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1. Strong pelvic floor muscles
2. A bespoke suit. Or a bespoke dress. Or a bespoke outfit or any sort. The word bespoke is really cool to say and I love the idea of someone taking my measurements and making something that’s just for me.
3. Never having to enter a password or retrieve a password or reset a password ever again. Ever.
4. Migraine meds that always work. Asking for an end to migraines would be too greedy, obviously.
5. Insurance companies that always cover everything without first denying your claim or pretending you don’t have coverage that you know you do or deciding they know more about your health than you and your doctor do. Excellent health insurance for everyone. That includes vision and dental because eyes and teeth are actually parts of your body.
6. One remote that enables you to find and watch all of the shows you have access to through any device or streaming service, which you can operate entirely on your own without asking your kids or husband for help. And the remote never gets lost. If it falls between the sofa cushions, some mechanism ejects it automatically and returns it to the coffee table.
7. 500 more square feet of house. I know it would be too much to ask to have a new house, but I would love just a bit more space so I could have a room of my own in which to work or read or meditate or hide. A room with a door. That no one else claims as their own. Or leaves their crap in. Ha! Even if I had such a room other people’s stuff would inevitably end up there. That is the way of the world.
8. Bras whose hooks never get bent or stab you, and are always easy to take on and off, and that fit well and are flattering. And that you don’t have to shop for! Bespoke bras.
9. Moisturizer that is appropriate for my skin type. That I don’t have to shop for. Bespoke moisturizer!
10. A family pet whose species my family can agree on adopting. And who comes with free food and meds and fully paid vet bills for at least the first year. A pet that everyone will love to snuggle. Although I would prefer to snuggle babies from time to time. But I’m pretty sure the family will not agree to adopt any babies.
People keep asking what I want for Christmas. This is probably too much to ask, especially with Christmas the day after tomorrow. So I’d be happy with some soft, warm socks. Or chocolate chip cookies. Or a hug. I’m easy to please.
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“Give back to the universe that which is not ours to carry.”
Lately this sage advice, included in the centering meditation that my spiritual director offers before every session, has become a necessary mantra.
Because there is so much that people throw at me, so much around me that my heart consumes, that I cling to, that I clutch tightly to prove to myself and the world that I am, in fact, a good person, it is easy to feel myself sinking under the weight of it all.
And so I examine each piece, peel it off my spirit (it makes that squelchy sound like pulling apart velcro) and metaphorically fling it into the sky. And then I feel peaceful and at ease and live happily ever after.
Kidding!
My overactive brain and “of course it’s my job to save the world!” nature don’t give up that easily. Still, I try. Still, I am frustrated when there’s nothing I can do. I love having something I can do. I have to remind myself, every day, many times a day, that sometimes all I can do is be.
In years past during November, inspired by friends who modeled the practice, I posted something every day on Facebook that I was grateful for. Other Novembers I’ve participated in challenges to blog every day, or write something every day, or create something every day. This year in November, I’ve gone back to the basics: make sure your kids get to school every day, fill out the COVID symptoms questionnaire from the school system every day, drink water every day, get dressed before 4pm every day, remember to take your meds every day. And. to be honest I know there have been some days when I have definitely not accomplished all these.
We’re living in a sort of reality purgatory right now. We’re not quarantined or isolated like we were last winter. Most things are open. We’re allowed to roam freely, but there is a constant lingering question of whether we should hanging over our heads. The new questions du jour whenever you see someone you know are, “Did you get your booster?” [no, but I’ve scheduled it for when I can afford to feel horrible the next day] “Which kind are you getting?” [not sure, whatever they give me, I guess?] “Where are you going to get it?” [through the county health department, where I got my previous shots] Sometimes the conversation turns to wondering why so many people refuse to get vaccinated, even when it costs them their jobs or various freedoms. This is a question for which I have no good answer. Another question is why is the newest threatening variant named omicron? What happened to the other 10 Greek letters after delta? Were those variants not important enough? And more substantively, are we going to have to live with COVID for the rest of our lives? Will they eventually have to start naming the variants after people, like hurricanes? Are we ever going to get to see the lower half of strangers’ faces again?
