Peas in Pod

So I go into the bedroom to check on a squawky kiddo. (Probably Sean who works up to being awake like this.) They were sleeping so closely piled up that for a second, adjusting my eyes to the darkness of the room, I couldn't see Maia. They were like one kid, attached at their back with legs scrawled to each side. Eternally twin.

They used to sleep like that all the time when they were infants-- bundled in their blankets, with head hands face in same exact position. I even have some cool photos I'd put on here if I wasn't too lazy to go find them.

I just thought it was kind of cool to see that again. Whenever they are in the bed together, they gravitate towards each other. This is just the most extreme example of it I've seen for a long time.

What it Looks Like

So all week, I've been super tired in the morning when I get up and drag the kids, kicking and sometimes screaming, out of bed to get Sean to school by 8. He's done with that now for three weeks, which will be tough ones.

This morning, when I could have slept in myself, I'm not so tired. I guess it's because I can leave the kids in bed & do things on my own without them on top of me for a little while. This is a rare break for a mom of young kiddos. Often, they want to be on my lap while I type (difficult to do when you have kids as wiggly as mine.) Or they just want me to be sitting there, watching Thomas the Train with them, or outside playing in the yard with them. I do that most of the time, too, with very brief minutes stolen away to check FB (it keeps me feeling connected to an adult world.)

But Andrew works pretty damn hard nowadays (and here in a minute is where the title will come in.) He gets up most mornings at about 5:30, 6:00 and heads to work, where he is all day until at least 4. Then he works sporadically (his phone tends to go off every five minutes) on our various rental property issues. Especially right now with two of them vacant & needing tenants.

Earlier, I'm sitting at the computer with a cup of latte he very nicely made me, checking my FB while he finishes his morning routine. He's leaving and I'm asking him what his schedule will be like. I can tell he plans a pretty busy day as he contemplates his lunch, and when he might make it home.

I think of what it looks like I'll be doing today, all day. Sitting here, mucking around on the computer. Easy easy. But what dads don't see are the countless moments of chasing after a kid. Andrew's a GOOD one, helps out a ton, even does it himself now & then. And it's not like I'm Martha Stewart. Sometimes, when he comes home, the house is a bit of a wreck. But he doesn't see how much worse it COULD have been had I not caught the kid in the fridge after the eggs, or spilling green kool aid all over the house, or whatever interventions in 4 year old universe I will have to make today.

It looks easy, being me, from his waking up early, running all day perspective. I get a little more sleep, I get to sit here for a little while on the computer checking up on my friends. I can imagine how it seems. But I've also been the one at a workplace all day, too, and I know how different that is, what that feels like for a grown up, and how some days I really, really would trade with him. Let him stay home and be "dad" and me go to work all day.

Moms are never off work. Maybe when they're fourteen I'll have some time off. Maybe then I'll get an employee of the month plaque and my picture on a wall somewhere and a cool parking place. :) Something to look forward to, I'll bet. But I'll also bet some other suckup employee will sneak in there and get the plaque instead of me because that always happens to me.

Thanatos, not Oedipus

When did you first become aware of death? That you could die?

In spite of having a pretty good memory for lots of events in early childhood, I don't remember. I remember seriously choking on a pork chop when I must have been about four, and my dad shoving his finger in my throat and popping it out. I was scared, but I'm pretty sure just because of instinct scared. I didn't at the time realize the implications of the incident.

Around the same time, my cat got hit by a car while I was waiting for the school bus with my sisters. I wouldn't go to school, cried for a long time, felt sick.

Maia is worried about dying. I haven't figured out yet HOW aware she is of this, but twice now (once after falling and getting a minor boo boo, once randomly talking about me leaving her at daycare and her not wanting to go) she has said she "doesn't want to get dead." She's also been very worried about me "getting lost"-- which, I think, translates to mommy not coming back, ever.

I try to reassure her. But how do you really reassure a child about this? You want them to be careful, to not do stupid things that could get them seriously hurt or, yes, killed. It's a possibility for kids sometimes because they take risks (run in a parking lot lately? kids do all the time if you don't constantly remind them).

