Why I Write

As a child, I drew to escape when I couldn't get attention.  Creating a whole world through the pencil or the crayon felt safer and more friendly than the playground where my slow speed, puffy breath and awkward social skills could not be hidden.  

As an adult, I found writing, not as a means of escape, but as a method of discovery and preservation. I found out patterns as I wrote, ideas about parenting, life, religion, family, domestic tasks, errands, politics, everything jumbled in my brain and needed an outlet, particularly in the years when more than half my children were under the age of 10.

But as they've grown older, the stories get less cute, less cuddly, not because I love them any less, but the issues they deal with, have sharper edges, and the protective part of me as Mom, does not want to either expose them when they struggle, or to preserve for all the world, adolescent awkwardness.  I don't like remembering when I was 11-16. and I'm of the opinion, no one else does either.  

So creating the stories of a mommy blogger become more difficult.

I can stay in the safe shallows with my four year old, but the dangerous thing is to go out the door, to talk about the 7 year old who needs to grow up more, the nine year old as she runs through fourth grade, the trials of a 6th grader, the silence of my eight year old, the ever kind 8th grader, the sixteen year old who runs and the senior who tries very hard to pretend she doesn't have a crazy army of brothers and sisters behind her.  

The college students skype visit, and I can tell about the running gags we have over Taylor Swift and minions.  The Shake it Off singer stalks my 8th grader --we always put it on the radio if she's in the room, and the minions, have begun assembling around my college girl.  The joke annoys, and yet they delight that we think of it, and keep doing it.  The funny becomes more evasive as they get older, because we deal with bad grades, bad behavior, responsibilities, teams, drivers tests, SATs, college visits, recommendations, jobs, dates, curfews, computers and the real world.  

So now I write for me, but that seems boring.

Who wants to hear about my death threats to the Suburban for daring not to start today?  Or my ongoing promise to the dryer to use it for scrap metal if it fails to do its duty?  My i-phone came today, and my daughters pounced on it, I suspect they don't trust me with either technology or mechanical things.  

So I asked God, (and that's always dangerous), what I should do.  Today, I was asked to pray.  By one friend for her family, by another, for her job, by a third, for a friend who is losing her apartment.  I was asked to pray over and over and over again. It became absurd.  But it also was an answer.   So I prayed for my friend for her family.   I prayed for my friend for her job, and I prayed for the friend losing her apartment.  I'm taking those prayers tomorrow to the mass.

Why do I write? Because there are a million stories, some so heartbreaking, they feel like spun glass beauty, destined to shatter, and in those million stories, there are a million miracles waiting to happen.  I think the writing part of life is now about listening to the stories that need prayers, and writing what I can from them.  

Less of a mommy blog, more of a living collection of stories.   (I know. Tomorrow there will be a story about the kids playing zombie tag and Paul saying, "Lots of Me" like the characters on Phineas and Ferb), but I think it's closer to what this blog is supposed to become than not.  

Thanks for listening to me write all over the page and make a mess.   See you tomorrow, after the papal mass.  

Splinters

Every year I begin a crusade. I believe children should be shod when they go outside. Shoeless Joe Jackson and his fellow barefoot comrades view the coming of crocuses and planting of gardens as a sign to lose any footwear they may have consented to wear during the winter months. As a result, I have been known to begin loading the car an hour prior to an appointment only to be sabotaged by a single shoe.

If the people who determined when to show clemency about being late for appointments, witnessed my struggle to get all of them into the car, only to spend a frantic 30 minutes tearing apart couches and beds to locate a single pair of not necessarily matching but left and right shoes, only to then bargain with the shoe gods and being willing to accept even just two shoes the same size that are for the same foot, they’d just give me a standing appointment…when you show, it’s your time.

I have also in sheer desperation, given my eldest daughter a twenty and told her to go into the Walmart and come back out with one size fits all slippers for whoever it is that is missing footwear.

So you’ld think I’d be gung ho about being barefoot but having had small children for the past 16 years, I’ve also taken out my fair share of splinters. The most memorable one I helped remove from my three year old son during the course of a family party. He’d been playing on the wooden deck on our house and got a huge one in his left foot. He was in tears. We were hosting the party but spent the bulk of the next hour soaking, working with tweezers, but nothing was working and he was in hysterics.

My brother tried to calm him down by explaining the situation. My son was having none of it.