When my thoughts start spiraling out of control like this, I remind myself to give this business back to the universe. I definitely cannot carry the weight of a global pandemic, or even a neighborhood microdemic (a word I just made up), on my back. There is nothing I can do except make sure my family and I are vaccinated and wear masks and be aware of risks while trying to enjoy life as best we can.
Which leads me back to gratitude. Even when–or especially when–we are existing in this state of emergency that has lasted way too long to be an emergency anymore but it’s definitely not normal (note the accelerating approach to spiraling thoughts)–I return to gratitude. Even when conventions of punctuation and syntax fall away, I can be thankful. And it makes me feel better to share.
(in no particular order) I am thankful that…
- My church has reopened for (fully masked) in-person services and a few other activities. Going back to church every Sunday gives me an anchor and a steadiness that I crave. The (absolutely essential) safety protocols kinda get me down, but I’d rather be in the sanctuary following the rules than not be there at all. I am glad that online services have been meaningful for so many people, but after a while they just weren’t doing it for me.
- Independent bookstores are thriving, and I am able to support my local women-owned and Black-owned and queer-owned book shops. Last week I walked into One More Page to pick up some books I had ordered online, and asked a bookseller what books she recommended for middle-grade readers that feature non-binary characters (per the request of my non-binary child). She practically leapt out from behind the counter and said “YES! Middle grade books featuring non-binary characters!” as if this were a request she had been waiting for and she was finally getting the chance to fulfill it. I always love going into this store and chatting with the booksellers and reading the post-it notes that offer each bookseller’s concise personal reviews.
- I had a highly amusing visit with my primary care doctor last week, who I finally made an appointment with to have him look in my ears. Back in August I had an inner part of each ear pierced, which I’ve finally acknowledged was a mistake. The piercings have been bothering me for several weeks but I can’t actually see them because of where they are, although I could feel that something was wrong. Anyway my doctor took a look and confirmed that something was wrong. I asked him if he could take out the piercings and he said, “I could … but I really don’t think you want me to.” Apparently he’d never had a patient come to him with problematic piercings, so I was proud of that. He sent me on my way with a prescription for antibiotic ointment and instructions to see my ENT next week.
- My book club is meeting in person again and there are now two babies who are involved! Two of my friends had babies over the past year! And I get to play with the babies while we talk about books (and other things). Did I mention BABIES?
- After 16 years of running my own business, I am going to start a new full-time job in January! I will be Senior Writer for DC Action, which I’ve been working with as a consultant for the past two years, and I am so excited to be joining the staff. I launched my own business before I had kids, in part because of an insensitive remark that my previous boss made to a colleague who arrived a few minutes late to a staff meeting because she had to take care of the unexpected needs of one of her kids. I decided at that moment that I didn’t want to work anywhere that didn’t understand that my (future) kids were my priority. So working for myself all this time has been wonderful and liberating and fun and also challenging and frustrating. But I’ve always been able to put my kids first. Now that they’re closing in on 15 and 9, they still need me, but not in such immediate ways. Since I’ve been working for myself, people have often asked me if I would ever go back to a regular job. I always said only if the perfect opportunity presented itself. There’s no such thing as perfect, but this job is pretty close. I’ve known and loved the executive director for many years, and one of her mantras is family first, so I know that if my kids need me, I can be there. One of the COVID silver linings is that we all know now that many jobs sure can be done from home. So I will not be expected to go to the office every day, but I will still get to have colleagues and work on a team! I’ll get a regular paycheck and not have to beg clients to pay me! When I do go to my office it’s in a cool neighborhood with lots of places to get lunch, and I love going out to lunch!
- I was back on the field this fall with my soccer team Ice & Ibuprofen. I’ve been playing on this team since 2016 and it brings me such joy, although my soccer skills are rudimentary at best. COVID canceled a couple seasons, then this spring and summer the league sponsored loosely organized pick-up games for anyone who was interested. I played all spring and summer and was happy to be moving again, although I didn’t love playing with strangers as much. A lot of the women I played with (and against) in the pick-up games were in their 60s, a few in their 70s, most of them way better than me, and quite a few of them on the bossy side. I did get to know a few folks who I have seen again this fall since the teams have reassembled, but it’s great to play with my team of encouraging and laid-back ladies again. AND I recruited my sister to join us this fall. Despite her concerns that her soccer skills would be rusty since she last wore cleats in 8th grade, she was fantastic and an excellent addition to the squad. It was fun to do a grown-up activity with her.