But she's so sad, and she's coming up with this at awkward times and I know she's thinking about it. She's seen a few animals die-- one of the fish from our pond was partially eaten-- and bugs fall into the pool all the time. And then, I'm sure, we've seen something on TV. Even Nemo's mom dies, and that's rated G.

I think (and here's the title link) that this is possibly the real identity crisis of childhood. It's not about wanting to replace your parent with your other parent. That's what Freud, obsessed with the sex part of it, got wrong. It's more about realizing that you don't go on forever, that you meet with death and that when your parents get freaked out because they don't want you climbing on top of the 12 foot off the ground playfort, it's because "very bad boo boos" happen.

I'm not entirely sure how to handle it. I don't want to freak her out, but I also hate to lie to her. Stuff happens, right? What is pretend, what is real, is it possible for mommy or daddy or other people to "get lost?"

This is probably where being better Christians than we are comes in handy, because you can reassure kids that going to Heaven to be with the angels would be okay. I'm a spiritual person and believe in an almighty being (a conversation for another time... not really "God" per se) but I am not really a believer in angelic choirs and a big white guy in flowing robes. And I'm not exactly sure I know what I think happens to us after death. So how to reassure a child?

Perhaps the real crisis comes with being a parent who has to learn these hard lessons, again, as an adult who treasures their kids more than anything else ever before or since. I'd like to get this parenting thing as right as possible, but man, these are the tough ones.

An Honest Mom

A post I made on Facebook yesterday made a frequent reader & old blog friend say something about how I'm an "honest mom". Her thinking was that I was admitting to sometimes being a little tired of doing the mom thing all the time and wishing for time just to myself. And that was right-- I do sometimes miss those old days of "single marrieds" status. Andrew & I were married 13 or so years before we had kids, so that was a lot of time to have no one to account to but ourselves. It was fun! We flew off to London & Paris, to Alaska, to Hawaii and various less exotic places at the drop of a hat. We could stay out late and sleep in, have Sunday brunch with lots of champagne and then go back to bed for the rest of the day. Lather, rinse, repeat. A family member, years ago, complaining that we hadn't had kids yet was reprimanded by another family member who said "Leave them alone; they still like each other." And that was--and still is, most of the time ;)-- true.

Nowadays it's pretty different. A lot of parents, I guess, miss the wild days more than I do. I don't really need to go out to bars or be on my own very often. I had plenty of wild days, and will again one day when they're older. Date night sounds like fun, but twins tend to scare off the basic babysitter. You have a hard time getting the teen from down the street interested, and when they do think they can handle it, they see me chasing after them (Sean in particular) and are suddenly "busy that night." As much as it feels like a cop out to say, he is a special needs kid for now, and therefore even a challenge for me sometimes. So a lot of the time, I don't even bother trying to find someone.

And part, a huge part, of this is I really, really like hanging out with my kids. I don't need lots of downtime from them, usually. I am fine with other parents who want to get a sitter & hang out. Perhaps if we lived in San Antonio where we have a large network of friends I'd be more up for the hassles and challenges of finding night childcare more often. When I'm putting them down to sleep and they nuzzle into the crook of my arms, Sean on the left and Maia on the right, and sigh sleepily with their little heads resting on my chest there's just very little that can compete with that. A nice martini and a date night without kids is awesome-- but this is ultimately a better feeling and doesn't leave a hangover.

When I'm feeling particularly crabby about the lack of socializing, I think of all the parents of friends I have had in my life. Most of them did not hang out and go out all the time. They had developed a habit of staying in-- watching movies, reading, chilling. I think staying in with your kids is probably more a norm than not. And I used to say that wouldn't be me-- I'd drag them wherever and still do stuff. But it takes a long time to get over the stares and crabbiness people shoot your way when your kid makes noise in a favorite hangout or give you a 'tude cause you brought them to the movies or whatever. And my kids are a little noisier than your average 4 year old. Sean has this shriek he does when he's excited that makes people turn their heads and glare at us. Andrew says I'm too sensitive to it but I remember being the person who wondered why that parent couldn't control their kid-- now I know-- sometimes it's just impossible to explain to the kids why they need to be good here, so you just keep them home.