“If you don’t let us remove the splinter, it will continue to hurt.”
“IT HURTS NOW!”

“If you don’t let us remove the splinter, it could even become infected.”
“I DON’T CARE!”

“If you don’t let us remove it, the infection could be serious.”
“SO?”

“So your parents who love you want to remove the splinter so you won’t get sick or be in pain or die.”
“I DON’T… WANT… TO LIVE!” he gasped, holding and hiding his foot from my tweezers.

I voted for more soaking at this point.

Over the years, I’ve learned tricks like having the kids close their eyes while I remove the foreign objects from their toes and that handing them an ice cream while watching television is also a good anesthesia. I’ve also given up explaining why splinters need to come out entirely.

But I’ve also come up with a solution for splinters and summer and shoes. You don’t have to wear shoes if you can’t find them, but then you must wear socks.

Thick socks.
Thick Soccer up past your knees socks.

They don’t have to match.

One morning of enduring those heat insulators on one’s feet and we’ll have no problems from June until September with locating footwear.

Now, if only I could devise a similar solution for winter.

The Many Roles of Motherhood

Everyone knows that the role of Mom involves chauffeur, cook, planner, secretary, financier, maid and private tutor in all subjects K-12. What most may not recognize, is the other jobs that only Mom has; to be animated objects.

Chair: The irony was that as soon as I wrote that word on my laptop, my lap top was occupied. The second littlest one prefers me as a place to sit and draw and views any attempts to get up as a personal rejection. I've learned to do everything standing up unless I'm ready to be stationary for at least 20 minutes.

Vending Machine: Unless what I'm eating is leafy and green, it's just what they've got a jones for, and thus I've created a menu of hot tea and odd sandwiches they won't touch, including grilled pita cheese with spinach, tomato and onion and peppers inside the pita. It actually tastes pretty good but I pretend that it doesn't for fear someone will decide to give their tasters a chance and eat that too. Parsley equals kid free food. It doesn't help though when I want to eat junk. Then I sneak it at the gas station while I'm filling up the car and they're locked in their seats.

File Cabinet: After years of enduring "Mom, where's my...and it's the one paper that has sat forever on the table such that today I put it in the recycling because it's the day they pick up paper" type tragedies, I live in fear of pitching anything from school. I know it's all vital once I've thrown it away.

Desk: You would think this would be redundant after chair, but no, when I exercise and I concede, it isn't as often as it ought to be, and I'm on the floor doing "Downward facing dog" and "plank position" someone will decide my back is a good place to do work and place dolls, blocks, lego creations or their own selves on my back and ask that I please stay still while they finish whatever it is they are doing. Lying down to coax the baby to work on floor time, my shoulders get loaded up with two toddlers talking on pretend cell phones...at which point, I'm a car.

Calendar/GPS/USB: I have a white board that says, "If it isn't here, it ain't happening." It is mostly true. But the kids know Mom is a soft touch. If they implore, show passion or disappointment, they KNOW, I'm going to be reworking the schedule origami style to fix any activity or make something happen. They also know if they lost it, the one person who will actually really look sans a healthy bribe and a need to raise funds for a desired game/comic/object, is me. It's in the study under the box of tissues on the desk. How did my life become one long series of Clue hypothesises?

The problem with being a machine in each of these circumstances, is I haven't found the off switch or the spare battery supply, but they've found the remote such that they can push my buttons, turn on the mute for ignore, and TiVo all of Mom's lectures for later (read never) viewing.

I'd say being a stratford mom is vastly overrated except today, my daughter asked for her boots. She'd left them in the car. When I put them on her feet and finished zipping her coat and handing her a pink little pony to play with while we would be out running an errand, she said, "Thanks Mom." with a great seriousness of purpose, and gave me a big kiss. The Ghost in the machine can't help but be moved. "Can we get McDonalds after the appointment?" She could have asked anything at that moment though she knew it not.

Being a mom means, even though we often say no, the answer always means I love you. On some level, our answer is always "Yes."

Speechless Speculation

Followers of this blog know I have one daughter who opts not to speak. We’ve been attempting to encourage her to find her voice with puppets and silly songs and other interactive exercises. This morning, my mother awoke to the dulcet tones of the two sisters sitting in their room playing with a musical toy.

The older sister would push a button on the play house to make it play music. My ordinarily silent daughter would say, “Shut up!” and both would collapse into giggles.

