A swarm

I just scrubbed my table clean, which sounds much simpler than it was. Coated in pesto, blueberry muffin crumbs, salsa and all manner of grubby finger and food residue, wiping it down took some real elbow grease. As I sponged the kids’ side, I looked down onto their chairs and saw more crumbs, noodles now hard as crackers and blueberries mashed so deeply into the fabric that they’re now part of it. I sighed.

I got out the dust-buster, which is on its last leg. I glanced at the cardboard box-now-a-muffin-cart that Oliver made over the weekend. I saw a rumpled Harry Potter cloak infused with cat hair wadded up in the corner of the room, and two half-completed Blow Your Mind science kits waiting for what? To be finished? Hilarious.

I came across receipts and expired coupons and twigs and dust bunnies, a half-written birthday card that’s now more than belated, a blanket that smells of dog. A friend was to come for a visit and some tea, but she’s stuck at home with a diarrheic toddler; she is at the end of her rope, and I understand because I wondered this morning, as I dropped the boys at the camp bus, if ever I’d been so glad to do so.

Fruit flies are swarming my kitchen. I thought Tom and the boys would have eaten the last of the peaches while I was away, but like all fruits and vegetables I left for them, the peaches were ignored, and in the soft spots and thin seams where the skin just splits, fruit flies found a feast. I do not hate fruit flies like I do the mosquitos that make it a brave act to go putter in my back yard this time of year, but they are annoying. Like inside gnats from which you cannot escape.

It’s pea soup outside today, and I am glad I have nowhere to be.

Yesterday was my annual physical and a last-minute thyroid ultrasound because one lobe felt swollen. It’s fine, and I have a new medicine because I am a chronic underperformer in the T3 department. My internist said I was such a grounded, well-adjusted person. 
Yesterday I took a run, unpacked and showered.
Yesterday I started packing again, as we leave on Saturday.
Yesterday I made blueberry muffins, those that later caked my table and chair and car, because Jack adores them and I didn’t have time to refill our freezer stash before I left.
Yesterday I made a beautiful dinner for the boys and later one for T and myself. Yesterday T and I stayed up watching Bill Maher’s show from Friday and laughing ourselves silly and enjoying another glass of wine together.

This morning we were tired, and the boys were just awful. Awful and annoying, like those fruit flies and mosquitoes all wrapped into one mean swarm. My heart was sad during our drive, and I told them in no uncertain terms that should they consider acting like this in England, I would absolutely get a babysitter and leave them at home all the damn day long. I was not joking.

We talked about insincere apologies and how hurtful and damaging they can be. We talked about hoarding and why I didn't want Oliver to keep the half a lizard he found in Louisiana last month that was rotting in a jar and stinking so badly that I threw it out without asking him. He pleaded with me to take the old, broken pretzel out of the garbage can. And the expired coupons too. I do not understand. I did not expect these conversations.

When I try so hard and my kids hurt my heart, I feel blindsided. Every single time. That’s the thing about kids growing up. They can start to disappoint you in a way babies can’t. They can start to choose to upset you. And really, in that volition and decision-making is celebration of their burgeoning independence but also challenge like you’ve never seen before.

It’s a gnatty vortex. Sometimes you want to give it space and appreciation, but at other times, you just want to swat the shit out of it. You want it to be a round nail in a round hole that you can push flat and quiet and seamless against the wall.

Mother as starfish

Today I felt like a starfish on the rack. Pulled in all directions from each limb to the point at which bloody rips started to show.

I changed a little one’s PJs near midnight last night and then took him down to the basement to sleep. We laughed over silly things until I averred that seriously, bedtime was long ago.

I felt a gentle tug on my foot at 4 am. The other one had woken up and wanted me. “Please go back to bed, honey. It’s 4 am.” Later, we had to drag him from his cocoon to get to camp on time.

There were so many tears and so much drama before 9 am. Everyone up but unrested, tired and acting it. I thought to myself, “And I imagined ‘boys’ meant I sidestepped this emotionality,” before nodding back into the present and realizing it didn’t mean that at all. It simply means emotionality shows itself differently, and while it often drives me crazy, it’s no more or less valid and should be both reined in and nurtured.

Back home, I intervened in our dying dishwasher’s cleaning cycle to manually release the detergent tab. I walked Percy, urging him ever-forward on a longer path because I had to snap a picture of our neighborhood church’s sign. It makes me happy and proud and hopeful.

There was so much laundry and so many dishes and the unread email list vastly outnumbered the reads. There were messages to return, a birthday cake recipe to print, a lunch to shower and ready for, a meeting to attend. I was alerted by Facebook's notification flag so many times I went dark, fleeing from all social media except for the blissfully quiet Instagram which is just a whole bunch of pretty on scroll.

And the fruit flies. Oh, the fruit flies. It is peak season for their annual migration into our fruit-filled kitchen. I hate their gnattiness and while I pride myself on being a hell of a fruit fly assassin, their numbers are too great this year, and I’m swarmed.