There’s plenty more, of course. But that’s enough for now. To balance out all that I’ve returned to the universe to carry, I extend my gratitude to and for the cosmos. And Thanksgiving leftovers. And pie.
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They only ask for the impossible
It is up to me to make it real
They live in worlds of their own creation
I commute back and forth, hurtling through space when I am summoned
They commandeer my body, almost as insistently as when they were babies
Even now they want a snack and need a snuggle and ask me to stay until they fall asleep
They want me to guess their secrets, to read their minds, to understand what they can’t quite speak
Sometimes I do. Sometimes I can’t. Sometimes it’s too raw too much too painful to take in. I don’t have it in me anymore to pretend otherwise.
They want to be with me and away from me at the same time.
They only ask for the impossible
It is up to me to come up with an answer
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Today we said goodbye to Ella, our 18-year-old Honda Civic, whose transmission conked out. We decided that the $4000 it would require to replace the transmission would be better spent on a down payment for a new (to us) hybrid car. Even though Randy has primarily been Ella’s driver since we bought our Honda Odyssey in 2013, I bought her on my own and she was our only car for a long while.
I bought Ella from Landmark Honda after my Saturn was–oddly–stolen. My Saturn was later recovered–unexpectedly spotted in an apartment building parking lot by a friend of mine six months after it had been stolen. But by then the insurance company already owned it and I had bought Ella.
Ella was the first new car I ever bought. I did my research and decided on a Honda Civic, then went to three different dealerships until I found one where the salesman wasn’t condescending. I brought my dad along because I was worried that the salespeople would take advantage of me somehow, or I wouldn’t ask the right questions. But it was going to be my car and I was going to be paying for it. At the first two dealerships, the salesmen addressed my dad instead of me. Finally, at Landmark Honda the salesman acknowledged that I was an intelligent adult, so I bought the car from him.
My favorite thing about her was the sunroof, which I chose specifically because I remembered how much I loved the feeling of the air coming through the roof at night (at which time it becomes a moonroof?) of the car my boyfriend in high school drove.
A Honda Civic is not a fancy car. And after 18 years, Ella had experienced ups and downs and was more than a little messy. She had worn through many bumper stickers and had collected a lot of crumbs that seemed to be just a permanent part of her.
At times when you’re a parent it’s hard to remember what it was like before you had kids. I know that I drove Ella for five years before Zoe was born, and then for six more years until Zeke was born and we felt compelled to get a minivan because we needed the space. So I know Randy and I must’ve been driving Ella on great dates and road trip adventures and who knows where else. But the pandemic has caused significant sections of my brain to fog over, so the details are murky. I know in my heart, though, that Ella was a good car and served our family well for a long time. And I always enjoyed feeling the breeze through the sun and moon roof.
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The mood swings are killing me. And not my 13-year-old’s mood swings, but mine.
The quasi-quarantine (I acknowledge, as a friend pointed out recently, that we are not actually in quarantine, which is more serious) feels a little to me like what I remember of being drunk. Admittedly it has been decades since I’ve experienced that. Now after having a bottle of hard cider with pizza for dinner I wake up in the middle of the night and have to eat crackers and take Tums. What I mean, though, is that every emotion seems to be magnified times a thousand. For a few days this week I felt like I was trying to swim through molasses. I couldn’t motivate myself to do anything. I was napping even more than usual. I wasn’t showering until 6pm. I was yelling at my kids. After reading news stories about the projected future of this virus and trying to wrap my head around the idea that our lives will never be the same, I was despondent.
