The Perfection Found in My Chaos

First, to those visiting from Creative Minority Report, Welcome to my blog!

“You have how many?” I had seven in the store. “Nine.” The clerk began showing us off to her fellow workers as if they had not heard and could not see the stroller and two toddlers led by two olders and one boy who was trying desperately to figure out how not to be associated with us while his brother posed and preened in the three way mirror.

The woman helping us buy uniforms for the school year told my oldest daughter, “Your mother is a saint. You do know that right?” I caught her eyes. She was barely concealing her urge to roll them. This particular teen has a steel trap mind and as she said when she was five, “I never forget anything.” Then and now when I’m reminded of this fact, a deep chill runs up my spine and I know if I ever need to go to confession and am struggling with making a proper assessment of my failings, she can provide an annotated list for my convenience. Even though these words were meant as a compliment, they irk. First, if a case were ever to be opened on my behalf for canonization, the first ones to testify against it would be my children.

Second, I know that motherhood is hard whether you have one or nine. It’s 24-7, it’s without end and there are times when the tasks involved grind you to exhaustion and beyond. I know many mothers I wish I could emulate more; my own for example –she plans. I follow up understanding how much easier whatever it is I am doing would have been if I’d only planned. My mother-in-law is another shining star. She is thorough and thoughtful. I’m fitfully creative and live perpetually with the hope that the thought counts enough even if the birthday card is three days…alright…weeks…late getting into the mail.

I know moms who are so present to their children, I’m envious. I try doing it and both the kids and I get bored of each other or one group of kids wants me to be a judge and another, the designated monster or a third, the set home base. I’m an accessory to their play and a refuge, not a colleague or collaborator. I also know moms of one and two with ample dollops of charity for others to spare; charity I think of only after witnessing them. And I know mothers of six that I watch with awe who arrive on time and well dressed and combed and think, one day, I hope I can be that together and know that my current course and speed aren’t going in that direction no matter how much I flail.

But the polished present planning playing careful mother I’m not is not because of the how many I have. It never was the number that has prevented me from being a planner or thorough and thoughtful or charitable or present, for the number has continued changing, but the constant in the equation has been me. Instead, they’ve got this dreamy fitful enthusiastic and sometimes together mom who spends too much time on my computer, doesn’t write things down and when she does, she doesn’t check her calendar. I know because when we got back to the car and loaded everyone in, I asked my daughter, “Do comments like that bother you?” and she shook her head no and said, “Don’t worry Mom. I know you’re no saint.” And rattled off examples of my many failings, all 100% accurate.

She patted my shoulder but somehow that didn’t make me feel better. When you get a reminder of your sins, it’s a cue to at least make sure you aren’t stagnating spiritually so I talked to one of my go to priests about the trials of trying to raise 9 without discouraging any of them from practicing their faith throughout adulthood because of the obvious work load involved.

He told me to pray and remember “You know, some days, just staying sane is sufficient.” I told him I thought that was setting the bar a bit low.

But today, my four year old is dancing on a chair in her swim suit. No one told her we were going swimming, she just felt it might happen and because her mother is an impulsive person, it might. The three year old comes into the room. “Do you want to potty train today?” I ask. “No, I need to color.” And she marches to the table to demand paper for her latest magnum opus. My eight year old comes down to explain she stayed up reading and writing and illustrating a book and my eleven year old triumphantly explains how he beat his dad and older brother last night in an epic hour long magic game.
 
These whimsies won’t get them scholarships and aren’t brag worthy to strangers in the way that “we just got back from the semi-finals in 10U baseball” or she’s performing at the Kennedy Center in the junior orchestra or he’s spending the summer studying immersion Sanskrit, but I wouldn’t change or trade those for this blessed abundant and lavish creative chaos I’ve both promoted and created. They’re my triumphs of ordinary time. And while this work won’t generate a tv spot where one of mine flashes a victorious smile and says, “Thanks Mom.” I can look at them in the midst of their clutter, crayons and music dance and song and feel my heart burst as I whisper a prayer to hold onto this moment and say, “Thanks God for these kids.” And mean it with all my heart.

We Interrupt This Regular Blog to Bring You a Vacation Moment....

First, a disclaimer:  I am not a "spa" type person.

I get twitchy during the occasional manicure.  My legs start bouncing if after 35 minutes, the sytlist is still messing with my hair.   I think a lot of the emulsifying, purifying, hydrating, vitamin enriching theraputetic gobbilty gook that is offered at resorts and the like, are over-priced over-hyped hokum that wastes what could have otherwise been in the hands of a professional chef or even a rank amature, good food.   "Honey cucumber facial, blueberry seaweed body raps, rice and salt rubs, chocolate mud bath..." the lists of options for putting edibles anywhere and everywhere but your mouth are as endless as the inventory of a Whole Foods warehouse.     

