2013 was quite a year! If you have been following my little stories you know that I was very busy and life was all over the place. I had two great triumphs. I navigated the wierd waters of family court with my oldest son and Boo Radley has disappeared as quickly and mysteriously as he came. Maybe he left Judy Scheindlin at home to flat iron her hair and met with a real attorney who told him it was a lost cause, or maybe he's run across my blog and become seriously embarassed. I don't know. Either of those situations would be deliciously fun. On the other end of the spectrum, I had my 4th little boy in 2013. That was quite a journey as I searched for and found the best birth for him and myself. I found a great midwife and was able to have "my painfull vaginal birth" as my wry friend Lynsey calls it. My husband now transforms into the Incredible Hulk of homebirth/midwifery advocacy at the drop of the word "hospital", "intervention", or "risky". Watch out!
So, 2013 was very busy, and from time to time I felt like I wasn't doing enough with my kids. I'm with them all day, but I don't feel like I'm filling up an adventure book with them. And I'm busy with dumb stuff too, boring stuff, day to day stuff. I mean I just feel busy, but not really. I tell people I feel like I do everything and nothing. It's like you do stuff all day but really get nowhere. It's just shit you have to do, busy-work... drive the kids everywhere, laundry, dishes, pick-up toys, cook meals, and when the day is over, you don't really feel like you've accomplished anything, but yet, you were busy all day!
And now with this new baby, who is nursing and growing like a champ thank you very much, I sit and nurse. If you have ever nursed a young baby, you know what I mean. You are held hostage a lot of the day in cars, restaurants, your house, wherever just sitting and nursing. It takes me 2 times, 3 times as long to get anything done or go anywhere. As convenient as whipping your boob out at your baby's whim is, you do have to spend time doing it.
So, I've been feeling like a totally un-fun mom alot. I just feel like I don't have enough adventures and projects and events with my older kids, and it bums me out. It's too much mundane, everyday busy work around here. And it's cold here where we live so it's a lot of in house play and mess in the winter. I hear a lot of, "Mommy, play with me!" "Mommy can you help me with this?" "Mommy, can you do this with me?" And I wish I would or could indulge them more. I wish I could take them on fun trips and activities more. Just be fun more and make amazing memories!
Then, there's the larger family factor and the fact that I am keenly aware that if I had less kids there would be less mess, less to do, and more time to spend with and amongst less kids. I would probably know more stuff and be on top of them more. For example, Brody had his four month well visit this month. The doctor asked me questions...
"Has he rolled over?"
Jeeze, I don't know?
"How often does he nurse and for how long?"
Do normal people really keep track of that?
"Are you doing tummy time?"
Oh, crap, I totally forgot about that.
"What time does he go down at night?"
Um. After the others go to bed, so anytime between 8-11.
She eyes me up, "And... Are you nursing him to sleep?"
You bet'cha.
The doctor smiles at me, amused. I say, "I know I look like the worst mom you've seen all day." "No" she replies, "You have four kids. I'm just impressed you are even coming for well visits." Even the doctor's expectations of me have dropped.
After the appointment, I drove another 20 miles on top of the 20 miles I already drive to this doctor. I of course have to drive to find a doctor who will put up with all my quirky health stuff. When I showed up a few months ago with my new baby and happily handed over notes from my midwife on his farmhouse birth and proudly wrote "vaginal" on the line where birth type is asked, the doctor came in, grinned at me and said, "Homebirth vbac after two sections? You are a brave one!" You better believe it buddy, and the actual birth was the easy part! But anyway, then I drove another 20 miles south to the only Walmart I could find that carried Zoomer the robot dog in stock. I breathed a sigh of relief at the "in store pick-up" desk as zoomer made his way into my hands and then darted out of the store and headed the 40 miles home.
I ran around doing a lot of Christmas prep all December. But in doing so, I felt like even more of a schlub of a mother. I realize that I was preparing for my children to have another amazing Christmas, and amazing memories of that day, but in the mean time I wished we were making more meaningful memories EVERY day.
