We eat clementines like candy during the winter months. Although Sophie doesn’t technically eat them. She prefers to suck all the juice out, leaving the skins all over her plate (and the dining room table, and coffee table and cup holder in the van). The bowl was a Christmas present from my parents—it’s made by Heath Ceramics. I’m in love.
“Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.” —Kahlil Gibran
Every Tuesday at 5pm I load up all three kids into the minivan and drive to the Campbell County YMCA for Sophie’s ballet class. She’s been doing this for a year now. She loves it, as was apparent when she had to take a three-week break after her surgery.
It’s a really nice class. It’s free, with our family membership. I can drop the boys off at Child Watch (which they now get excited for, compared to screaming about it every time we drive pass the Y building). I sit on a bench and talk with other parents while watching Sophie be reminded to stand in first position (also called pizza feet), and attempt a plié, port de bras and sauté. Her teacher is the perfect combination of strict and not-so-strict.
There are no recitals, because the class isn’t with a dance studio—rather it’s simply a Y offering. But we have many years for recitals, concerts, games and plays. I’m OK with this once-a-week activity. I’m OK with the simplicity of it. Lately we’ve been sticking around for youth hip-hop, immediately following. I bring the boys up—they love it. James has some moves.
Once home, after dinner, Sophie runs up to her room and turns on her radio—WGUC 90.9, Cincinnati’s classical music station, is her current favorite. The child listens to it day and night, swirling around her room until she’s dizzy. She calls it her “royal ball music.” And at least three times a week she passes around a carefully handwritten invitation to the RULBO (royal ball). Then, after dinner, all five of us spin around her tiny bedroom to Vivaldi and Bach.
These are some of my favorite evenings.
“Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.” —Kurt Vonnegut
Dinner was late tonight. Andy was at Target with the kids, I was at Trader Joe’s (thankful to be solo on my trip, given the whining I heard in the background when I talked with him on the phone). While at Trader Joe’s, I picked up sushi for dinner on a whim. I don’t know what I was thinking. Sushi was not well-received by our children. Owen hadn’t napped. Sophie was giddy/out-of-sorts because we had ripped all the carpet out of her room (we tend to make rash decisions like this on Sunday afternoons, only to question our sanity around dinnertime). James was getting too much enjoyment out of making an already unhappy Owen more unhappy.
Andy said he needed to take five minutes. His trip to Target with the kids resulted in buying two packs of birthday candles for my birthday on Tuesday simply because the kids couldn’t agree. Apparently both Owen and James wanted to sit in the child seat in the cart (common), so he put them both in the cart’s basket until they could decide, on their own, who would get to sit in the actual seat first. Screaming ensued. People stared. He tried to turn it into a game—answer the question first, you get the seat. This didn’t work. And the entire time Sophie completely ignored the situation, picking out “beautiful things” for my birthday (I am both eager and anxious to unwrap what she found).
So Andy took his break. I had three crazy children losing it at the dinner table over sushi. “Cover your eyes!” I said. “I have a surprise.”
This always works. Even when I don’t know what the surprise is.
I scanned the pantry, desperate. I found food coloring. I turned their milk bright yellow. Andy, done with his five minutes, came downstairs and added some chocolate chips to their bright yellow milk.
They loved it.
For about a minute.
Then they wanted the chocolate chips, at the bottom of their glasses. We said they had to drink their milk. They started plunging their hands in their milk, reaching for the chips, mouths now stained yellow, screaming about the sushi.
When do dinners get easier?
Sitting down as a family is important to me. Occasionally we have winter picnics in the family room, or I do, when Andy’s out for the evening, with a movie on as a treat. But mostly, we’re sitting at our dinner table. And there are tears. Poking. Complaints about the meal. “Did I eat enough for dessert?” over and over and over and exhaustingly over.
We have our moments. Moments when someone does something funny and all five of us laugh, even Andy and me, true belly laughs—not intended to just humor the kids, but real. I love those moments.
Sometimes there’s real conversation. Sophie tells us a story about something that happened at preschool. Owen tells about the trains at the museum at Christmastime (again). James sings us his coconut song (when asked).
And we’re making (small) strides. We’re teaching them to say “May I please be excused” when they’re done. Sophie’s very good at it. James forgets, then, when reminded, runs back to his seat, climbs up and screams “Excused? May excused?” Owen remembers when he sees Sophie do it first.
But the rest of the meal …
What should be the most enjoyable part of the day is often the most challenging.
Am I alone?
I just want happy. By 6pm, I need happy. I need a nightly feast.
“Be not angry or sour at table; whatever may happen put on the cheerful mien, for good humor makes one dish a feast.” —from Gentle Manners, a Shaker book on manners
a snowy, early morning view from our deck
Madeleine, Sophie and Charlie
Angel and Mya
Zoey, Madeleine and Mya working hard to get back up the hill
Andy and Owen
Andy took the boys home, and Sophie and I went down the side of the big hill a couple times—she loved it.