Reading, which is usually my refuge, has been doing me a disservice. My default activity was scrolling through Facebook and clicking on articles about epidemiology, the current administration’s irresponsible and deadly response to the virus, the response of white vigilante terrorists to measures designed to save lives, the actions of white vigilante terrorists who killed a black man who was out for a jog, the number of people suffering because they have no jobs and therefore not much food, and the fact that my zip code has the highest concentration of COVID-19 cases in Arlington.
So during the 4am-6am period that I was awake last night, I deleted Facebook from my phone. This is a step I’ve taken many times before, and I always re-install it after a few days. But today was so much better.
Zeke and I made wonderful French toast with the delicious challah bread I picked up yesterday from Great Harvest Bread Company. I had more energy than I’ve had in several days–the molasses was gone–and I coerced my family into helping clean the house. We threw away so much stuff, and organized, and dusted. We have now–over the span of the quasi-quarantine–accumulated four large boxes of things to give away or sell. I am still not sure when I will be able to give these things away or sell them, but at least now they’re in boxes instead of scattered all over the house. We played Jackbox games over Zoom with friends who we used to have dinner with often and friends who live far away who we haven’t seen in a while and we all laughed and laughed and all our kids played too and it was pure joy.
Saying that taking the Facebook app off my phone immediately led to a state of bliss would be an oversimplification. But it helped for sure.
I have a stack of notes I need to write. These blank cards, addressed and stamped but not yet written, had been piling up on my desk since December. Since Randy is now using my desk to work, the notes are now cascading in piles of my stuff on the edge of the dining room table (where Randy’s papers used to live). If you are a member of my extended family and you have not received a Christmas card, Valentine, thank you note, or other expected correspondence from me over the past six months, I apologize. And I promise I will write the cards. But when I think about what I would say, I start to have that molasses feeling again. Looking back on what our lives were like back in December, and January, and even February, my heart hurts. I feel naive. I feel nostalgic. I feel overwhelmed, like I need to sit down because I’m going to faint. Despite the abundance of news and information, there is a distinct lack of clarity and certainty. I still can’t wrap my head around our existence right now. My Dad asked for Washington Nationals face masks and a donation to a food bank for his birthday. My sister and I debated at length how to make it as safe as possible to spend time with our Mom on Mother’s Day. Almost every ordinary activity takes on extraordinary meaning when you have to decide how much danger is inherent in each decision.
I used to be a person who possessed a lot of energy. While I am not quite a sack of potatoes yet, my motor operates at a much slower speed than before. I know this happens to people in their 40s, but I don’t like it. The precipitous decline for me came after Zeke was born. No matter what anyone tells you, having two kids is way harder than having just one. And Zeke’s sleeplessness for the first two years of his life is probably what led to my sleep disorder. Not that I blame him. He’s worth it. 🙂 But this quasi-quarantine is squeezing what energy I have left. Of course there are moments–even hours!–of fun and diversion and creativity and relaxation. But they seem to be bracketed by confusion, doubt, and exhaustion. There’s a heaviness that lingers, a longing for freedom.
Since tomorrow is Mother’s Day, my family decided it would be just like my birthday in that I could make the plan for the day. My aspiration for tomorrow morning is to get myself out of bed and do yoga. I have many yoga teacher friends and so many sources for online classes, but I have not done a single one of them since we’ve been staying home. Partly because there always seems to be something more urgent demanding my attention, and partly because my house bears no resemblance to the clean, peaceful emptiness of a yoga studio. I have never once regretted going to a yoga class, but I have also never succeeded in sticking to a practice at home. I struggle to stick to much of anything sometimes. I know, however, that if I’m going to survive this thing, I need to take better care of myself. Making myself a priority has always been anathema to me. It seems selfish, and to me selfishness is a serious character flaw. Of course I’ve been told by friends, therapists, and many people who love me that I need to put on my own oxygen mask first. I know this is true. It’s just so much easier to do when everyone else is out of the house. I can take fabulous care of myself when I have plenty of time and resources. Learning so many new ways to be is a lot of work. No wonder I’m so moody.
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What woke me up at 3am with a headache and sent me stumbling downstairs in search of Cheez-Its and orange juice.