So when my husband signed me up for a Tri-fecta spa day while on our vacation, while moved by the lavish and sweet gesture, I secretly viewed the whole idea with suspicion.  I told myself, just order a hair cut and a pedicure and manicure and get them all done at once.  

The spa however, while hailed as one of "The Places" in Maine, did not offer hair cuts, only hair nourishment (whatever that was).  So I settled on a facial for novelty's sake, a pedicure and a shoulder and neck rub.  The woman wrote down my selections and said, "Fine, here is your robe and here is the changing room.  Lock your clothes and things in this locker and come to the waiting room." 

I have to get undressed?  Really?  Frankly, it took all my mental control not to bolt that instant.  My brain raced for an alternative: I'd jog for the hour and a half before my husband came back.  Yeah!  Then I'd have the glow of having worked out and he'd mistake it for a facial.

There were three problems with this plan: 1) my inability to in all likelyhood jog for more than ten minutes; 2) the unmistakable smell of me if I did manage to run all that time and 3) the fact that my beloved had just shelled out 100 bucks to be romantic to his spouse of 20 years.   Not wanting to be a sissy,  I told myself, you've had nine kids, you're raising nine kids and pregnant with the tenth, you can handle this now stop being such a baby and get in the robe! 

The lounge was full of adults of all ages. No one made eye contact and everyone was silent. All were painfully aware that each of us was only wearing a borrowed robe. Most were trying desperately to appear diffident or overly interested in the fire, the ocean view or the new age art on the wall, and everyone jumped a bit whenever one of the clinicians would come out dressed smartly in all black and call out someone's name.   "Hi, I'm Julie.  How are you today?" as if each of us was dying to make our next new bestest friend while clad only in a loaned terry cloth.

When it was my turn, the woman asked me, "Do you have any conditional issues?"  "What does that mean?" I asked.  She rattled off broken bones, recent injuries, diseases, pregnancy.

"I'm three months pregnant." I explained.
"Oh.  Then you can't do the massage or the pedicure."
"What? Why not?"  I asked.  I'd had pedicures before; why was this suddenly verboten?

"Well, there are certain places on the foot we don't touch for fear of stimulating labor."
"I'm three months."
"Well, we like to be safe."

"I've had nine.  If foot rubs could have induced labor, believe me women would be lining up the manicurists at the hospital rather than taking on those petocin drips." 

She gave me a reproachful look.  "Most hospitals don't appreciate the healing and helpful powers of touch." 

Maybe so but I still thought she was way way way overdoing it.  I mean, I'd had foot rubs.  My husband specializes in them in the third trimester.  Not once have we not needed that stupid IV drip to deliver one of our children.  Realizing having an arguement with the woman who is supposed to pamper you would probably be a bad starting point and that this discussion would be breeching possible theological grounds for her if I mocked it too much, I asked, "Where is the spot that brings on labor?"  She motioned her hand in a cupped position and stroked the bottom of my foot.  I promise I didn't but man was I tempted to yell "OW OW OW OW OWWWW!"  Instead, I said, "I'll remember that for my husband come January." with a smile. 

"Now, since we can't do what you requested, how about a pregnancy massage?  It's only 50 minutes and it will cost less than what your husband signed you up for." 

Pregnancy massage?  I thought okay....and immediately began hoping it didn't involve rubbing my belly.   But only 50 minutes?  Sign me up.

"Fine, first I need to get you the pregnancy pillows."  This seemed a bit much.  I mean, I'm only three months.   She came back with a special hollowed spa black foam shapes.  One was for my face so I could lay on my stomach; there was also a molded pillow for my chest and two curved ones that would lift the belly and support the hips and two for my knees.  She placed them on the bed and put a sheet over it.  "Get inbetween the sheets while I'm out."

Now again, I felt like bolting.  This was just to wierd and too intimate but I quickly scuttled into the bed and positioned myself on the pillows.  My neck was a bit extended.  The first sign that spa-itis has set in, you begin expecting only to be comfortable.  She came in and asked how I felt.  I mentioned my neck, feeling a bit silly.  She adjusted it.  "Perfect." I said as I settled into the warm and now amazingly comfortable bed and began spa type thinking, "9 times and I've been doing this all wrong.  You know Sher, being hardy is way overrated.  Why couldn't you ever be just a bit more high maintenance?  I mean man this is nice.  I like these.  I wonder if we could buy these.  These are good, even it this is the last pregnancy, these are really really good."

Then she said, "Whoops, you're pregnant so we have to turn off the heat from the bed." 

"But I like heat..." I wimpered as she flicked the switch.  I wanted to say, no whine, "Turn the heat back on." but I knew she wouldn't for the same reason I wasn't getting a pedicure and I also was mildly annoyed and amused by my own petty demand.  The second sign I was beginning to get into the spa type experience.

New age bird song music began being piped in the room and my brain hit the spa brakes. 