Their conversation left all sentient adults and siblings with multiple moral quandaries: 1) Who taught her this? 2) Why of all words she could use, is she using this? 3) Should we discourage her from saying this when we are so desirous of hearing her speak period? 4) Why must everything be overly complicated?

Fortunately, the situation resolved itself as my older toddler spotted her grandmother and immediately after the younger sister said, “Shut up!” and started to giggle, stated very primly, “That’s rude.” Followed by a blatantly false statement, “She did it, it’s her fault.” all of which brought the game to a prompt end.

The American Milky Way

The economy affects us all.

In a family of 11, there are limitations on resources like milk. Our refrigerator can only hold so many gallons, especially when you add other needed items like meat, butter, vegetables and adult liquid fuel also known as diet coke. In the past, we just used what we had and rotated for meals, orange juice for breakfast, milk for lunch, juice or water or milk for dinner. But one of my children loved whole milk, and as such, she requested we purchase a separate gallon for her.

Another daughter suffered from a slight skin allergy and requested soymilk instead. Both requests were accommodated. Then a child decided that while he didn’t mind skim, whole milk was too thick and could he please have 2%? Things were getting out of hand until the parents in a fit of frustration designated individual gallons of la leche for each child.

“When you run out of this, you are out for the week.” We announced as we loaded up the refrigerator. And then things got a bit crazy.

Some contested that cereal milk should come from the general stock, used for cooking and providing protein and calcium to the non school going crowd on a daily basis in the form of a beverage. Others lectured “to thy own stock be pure.” But kids figured out pretty quickly, once the common stock milk was poured into the cereal bowl, it couldn’t be taken back, and thus the purists abandoned their position until Mom began raiding their stock.

When people began to hold to only their gallons, there were ants and there were grasshoppers, which resulted in over the breakfast counter deals. “I’ll trade you a glass of milk for two cookies.” Such things I could tolerate, but then came the milk miser. One child in particular, nursed her milk by drinking water the first three days of the week so she could smugly make milk shakes every afternoon in front of the rest. This was the same child that hadn’t finished her Easter bunny by Memorial Day, but I took care of that problem personally.

We tried labeling the milks to mitigate milk disputes. “Remember, some milks look alike so remember to check the label before pouring.” We tried buying different brands. “Mine’s the CVS brand, yours is Lucerne…see?”

And then one time, the general stock went dry. “I’m making muffins and need a half cup, any donors?” No one was feeling charitable milk wise. I used water and the kids complained that the breakfast tasted a bit off. The next time, I used an equal measure from each person’s milk, which brought complaints when some had more to start. “This is America.” One of them argued. “You should do a progressive tax of the milk.”

I responded, “We’re Republicans. I’m doing a flat tax.” The voter left disgruntled but admitted the muffins tasted better.

Then there was the spilled milk incident…and from the hoarder no less. Talk about genuine sorrow, and subsequent glee from those who had watched her sip her chocolate shakes so smugly. I was about to intervene with my own version of the stimulus package when the kids took pity on her and pooled their resources to replenish her stock. In response to such generosity, she promised the following week to share in the shakes come Friday.

I thought we had turned the corner.

Then the milk black market started up over breakfast, and enterprising capitalists were charging premium dollars for moomoo juice and measuring it out in fluid ounces. They were shaking down a five year old. I exercised parental fiat power to declare a dairy detaunte.

“We are a family! Milk is a common use product, like toilet paper, bread, air conditioning, the computer, the television, the laundry machines and the furniture of this house. Everyone gets it. Everyone uses it. The milk is for the greater good of the whole family, ergo, as far as food is concerned, this is a communist state. Being the mother, I am the state, and I shall distribute the milk, it to each according to his or her needs.”

“But Mom, we’re Republicans!”

I produced the powdered chocolate Quick mix. “I will sweeten the deal.” They lined up. Pouring each a drink and creating a sense of peace, Motherland has spoken, and sometimes, it’s good to be the State.

They'll Make A Liar of You Every Time

Granddaddy used to say that all the time about his nine children.

As a child, I concede my own fixations on taste and preference were often fickle and determined by whatever fight my brother and I were having at the moment. When he said he liked eggs, I decided that day, that moment, that eggs were on the verboten list. He liked strawberry ice cream. I avoided eating it for YEARS.