We were about to announce the candidate for new senior minister at church [which just happened in real life and I’m on the ministerial search committee so it was a big moment] and I was in the wrong room trying to finish writing the announcement. Also I realized I had a baby and had left him somewhere but I wasn’t sure where. Someone told me it was time so I ran into a room that looked like a high school gym, where people were crowded around a makeshift stage. I knew I was supposed to be on the stage with the rest of my committee, but none of them were there. Instead, a young Black guy wearing an outfit that was a cross between JROTC and marching band uniform was prancing across the stage with a fake rifle performing sort of a made-up color guard routine, but all by himself. A teenage girl with big black glasses and afro puffs was yelling at him that he was doing it all wrong and it was disrespectful. Then our interim senior minister Rev. Terasa, asked if there were any nominations for senior minister from the floor. I looked around, shocked, because this was not how it was supposed to happen. Suddenly the crowd included a bunch of kids from my high school. There were murmurs in the crowd and it was clear someone was coming up with a nomination from the floor. I was still stunned, trying to protest, but unable to get anyone to hear or pay attention to me. Then a young Asian man with wire-rimmed glasses bounced up to Rev. Terasa and handed her a piece of paper as he smiled at the crowd. Rev. Terasa look at the paper and shouted, “We have our nominee and it is Pete Buttigieg!” However, the person who then emerged from the crowd and started walking to the stage did not look like this:
He looked like this:
I was mortified that this guy was apparently going to be our new minister, but everyone else was cheering wildly.
In the next scene of my dream, I was asleep in my childhood bedroom, but next to my mom. I woke up, having just heard that the new minister was going to be Pete Buttigieg/Boss Hogg. I muttered, “it’s not true, it can’t be true,” and my mom, even though she seemed to be still asleep, opened her eyes wide and hissed, “IT’S TRUE!” in a really scary way.
Across the bedroom my dad was slumped in a chair, fast asleep but still wearing a khaki suit and a red polka dot tie. I wondered where Zeke was, because he was supposed to be asleep in another bed in the room, but he wasn’t. I reached for a sweatshirt to put on because I was cold, but the shirts I kept trying to wear were Zeke’s pajama shirts. They didn’t fit.
I looked out the window and noticed that Zeke had climbed up to the height of the second story window by stepping on a tree and then onto some latticework or an arbor. He was sucking on a lollipop and wearing a baseball cap. I was alarmed. “It’s the middle of the night! Why are you outside climbing a tree?”
He looked at me and grinned slyly and said, “I have the day off tomorrow.” I ran downstairs and out the front door and retrieved him from the tree.
And then I woke up, head and heart both pounding, used the bathroom, and headed downstairs (in real life) for a snack. While writing this I have finished the box of Cheez-Its (it was almost empty anyway) and my glass of Tropicana (no pulp).
Yesterday a family member sent me this article from National Geographic explaining why people are having dreams like this during a pandemic. Apparently I’m not the only one and there’s science behind it all. But I really hope this isn’t going to be a recurring 3am activity for the rest of the quarantine. I really hope not.
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Tonight I was called in for Zeke’s second bedtime shift, after Randy had rocked him to sleep, put him in the crib, shushed him and left the room and Zeke decided he wasn’t yet ready to go to bed. This used to happen often. Now, thankfully, it is only occasional. Zeke typically goes to bed on the first try. He sleeps through the night about two-thirds of the time. That’s just the way it is.
It is easy to become frustrated when Zeke won’t go to sleep or when he wakes up during the night. He is as light a sleeper as his sister is a deep sleeper. I won’t lie and say we don’t often get exasperated, because we do.
But tonight when I went in to take my turn, I sang my lullabies in my scratchy voice and tried not to cough too much. And I snuggled Zeke in my arms. I stuffed his feet back into the sleep sack. I wrapped an extra blanket around him when he gestured to it lying in his crib. He drank a few more ounces of milk and he fell asleep. He was asleep long before I finished “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” traditionally my benediction lullaby, my way of praying for the people we love.