Anyway, I'm thinking about this today because Andrew really wants to try, later today, dragging them to the gym with us. There are facilities there for parents w/ kids, and I sort of want to do it-- I really need the workout-- and I am dreading how hard I think it's going to be chasing after my hoodlums. We'll give it a shot, I think, but your guess is as good as mine how it's going to go.

So wish me luck. Another commenter to my post said "one word: Nanny." And boy do I wish I had someone here like my friend Patty who used to call herself my nanny. Life was infinitely easier with someone who considered herself as responsible for my kids as Andrew & I do. Maybe if I win the lotto. I guess I ought to buy a ticket.... but that won't help at the gym in an hour.

Broken & Lost Things

When you live with two four year olds who are as rambunctious as mine you find yourself pulling out the super glue all the time. Yesterday the sweet little beehive honey container I found got knocked into the sink & thus needs its turn with the glue. Over our road trip, Maia lost a new treasure from her pirate trip at a stop in FL. She figured it out fairly soon (about an hour later) but there was NO way on an 8 hour road trip we were turning around for two hours extra for a stuffed dolphin toy.

I remember a friend of a friend once talking about how she would hide the dead rolly pollies when her kid split them in half by accident, pretending the new one was the same one when the child said "fix it." I remember thinking that was a bad idea-- some things can't be fixed, and even a 2 year old can and should learn that, especially when it's life, and even when it's only a rolly polly life. Sometimes, especially Sean, breaks things over & over again and the glue runs out. But sometimes you gotta leave it broken, I think.

It gets me to thinking about the things we lose & break in our lives. Simple things you put a bit of superglue on and hope they hold. When I was a kid, I moved around so much and lost everything I owned many times. Perhaps this explains my own odd attachment to trying to fix things, to trying, as I did yesterday, to buy a new toy to try to make up (at least a little bit) for the lost one.

Yesterday at our "problem" rent property, the kids from the back apartment were in the patio for the house poking the ceiling with a metal rod. These kids have most likely been breaking in to the currently untenanted (we're working on it) large house, and probably cut the new screen door. They're about 11 or so, and ought to be trustworthy to leave unattended sometimes, but they aren't. They're constantly in to stuff, and terribly destructive. It may get them kicked out of our place because we won't let our cool places be totally trashed.

It got me thinking, as usual, about my own childhood and my own times alone, and I spent last night feeling, generally, kind of sad and a little mad. Not because my childhood was like theirs but because, overall, it could have been similar but wasn't. And I guess we learn different lessons differently, because I don't LIKE breaking things. And I think, and hope, that my kids are going to feel sad about it too. The loss is sometimes forever and can't be superglued, and a new toy doesn't necessarily replace the old one.

But that's a tough lesson to learn, and I hate watching my kids learn it too.

Kid Pix

I haven't posted pictures here in forever because mostly I've been doing much of my "bloggy content" on Facebook. It's kind of hard to keep up with multiple platforms. But there are a couple of family members who still haven't taken the FB plunge, so I'm going to post several recent pix here for them to see.

This is Maia on the "pirate floaty" that the kids really had a great time with about a month ago. We couldn't get them off of the thing for days. Now, it mostly floats alone. But they're still sometimes dueling with their various swords. :) I just don't have any pictures of that yet.

Another favorite activity is riding in circle around mom & dad's pool chairs. Here they are from my cell phone. The one of Maia is a little blurry, since it's a so so phone.



That's all I've got on this laptop. I need to go to the other computer and see what I have. But this should get you a quick fix for now. :)

Mud Dance

Weekends alone are different.
We dance more complicated single moves.
It's a troupe of three and music we alone hear.

We make the patterns up as we go along.
Break the rules often.
Make new rules, break them too.

There is so much joy in their faces when they
kick water or splash in the tub
cleaning off spring's bountiful mudliness.

My daughter squeals at an outside picnic.
My son runs faster than you can imagine
through the yard, chases invisible monsters.

I'm sure there are dramatic places I could be--
standing beneath the Eiffel tower, exploring the shops of New York--
But here, in my tiny back yard, happiness is this squish between the toes
this nap after sun, this soaking hug.

Tell Me--

If I feed my 3 year olds brownies with pink frosting for breakfast cause that's all the little monkeys will eat and it's SOMEthing,

does that make me bad?

Wait. Don't answer that.