Mom drew the line when I tried to unbuckle my seatbelt to declare my individuality from my younger brother in the car. So we glared silently, seat belted, barely controlling our mutual disdain for the other’s existence. That was acceptable because it was muted. I only got into trouble when I lacked the internal good judgment not to say, “MOMMMMM, He’s LOOKING at me.”

Today, it is my turn, and I break into a cold sweat when asked such seemingly benign questions as “What do your kids like to eat?”

On any given day, I could serve cantaloupe, eggs, bagels and milk and would have children praising me for hours. Asking for more. The same would be true for spaghetti and meatballs with red sauce or pot roast, or baked chicken…until someone else makes it. Visions of children voicing emotionally ungrateful responses to other people’s charity have forced me to take dramatic measures to insure that even if my offspring find the food unpalatable, they aren’t going to be vocal about it.
Because there is a type of universality to children, I humbly offer the following tips.

1) Have a bag of M&m’s at the ready. Insert into any child’s mouth that you think questionable as you receive the food.

2) Make sure dessert looks so tantalizing that they’d be willing to consume liver, beets and lima beans in abundance and wash it all down with tap water…no ice.

3) Empty your refrigerator of condiments. Let the kiddos use liberally.

4) Duck and cover strategy: Cover whatever it is with either sauce or cheese.

5) Channel your inner marketer. Give the food a snazzy name, break out the good china, put on classical music and pretend to be a waiter. Use phrases like “Will that be all Madam?”

6) Stick approach. Eat it or do the dishes.

7) Create an alternative that you like that you know the kids despise, such that the first meal looks appetizing by comparison…it’s either this…or my baked cod with tomatoes…

8) Mommy Dearest method. It’s now or it’s breakfast. This is only if you are willing to suffer for the next 24 hours. I wouldn’t advise it.

9) Piece meal Peace meal. One serving of something at a time…so kids get a fraction of food that looks so small they’re intrigued and willing to try it. Let them add salt and pepper. Serve meal in small courses.

10) Surrender. Divide up the meal to those things the kids will eat, fire up the microwave, nuke some potpies and prepare to spend the next three weeks eating casserole.

Reasons I didn't Post Sunday

There are many reasons for not writing in a blog on a regular schedule, not the least of which is that moment when one tries to disguise a grocery list as a humor piece. I haven't reached that point yet, but this week was close.

So Sunday, I didn't post. It's not that I didn't try. I tried writing about my child that turns into Moaning Myrtle whenever I ask her to do a chore. She complains, stomps her feet and then in a fit of inspiration, says, "I need to go to the bathroom." Then she disappears. But it turned out to be a one joke wonder.

Next, I tried to explore the issues of a brave new world, as my son who Never dances, not with his mother, sisters, Aunts or Grandparents, went to a Quincinera and danced the night away with a girl who ASKED him. I have tried to be respectful and not give him, as his best friends did, a new meaning for the words, Spanish Inquisition.

Then there's the fact that we threw a birthday party for my six year old. Her birthday date was actually 90 days ago, so this was her sixth year's birthday observed. We had a fairy princess party, complete with a castle and pin the tail on the unicorn and musical thrones (chairs with blankets thrown over them). Rain put the kebash on flying races outside but otherwise, they had a great time except when the birthday girl got mad when she didn't win musical chairs. She stomped out of the room and into the closet and slammed the door. Letting my oldest take over the music and running of the games, I went to fetch the very sad Tinkerbell. "I hate musical chairs! I never win at anything!" She sulked.

"You're being a bad sport."
"I want to be a bad sport."

"Fine, then you'll miss the rest of the games." I shut the door and went back to the party. One of the parents there gave me a look. "She's crying." I explained.
They looked shocked. "It's her party and she'll cry if she wants to."

Five minutes later, The Birthday Princess Fairy Tinkerbell returned to play Duck Duck Goose.

Lastly, I have taken on the Fall Carnival at my kids' school. The day of the Festival? My due date for number 9.

Why?

Motivationally, it's really fun. Who is going to say they are more busy than me?
It's a compelling arguement. Even my pastor called to say, "Sherry, this certifies that you are insane."

It also allows me to preemptively get my hours for the school taken care of via summer meetings and planning. So, if you're in the area, come to the school carnival on September 27th. It should be a lot of fun. I'll try to write a whole piece for Tuesday.

Best wishes on a great week folks.
Sherry