But I kept holding him tight and rocking and thinking of the people who can’t tuck in their babies anymore. My heart broke a couple weeks ago when my mom’s friend lost her 21-year-old son to a rare disease. She was the third of my mom’s good friends to lose a son in as many years. And my heart shattered all over again last week when 8-year-old Emily Barkes and her mom died in a fire in their home. Emily was in third grade at Zoe’s school. Zoe’s beloved teacher was Emily’s teacher last year. Emily’s 11-year-old sister Sarah and their dad survived. Sarah is still in the hospital recovering from injuries. I keep thinking of the fire and the aftermath and how Sarah and her Dad are even functioning. I keep thinking about how that could happen to us. And then you have to stop thinking because your brain just short circuits if you think that way for too long.
Tonight I was thinking about how Bill Barkes never imagined that night would be the last one he would spend with his wife, and that it would be the last time he could tuck his daughter into bed. I just couldn’t bring myself to put Zeke back in his crib. I kept thinking of the chorus of an old Pat McGee song “if I could hold you tonight, I might never let go” even though that’s about a girlfriend and not a son. I felt the weight of his muscular little toddler body in my lap and on my chest. One of his arms around me and one curled under himself. I leaned in and kissed his soft hair. I gave thanks for his breathing. I wished for him happiness, health, safety, and peace. I held him and rocked and promised myself I would always appreciate the opportunity to hold him, even when he’s going berserk and I’m very tired.
This is Emily Barkes. 
I didn’t know her, but I know she is loved and she is missed.
If you would like to help Emily’s family deal with their medical expenses and rebuild, there is a fund set up here: http://www.gofundme.com/gsvlsc
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This morning at 7:40 when I put the kids in the car to go to school and day care, Zeke spotted a potato chip in his carseat, leftover from my snack Saturday afternoon to stave off low blood sugar as I shuttled Zoe from soccer game to birthday party and home again. I had shared a couple chips with Zeke to assuage his frustration at being hauled in and out of the minivan too many times. So he promptly put the chip in his mouth.
“Mmmm. Old potato chip for breakfast!” I said.
“How delightful!” Zoe exclaimed.
Zeke’s carseat is also stiff and stained around the edges from the pumpkin cranberry apple squeezer that I foolishly gave him during this same day of driving. I uncapped it and handed it to him after we deposited Zoe at the birthday party. We arrived at the playground where I would chase him around during Zoe’s party and pulled into the parking lot. Something funny was on the radio so I sat there for a minute. Also Zeke was very quiet. I was relieved that he was quiet, so I chose to suspend my better judgment for a moment. When I came to my senses and got out of the car and opened his door I discovered him thoughtfully dabbing small blobs of pumpkin cranberry apple puree all over his legs. He had made quite an interesting design. Then he was wiping the blobs off onto his carseat. I reached for the baby wipes and he grabbed some and started desperately trying to wipe the rest of the stuff off his legs and hands and face. I helped. The empty pouch and the dirty wipes, now hardened into a mass, are still on the floor of the car. And I haven’t brought the carseat in to wash the seat cover yet because it is unbelievably complicated to disassemble and reassemble. You may think “how hard could it be?” but unless you have done this yourself with a new model Britax Marathon carseat, I dare you to figure it out any faster than we can, or to do it without swearing.
When we are not feeding him potato chips, and he is eating regular food at the table, Zeke likes to feed himself with utensils. He stabs his strawberries and cucumbers and macaroni with a fork, but not the child sized fork we have thoughtfully provided. Instead he leaves the table and goes to the play kitchen to procure a very tiny fork from one of Zoe’s tea sets and returns to the table with that. Or a tiny spoon or two tiny spoons or a tiny knife but we’ve told him you don’t eat with a knife. Sometimes when he’s done he will reach up and push the tiny utensils into the sink to be washed.
If you’re looking for someone to furnish the sound effect of blood curdling scream for your upcoming Halloween party, Zeke’s your man. So far this afternoon he has demonstrated this skill no fewer than four times, to show his displeasure at such injustices as me taking my keys from him in order to open the front door, me putting him in his car seat so we can take Zoe to martial arts, me trying to extract from his grip the dirty diaper that I’ve just removed from his tush, and I forget the other one. When Zeke was younger we taught Zoe to always try to trade something to Zeke if she wanted something he had, rather than grabbing an object from his hand. Somehow I have not learned that lesson myself, or else I just don’t carry around enough objects to be able to make exchanges for all the things Zeke is clutching that he’s not supposed to have.