James spent most of the time holding a cold piece of buttered toast begging someone to take him home.
friends
the trouble with sledding
Jack
Owen
Angel and Mya
Angel and Zoey
down, down, down
Madeleine
Sophie and Madeleine
Mya
Sarah and Jack
I like that there’s a local sledding hill. I like that we can wake up and meet our friends there, Sophie’s friends there. I like how, when it snowed again earlier this week, Owen, while looking out the window said, “It makes me happy, Mommy.”
Snow makes me happy too, little man.
“The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?” —J.B. Priestley
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
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
“Dreams are illustrations … from the book your soul is writing about you.” —Marsha Norman
Quick update: Sophie’s surgery went very well. Turns out she had three hernias (two inguinal ones, left and right, and an umbilical one) so her recovery will take a little longer. (No ballet for three weeks—we’ve yet to break this news to her.) But she’s sitting up on the couch now, coloring, watching The Last Unicorn and, I’m sure, contemplating when she’ll get her next popsicle.
Thanks for all your love and well wishes.
Sophie’s scheduled to have surgery tomorrow. She has an inguinal hernia. It’s minor, outpatient surgery—the actual operation only lasts about 45 minutes. I had the same surgery when I was 6.
One of the biggest comforts in my life has been my dad always saying he would take on any illness, surgery or procedure for me, if he could. I always understood the love in those statements and now, I find myself repeating them.
We bought and read Sophie the book, Franklin Goes to the Hospital. She loves being read to but often she’s fidgety. However, she was perfectly still during the entire length of this book, and so quiet after—even when we tried to talk to her about it.
We took her on a tour of the hospital—Cincinnati Children’s Liberty Campus. It was wonderful. She practiced being weighed and having her blood pressure taken. She sat on the bed that she will be wheeled in from the prep room to the room in which she’s given the medicine to be put to sleep. She got to smell all the different scents she can choose from—bubble gum, grape and, her favorite, cherry. She got to practice putting the mask on a doll on a bed. She got to ride around in the wheelchair she’ll sit in when leaving the hospital. She loved it.
They sent her home with goodies, for her and the boys—gloves, masks, hospital cap, gas mask, disposable thermometer and coloring pages. Since then, every so often I’ll peek into her bedroom when she has the door closed and I’ll see this:
When I ask her the scent her baby doll chooses to go to sleep, she always says, “all of them.” She then pretends to cut, then cuddles her doll baby—her doll baby always gets through the operation just fine, as I’m sure Sophie will, too.
I get to hold her, well, one of us gets to hold but I think Andy knows I’m, selfishly, wanting to do it, while she’s put to sleep. And we get to be there when she wakes up.
She’ll be fine. They do these all the time. It’s so minor. We’ll most likely be home in time for dinner and she’ll most likely be back at school, running around, on Monday.
Still, I’d do it for her in heartbeat, if I could.
“Perhaps it takes courage to raise children.” —John Steinbeck
I was 6 years old, the first time I saw The Nutcracker. I still have the program from the Cincinnati Ballet Company—I pull it out every Christmas. And I can I still remember the wonderment I felt when Mother Ginger lifted her enormous skirt and a dozen children danced out of it. So I don’t know who was more excited—Sophie or I—when my mom wondered if we would like to see The Nutcracker with her this year.
We saw a different version, de la Dance Company’s The Nutcracker Jazzed Up! My mom knew the mom of Clara—subsequently, Sophie got to meet Clara after the performance, which she was shy about but I think she loved.
Our entire family got hit with a stomach bug a couple days before this event. At one point I was in the bathroom getting sick, Andy was holding a towel up for James who was getting sick and Owen started getting sick. The whole idea of throwing up terrified Owen so much that he started running, while getting sick, around our living room and entry. When we finally got him to stop running he finished, all over Tucker. I.t w.a.s h.o.r.r.i.b.l.e. We pulled a crib mattress down into the living room so the kids could try to sleep in between getting sick episodes. All night long it was laundry, baths, tears, repeat, repeat, repeat.
I’ve since learned many friends have gone through something similar—some over the holidays. I’m so sorry.
I was worried we were going to have to cancel The Nutcracker. But Sophie was 100 percent better in less than 24 hours. I took longer to feel better, but rallied, knowing the importance of the event, and went.
I’m so glad I did. I spent as much time watching her as I watched the performance. Re-experiencing things for the first time, through your children, is one of the better aspects of mothering.
Since The Nutcracker Sophie has flipped through my childhood program from the ballet almost every day. She hums music from it often and whenever she hears it on the radio she says, “The Nutcracker!”
I’m pretty sure Andy was only humoring me the few times we’ve been to the ballet. Perhaps, now, I’ve found a new ballet partner.
Thanks, Mom, for a great gift.
“We should consider every day lost in which we don’t dance.” —Nietzsche
