper-plate ghost Sophie made in preschool, hanging on the refrigerator. It’s December, I think. I should switch that ghost out for the Christmas crafts she’s bringing home. He opens the “fruit oil concentrate” and adds it to the mix. I try to guess what the crumb is underneath my bare foot.

Then, Andy attacks. He goes about his job with great intensity in part, because of love (I like to think) and in part, because he knows if the outcome is not good I will insist on having it professionally color corrected, which I’ve informed him is more expensive than just an all-over color. He apologizes for constantly poking me in the head with the bottle. He lifts up large handfuls of hair and applies, applies, applies, swishing hair this way and that, up and over, back and forth (I have a lot of hair), muttering to himself. He runs out. Determines he needs another box to adequately cover. He remixes. He applies some more.

Throughout the process he breaks to wet a paper towel and dabs my face—a lot of my face, I always think—to rid my ears, forehead, cheeks, sometimes nose (?) of dye gone astray.

Always, when finished, he swoops up my heavy, wet hair (he uses two bottles, after all) into a pile on top of my head. He peels the gloves off his hands and sets the microwave timer for 25 minutes. He brings me my laptop. And I sit. And I wait.

There’s not a Vogue in sight. There’s no softly playing music. My towel is often itchy. I grow impatient.

The timer rings. I go up to the bathroom, checking on the boys who we just moved to twin beds. I turn on the fan, start the shower and rinse and rinse and rinse, until my fingers wrinkle and the water runs clear—and cold. I exit, put on on my flannel pajamas and sit next to Andy on the couch. He critiques his work. He points out the few grays he missed, the nonuniform color. I realize the hair blow dryer is tucked away in Sophie’s bedroom from her night’s bath and I debate risking waking her up to get it or going to sleep with a head full of wet hair.

My kitchen salon is not glamorous. And I would be lying if I said I never wished for a salon-color experience. But there’s beauty—different than salon beauty—in my kitchen, too.

And for that, I am grateful.

“By common consent gray hairs are a crown of glory; the only object of respect that can never excite envy.” —George Bancroft

Neltner’s Farm

Pumpkin hunting at one of our favorite places.

“I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.” —Henry David Thoreau

Double Bubble

James is obsessed with bubble gum, even though he’s not allowed to have it. If I leave my purse or the diaper bag on the floor he makes a beeline for it, as soon as I’m not looking. He dumps everything out in search for his treasure. He’s fast at unwrapping. And then he sits there and chews, this look of utter contentment on his face—until I discover him and pry the gum out of his mouth.

What follows is a pictorial essay of the lengths he went to get some of Andy’s Double Bubble (yes, I realize it’s ridiculous we have a tub of Double Bubble in our pantry—it involves Andy shopping alone and Sam’s club), which he calls “Daddy’s gum.”

First, he moved both training potties to the other side of the half bath, and scooted the rug over as well. This gave him bare hardwood floor to push the stool across.

Next, he took all our paper towels, reusable grocery bags and plastic garbage bags (which we have because we never seem to remember our reusable grocery bags) out of the pantry.

He must have carried the (heavy) wooden stool over the above items because there was no clear path. But there the stool was, perfectly positioned.

Double Bubble sighted.

Success. He managed to open several pieces before I caught him. I only found one piece in his mouth (I don’t think he swallows them, but who knows).

“Once in a young lifetime one should be allowed to have as much sweetness as one can possibly want and hold.” —Judith Olney

Sunday Morning Puzzle

“There are no extra pieces in the universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle.” —Deepak Chopra

Tulips “From Sophie”

Sophie and I had a rough night tonight. One of my failings as a parent is to threaten and then not follow through. For example: “Sophie, if you scream like that one more time you lose dessert after dinner tonight.” Sophie screams. “Sophie, I mean it. If you scream one more time you lose dessert after dinner tonight.” Sophie screams. “Sophie, I’m serious!” Sophie screams. “OK, no dessert. You can get it back if you don’t scream for the rest of the night but …”

Seriously. Super Nanny would have a field day with me.

Anyhow, I promised myself, after a particularly rough weekend, I would start following through. And tonight, I did. There were a lot of tears. But I held my ground. Long story short, Sophie went to bed tonight without “stay up time,” without a snack, without books. I sat in the hallway and painted my toenails. She laid in bed and cried. It was horrible. But also good. Very good, for both of us. I was less friend and more parent. I followed through. I think, I hope, we’re in a better place now.

Andy went grocery shopping tonight. And came home with tulips. “From Sophie.”

Tomorrow I know Sophie will be overly loving, with her constant “I love you’s” (her “thing” as of late) and snuggling on the couch. Even if tonight she screamed “never” to me no less than three times. Am I doing this right? I wonder. Have I messed up? I worry. And then I look at the tulips. And listen to the words Andy says to me.

It will be OK. I am doing OK. We are all OK.

Sometimes, being “mean” is necessary and needed, I know. Still, that doesn’t make it any easier.

“The flower that follows the sun does so even in cloudy days.” —Robert Leighton

On Necklaces and Blacklisting

My mother-in-law, Jill, makes beautiful jewelry. During a recent visit to Jill’s house (more on that later), Jill helped Sophie make a lovely necklace. As such, Sophie has been on a necklace-making kick lately. Her creations have included scrap fabric and paper, seashells and twine, and plastic pop-beads. She’s always thrilled with her results and insists I wear her creations, which I do—around the house, at the grocery, at the YMCA for her ballet lesson.

I always wonder what people think, when I’m wearing Sophie’s artwork around my neck. I wish I didn’t care, but when I see another woman staring at the large, plastic pop-beads draped around my neck I want to say, “My daughter made it! Isn’t it beautiful?” as way of explanation. Sometimes I do. And sometimes I just let the woman wonder.

Some things, when your child asks, you just don’t say no to.

In other news, James gave me my cell phone the other day. I thanked him. He smiled, said “yourwelcome” in his fast-all-together way and ran away. The cell phone was off. I turned it on. It didn’t turn on. I tried again. And again and again and again. And then I noticed it felt light. I took the back off. The battery was gone.

This meant James either took the back off, took the battery out, hid it and replaced the back, or, more likely, dropped the phone, watched it break into three pieces, and found the back and replaced it, not knowing a battery needed to be in there as well.

Regardless, I had no battery. I asked James about it. He smiled and said, “don’t know!” Then he and Owen ran around the house like two crazy people, peering underneath everything saying “find battery, mama, find battery!” over and over.

Andy eventually found it. It was underneath a chair. And while putting my phone back together for me something occurred to him. Lately, whenever he calls me, my phone doesn’t ring—it goes straight to voicemail. This has been happening with several other calls, too. So he told me to go to “settings” and then “call settings” and then “blacklist.” There were three numbers listed—Andy’s, my parents’ and Larosa’s—all blacklisted.

I’d like to blame James for this, too. But I sort of remember a little box occasionally popping up while on calls, and I thought the box said “backlisted.” Usually I’d say “no” but I also sort of remember saying “yes” a few times, thinking I was putting these numbers on a back-up-type list. That makes sense, right?

“These gems have life in them: their colors speak, say what words fail of.” —George Eliot