While he’s still not technically speaking English, Zeke can still communicate and understand most of what we say and definitely makes jokes. When he’s drinking water from a sippy cup he will often pause after a long sip and say “aaaaahhhhhh!” like he’s in a Coke commercial. When you put on music he will dance by kind of doing squats and smiling. He will put things in the trash can when you ask, wipe his own nose with a tissue, and retrieve your shoes when it’s time to go outside. He loves to play in the tub and fill cups with water. He will climb up to the sink and turn on the water and fill up a cup and pour it out. Anywhere. He makes phone calls on any handy banana. He loves to point at school buses and playgrounds. At said playgrounds, and everywhere else, he climbs like he thinks he’s three.
So much chasing, so much slobber, so much snuggling, punctuated by the occasional head butt.
Happy 17 months!
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We have retired the baby monitor. Rest assured, the baby is still working hard. He’s even been promoted to toddler, now able to walk as fast or faster than he could crawl, which was surprisingly speedily. Strangers on the playground would frequently remark, “wow, he’s fast!” as he careened around their kids going up stairs on his hands and knees. But the monitor is superfluous. It was only being used by Zeke himself as a toy, because it has buttons and beeps when you push them. He would pick up the monitors and press the buttons and carry them from room to room. If he cries when he’s asleep we can hear him anyway. He’s plenty loud. And if he cries for an extra minute because we are in the bathroom or washing dishes and can’t hear him immediately, he’ll live. We are just callous that way.
Last night after we came home from camp and day care and the grocery store, Zeke was a little edgy. He had started to melt down at the store, occasional threatening cries staved off by me carrying him and Zoe pushing the cart while I hissed at her to watch out every 30 seconds or so when she almost crashed into someone or something. In the checkout line the cashier, a man, thoughtfully handed Zeke the electronic PIN pad so he could push buttons. I don’t know how he knew that Zeke loves to push buttons, but that definitely bought us some time. We made it home, and I plied Zeke with a bottle of milk and Sesame Street so I could bring in the groceries. Sometime during all that he fell down the stairs, but was ok, and I held him for a while on the sofa, as I was dripping with sweat from all the trips in and out and hauling him around and it was a hot day, and he seemed fine. How many times can a toddler fall down the stairs before he actually gets hurt? I don’t want to find out.
By the time Randy got home from work Zeke was really cranky. I hadn’t had a chance to make any food for anyone because I had been chasing him. Randy picked him up and held him and they both dozed off. Randy for only a moment, but Zeke was out. This was 7 o’clock. At least an hour or an hour and a half before Zeke usually goes to bed. And he was wearing a dirty shirt and a diaper. And hadn’t had a bath. But he was asleep, so Randy laid him down in the crib and put a blanket over him. Perhaps 30 minutes later, Zeke woke up screaming. He screamed when I picked him up, screamed throughout the bath, screamed while getting his pajamas on, although he cooperated for all of these activities anyway. He’s very good at putting his arms through the sleeves of shirts, although he does not care for pants. The wailing abated momentarily when Zoe brought up the musical glowworm that used to be hers that we recently rediscovered and she said Zeke could have. She was kind and he was distracted for an instant, and then resumed screaming.
Randy attempted to feed him and get him back to sleep for about an hour, but he would have none of it.
So he stayed up until 11. At least he wasn’t screaming all that time. From 9 to 11 he played happily. He climbed on and off the sofas about 50 times. He wore hats. He carried around a small dinosaur and rearranged all the coasters. I asked him to put the dinosaur on the coaster and he did! I asked him to bring the dinosaur to Daddy and he did! He’s good at following instructions when he wants to. And we read many books. Front to back, back to front. Occasional pages here and there. He prefers books with photos of objects to illustrations. He flips through these books and points to items of interest and says “this?” and looks at us. It sounds more like “dis” and we say the name of the object. Sometimes it feels like we’re undergoing some kind of memory quiz or neurological exam. “LEMON! BOOTS! FROG! BOWL! BATHTUB! HOUSE! GRAPES! GRAPES AGAIN! FROG! APPLE! BOOTS!” We hope we will pass the test.