My meeting ran three minutes late, and I found Oliver outside on the camp steps –mere feet from where I was and where the camp heads should have told him I sat- looking heartbroken and terrified: was I ever going to arrive? His lip was trembling, and I ran to him, scooped him up and asked what I could do. Flummoxed, which made it all worse, he said he didn’t know. Cupcakes? Fro-yo? The bookstore? “I just don’t know, Mama.” Oh, my heart.

I took him to Fancy Cakes and purchased a fancy cupcake which he devoured gleefully. He eyed the case again, and guilt-ridden and wild with love, I bought a second cupcake. 75% of the way through, “Mama, I don’t feel so good.” Dumb mom.

Home to read stories and drink fizzy water, and the laundry. So much of it. Pokemon and tears over a poor Energy Card decision. I think, can’t you just listen to me read to you or play with blocks? Why aren’t kids just kids anymore? Or was it always this way.

Back out to pick Jack up at his big-kid camp at a local university. Come to find Days of Our Lives was on the cafeteria TV and he saw a sex scene. He’s not yet nine. I was upset but stayed calm and asked, “Well, honey, do you have any questions? Do you feel OK?” I emailed the director asking her –telling her- to make sure the damn TV is OFF or at least on age-appropriate programming. I tell her, “My son has never seen this before, but now he has.” Via Days of Our fucking Lives. #NOTreallife

More overtired tears shed over the ban on dessert after dinner because the cupcakes and the fresh jelly donut I bought yesterday just for Jack and wrapped carefully and packed in his lunch box just so. “You are SO unfair, Mom!” is thrown in my face, and I think to myself, “fuck this spoiled attitude!” while also thinking, “What a tired little boy he is. I’m glad I’m here for him.” while also thinking, “Hell, it’d be nice to not be here right now.”

I ask for the Energy Cards back because “y’all cannot talk to me or each other in the manner that you are” and then get major attitude from one about bath time while the other, always thrilled to get naked, undresses but then just wants us to observe his bottom.

I think they get clean, I brush their teeth, tuck one in, listen as the one who refused to finish dinner (which of course I’ve put away) tells me that he is now starving and wants it back. The dog, cat, washing machine, phone. They are ALL talking. And look at me, still in a dress and swingy necklace from lunch. Who am I kidding? Was that even today?

The little one says he might “fwhoa up and can I please have a Tums?” “What a good idea, darling, and how about some fizzy water too.”

The big one says, “Mom, can we do the puzzle together because I love to do things with you,” and I say, “Sure honey, you are always so good at finding the confusing pieces.”

And I’m so glad I’m here although I often want to be there, and isn’t that just the thing about parenthood.

Looks like a hug

Finally, they are in bed. I think for good. My starfish arms have freed and are retracting themselves, some good cheese, a watermelon and spicy watercress salad and a bourbon shrub eased the rest. Tom called, “I’m going to be late.” And I said, “Baby, that is A-OK.”

Feeling small

The boys are "snacking" like wild animals who've just happened upon a trough of sustenance, and I've been folding laundry and trying to keep things running smoothly until Jack and I leave for his green belt testing. Tom's always got the most laundry, followed by the boys. I am a vastly distant fourth, my few freshly clean clothes taking up such a minute bit of the laundry basket. I'm often struck by this discrepancy and consider it as frequently: am I that much cleaner than the guys? do I wear things more times in between washings (due to the aforementioned cleanliness AND a willingness to actually hang or put something back up)? It could be both of those and more, but on hard days, I sometimes feel as if that corner of the basket is a sad analogy of my, and many mothers', role and presence in the home. Or, perhaps more accurately, our experience of that role. I have said before and I mean it, that I feel extraordinarily grateful to be able to stay home with my boys. I've never doubted that it's benefited (benefiting) them and facilitated a deep connection between us. But the rewards don't always feel commensurate with the input and energy required to be an at-home mom; nor does the acknowledgment, or lack thereof, we receive. No one's patting you on the back because you set a record in amount of laundry folded in one week. No one's throwing a party because you keep the corners free of dust, the toilet paper stocked, the milk fresh, the bags zipped, fingernails clipped, sheets changed and on and on. This is the minutiae of domesticity that, in concert with all else, can wear and make women start to think, "what in the sam hill am I doing?"

Most of the time, I take pleasure in maintaining my family's life. I love picking my boys up each day, love welcoming T home each night, love cooking healthful and tasty meals for them, take pride in a now-incredibly-finely-honed ability to multi-task. I'm sure most of us feel this way at least some of the time if not much more. But sometimes, when the kids seem utterly ungrateful, the words of appreciation have been lost in the flood of daily busy'ness, some random driver honks at me at just the wrong time, I can start to feel a bit blue, a bit small, like my items of laundry. It starts to feel like the scales of hard work and fulfillment are mightily out of balance.

In my experiences talking with others, this is not uncommon but the fact that this unpleasant emotion is a shared one doesn't make it easier to feel. It's comforting to know others are in your boat, but if the boat is sinking, you're still on it. I know that after a night of sleep (debate be damned?) or even a good hug from my kiddos, most of this malaise will wash away, swept out to sea by an immense feeling of love and thankfulness. But as do the tides, it will surely roll back in at some point, an unwelcome guest but one many of us know is not as distant as we'd wish.

Alas. Some dinner is in order!