"Don't you ever have a day when the spa music gets to be a bit dull and ever want to shake things up by putting on acid rock?" I asked.  She said, straight faced, "No, then I just ask to do any pounding massages that get requested."  I wondered what massage therapists do to unwind at the end of a given day but given that she hadn't laughed at anything I'd said up to now, I decided not to pry.

She started rubbing and I flinched but she didn't.  She started asking me about my kids as a means of distracting me and it worked.  After ten minutes of banter, I stopped talking because the rub was having it's intended effect.  The lazy thought "After the beast has been tranquilized, she'll be tagged and released back into the wild for future monitoring."  skirted across my brain as I drifted off.

Thirty minutes later, only at her request, I flipped over.  It took a tremendous act of will.

When the whole thing finally ended, I felt as if I'd been asleep for hours.  She handed me a glass of ice water and told me it was important to hydrate a lot after a massage.  I was too dopey to ask why even though I couldn't figure out how lying innert for an hour would deplete one of water.   I did manage a groggy and grateful "Thank you." and felt the abrupt return to reality when she said, "Get out of the bed and back in your robe so you can get dressed."   I had to move?   How much for another hour part of my brain wondered. Could I come back tomorrow or would that be too much?

Getting dressed, I felt floaty, as if I wasn't exactly of this earth.  I also felt rarified, in that I noticed everything.  The air in the hallway was colder than that of the room where I'd been massaged and that bothered me.  The bathroom where I changed was luxurious and the act of washing one's hands felt somehow transformed into both a pampering act and forced labor because I had to do it.  I noticed the paint on the walls, the details of the carpet, the ambient noise of the hotel.  It felt as if everything else and everyone else was moving at 78 rpms while I was blissfully trodding along at 33 and almost irritated at the demand I speed back up. 

I got back to our room and my husband smiled at me, "How was your time at the spa?"  he asked.  "Man, the rich live in a much rarer air than the rest of us.  I'm not sure I'd be tolerable if I could have that sort of luxury more often. It's like I can feel everything and so I'm hyper aware of even the mildest discomfort."

"Poor baby." he laughed.  "Guess we should go cheer you up with some lobster for lunch."
"Yes.  That would be perfect!"

Still not a spa person but I've got to say, having a 20th anniversary rocks!

Happy Anniversary My Love!  You are Magnificent and I am a very blessed woman to be married to you!

Biting Humor

My youngest son has decided the easiest way to create a good impression is with his teeth.  It's a problem in part because we never know when this cute almost 2 year old wannabe member of Team Edward will strike. 

Now I used to teach biters and have been trained on how to get someone to release; you push back into the bite so that the head of the biter is pushed back and that causes him to open his mouth a bit more and thus the arm, hand or what have you that is being bitten, can escape.   However, even I remain fearful of using this technique since pushing back into my son's mouth might strain his neck. Down Syndrome children can sustain injury from a blow to the head that results in paralysis; the neck moves too far back.

Thus my children and I remain at least at present, the human version of teething rings whenever his need to nosh strikes.  

It's not that we don't shout "OW" or "No." or cuff his nose when he starts clamping down or put him in time out; it's that he views the whole thing as one big game.   He shakes his head no back at us with a big happy smile even as we place him in the playpen.  We cuff his nose and his eyes twinkle as he reaches out to repeat the gesture back.  We say "OW, that hurt!" and he claps and laughs.  So either he's the smallest sadist in the world or he just doesn't yet get what we are trying to convey.  

Part of the problem is my son loves stuffed animals; specifically one unimaginatively named Monkey,  stuffed monkey.  When Monkey is in his crib, Monkey gets kissed, hugged and his ears get bitten multiple times.  Monkey does not mind this and Paul showers Monkey with biting love.

However the rest of his family and the general population at large do not share Monkey's stuffed ears or capacity to tolerate however many tons of metric pressure one two year old with abnormally sharp cuspids, bicuspids, incisors and molars can bring to bear in a death grip.

So we now have taken extraordinary measures to keep our youngest out of biting range except in controlled environments.  Jean jackets work almost as well as chain mail; so do layered preppy look sweaters except when he goes for the arm.  For the men and boys and those who hate either of these two looks in the family, holding Paul facing away is an effective alternative, though that is much harder on the back; and the umbroller has become the vehicle of choice out in public.   I rejected the idea of a muzzle and/or retainer to keep his jaws under wraps.  

One of the children suggested making him walk everywhere possible in hopes that by wearing him out, he won't have the energy to take a bite out of us.    The problem with that solution is two-fold: 1) It reduces the speed at which we move to .0001 miles per hour and allows for other children to thus get into mischief and 2) the internal mental discipline required of the adults moving the party along that pace is as demanding as the physical conditioning needed to run a 10 K in whatever a decent time for a 10 K would be.  

The only real solution to this lies with our young son and the every day maturation process that is taking place.  We'll keep saying no, putting him in the pen and cuffing his nose until he gets it.  In the meantime, if our family portrait this year shows everyone in life preserver vests, I hope you'll understand.