Last night in one of the books on one of the pages filled with grocery store-related items, there was a red bell pepper. Zeke pointed to it again and again. “PEPPER! PEPPER! PEPPER! PEPPER!” punctuated occasionally by “WALLET AND MONEY!” “POTATOES!” and then back to “PEPPER!” and every time I said pepper Zeke smiled, until he was finally laughing out loud at the pepper. We would close the book and he would open it again, find the page, and point to the pepper, “PEPPER!” Laughter. “PEPPER!” Laughter. Oh thank goodness for amusing vegetables.
Finally he started getting floppy and curling up and Randy got him another bottle of milk and I took him outside for the lullaby walk. Within a few minutes he was asleep. Over the past month his sleeping habits have improved significantly. About 85% of the time — clearly a scientific measurement — he will go to sleep without a fight around 8:30 and sleep through the night, until somewhere between 6am and 8am. The other 15% of the time there is some sort of sleeping calamity, either at bedtime or at 2 or 3 or 4am. But progress has definitely been made, for which, and for that red bell pepper, we are profoundly thankful.
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I realized recently that Zeke has a different mom than Zoe did. Certainly I gave birth to both of them. I remember both days clearly. But I have come to understand that I am a different person than I was seven years ago, and that it is impossible to be the same mother when you have two kids as you were with your first. And they are totally different human beings, so you can’t really parent them in the same way.
Does this seem totally obvious? Perhaps it is, but it just occurred to me the other day, and Zeke is almost 13 months old. I realized as he was lying on the rug in the kids room, crying and gently rolling back and forth, that I have a much higher threshold for crying than I did with Zoe. Not that I enjoy hearing Zeke cry, but it is usually clear to me that he’s not breaking or broken, especially when he’s lying on the floor crying and doesn’t want to be held, and that he just needs to get over himself. Zoe did not have tantrums, except for a couple months at bedtime when she was giving up her afternoon nap. Apparently we were extraordinarily lucky in that regard. Zeke has already started these microtantrums when he doesn’t get what he wants. I just look at him in disbelief, like “you are not doing this. I refuse to acknowledge your behavior.”
I used to worry before Zeke was born that he wouldn’t get as much attention as Zoe did when she was little. If anything, he gets more. It’s hard to ignore a baby. And truthfully, impractical and unwise. It’s much easier to make the seven-year-old do her own thing, which thankfully she is quite capable of, but doesn’t always enjoy. And Zeke has two parents and a sister to chase him around. He is not hurting for attention.
At the same time, I definitely let him do things I would never have let Zoe do. I don’t know if this is because I am 40 and tired, more distracted–and sometimes trying hard to pay attention to Zoe, especially when she’s playing soccer, practicing martial arts, or doing homework–or more relaxed. Or if it’s because he’s a boy or because he has an insane amount of energy and doesn’t seem to mind diving headfirst off furniture. You would think this last one would make me pay more attention and that would be something we would not let him do, but he is fast and determined and very rubbery, it seems. During Zoe’s soccer practice last week Zeke was furiously climbing up a hill, into the trees. He was fine. There were many parents and other siblings there who I’m sure saw him. Would I have let Zoe out of my site climbing through nature for even one second when she was one? Unlikely. I am hoping this means I am just more chill and not actually negligent.
So my attitude and my attention span have changed, but I also recognize that Zeke’s adventurousness and mischievousness demand a different parent than Zoe did. I don’t know if this is because he’s a second child or a boy or just the happenstance of his personality, which is already joyfully and exasperatingly abundant. But I know what worked with Zoe won’t necessarily work with him. He is going to make me develop some new skills, which is not a bad thing, but I’m sure won’t be easy. Being the mom of a seven-year-old requires different skills than parenting a four-year-old for sure, so clearly I am a work in progress already. Even at this moment I can feel my tolerance for dirt increasing dramatically.
You Ask a Lot of Questions 