Then it snowed. We had our first snow of the 2013-2014 winter season and the kids all had off from school. James went out to shovel and along with our house he shovels for our neighbors, Ed and John. Ed is recovering from cancer. When James was younger he used to pay James to do it, just so the kid could make a few bucks. Now Ed really needs the help because he's tired alot and John... well, I'll let Ed say it - "Shoveling's not John's thing. He's better at staying inside making sandwiches."
James finishes shoveling and comes inside. A few hours later, there is a knock at the kitchen door. I see that it's Ed and feel immediately embarassed. It's past noon and my kids are still in pajamas. The kitchen is a wreck and I mean a real wreck. Not the kind of wreck when you show up at someone's house and they say, "I'm so sorry my kitchen is so messy!" And you're like, "Really? This is messy?" And you fight the urge to grab a gleaming hanging frying pan and smack them. No, if you came to my kitchen on any regular day, and I said, "I'm sorry my kitchen is so messy!" You'd be like, "Are you all ok in here?"
So, there's Ed, smiling at me in his familiar way thru the kitchen door window. I know he's come fresh from his own beautiful kitchen. I know it's georgous. Their whole house is beautiful with impeciable furnishings and perfect paint colors. I have often gazed enviously at their kitchen through their window, espcially at night when their perfect orangey-brown paint looks the best and the copper back-splash shines. They do such a good job, Ed and John. In fact I'm pretty sure their cat, Mickey, is better cared for than any of my four children.
I let Ed in and he's immediately stormed by my bad-mannered dog and excited little boys yelling, "Ed! Ed!" Like they haven't had human contact in years. David immediately tries to show Ed all of his Buzz Lightyear gear and Warren wants too see his huge cancer surgery scar again. Ed patiently humors them and I start the appologizing, "Ed, I'm so sorry this house is such a wreck. They all have off from school and the kitchen get's crazy from them in here all day." Ed rises from his knees where he had dropped to be eye level with my busy-body two year old. His eyes survey the room briefly and I see something in his face that I can't quite make out. Then he looks at me and smiles again, "This place is great. It reminds me of my kitchen when I was a kid. You are probablly making lots of memories here." Ed says good bye to the kids and I, and leaves James's snow shoveling money on the counter. I close the door behind him and watch his slim figure walk back to his house where John probablly has sandwhiches waiting for him in their beautiful kitchen.
Have you seen "Up!"? The movie with Mr. Fredrickson, Russel, and the floating house? Mr. Fredrickson is so upset with himself because he feels like he didn't give his wife, Ellie, any adventures before she died. Then, while he's trying to float a whole house to South America to make it up to her, Ellie's "Adventure Book" falls out of the closet and hits him on the head and in it he's surprised to see that she filled it with pictures of the two of them doing ordinary, quiet things. At the end she's written him a note that says, "Thanks for the adventure!" Then there's another scene where Russel talks about missing his dad and that he really liked when the two of them would sit and eat ice-cream and watch cars. Russell finishes, "I know it sounds boring, but I think the boring stuff is the stuff I remember the most!"
I'm pretty sure that Ed looked around my kitchen that day and saw all the boring stuff and ordinary things he cherished doing in his childhood home. And I think that if he hadn't made it through his fight with cancer, and John opened a closet one day and an Adventure Book fell on his head, it would have been full of messy childhood kitchens, and eating really great sandwhiches with John.
One day my kids will laugh about how we spent Brody's first Christmas at a Chinese Buffet and how funny that was. And remember the gingerbread cookies mommy let us "paint" with colored icing every year? Remember the awesome summers at the pool when Mom would grill hotdogs and Dad would meet us after work. And remember playing lazer tag in the house with dad and our silly dog getting upset? Remember all the milkshakes mommy made? All our trips to Cold-Stone with Dad? Our 2 for 20 family dinners at Applebees? Remember when we drove to Disney and our weeks at Delaware beaches? Remember when Mom used to let us "clean" the windows and the ugly seasonal window stickers she always let us put up?
Gosh there will be a lot to remember. I hope one day these boys will look around someone's messy kitchen, or be so lucky to have one of their own, and remember their frazzled mother making sloppy milkshakes and leaving out a messy blender and ice-cream all over the counter to help them start water color paintings. No need to fly a house to South America my friends, you could fill up a whole book with ordinary things done in love and when you got to the end, you'd feel like your life had been a real adventure.
No comments:
Post a Comment