Mommy Monday: I Never Thought I’d…

There are times when Kali and Jack will be cuddled up, giggling over something he just did – or sometimes nothing at all – and she’ll look up and say, “I never thought I’d have a baby brother.” She’ll further explain that she kind of resigned herself to always being an only child.

As we pack up the house for our move, she’ll sometimes say, “I never thought we’d be moving. I just kinda thought I’d always live here.”

She really does think about these things. At ten, she has definite ideas on how her life is, how it should be, and how it will be. In that sense, she’s a lot more connected to herself than I was at that age. I didn’t give the future much thought at ten. In fact, I kind of expected things to change at any moment, so when they did it was normal. When I was Kali’s age, I’d already lived in at least three or four different places.

I was too busy reading to give much thought to how many siblings I’d eventually have. My parents just kept popping them out and somewhere between To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men, I’d look up to find a new baby sister.

Then again, I was convinced I’d never live past 18. Not sure why. I couldn’t envision myself in my 20’s or 30’s. I shared this prediction with my best friend once. She thought I was crazy. Not just cause it was a very morbid thing to think, but because I’d also recently confessed to being able to control traffic lights and NYC subway trains with my mind.

So, I am fascinated when Kali and I have these conversations in which she shares what she imagines for herself and our family. She seems to take change with ease. Excitement even. It’s like by having another baby and moving to a new house we’ve opened up a whole new world of possibilities for her.

Never thought you’d have a baby brother, but now here one is? Why not another? Why not a baby sister? Of course, this also teaches a valuable lesson in disappointment when I explain to her that Mommy will, most likely, not be having anymore babies.

Once, after she’d admitted that she still couldn’t believe she had a baby brother, I asked, “Is that a good thing?”

“Yeah. I never thought I’d have one, but I’m happy I do. Life is so funny.”

What a funny thing for a ten-year-old to say, right? She already has this sense of wonderment about life and an appreciation for it. I hope that never goes away.

Do you talk to your kids about their expectations? Their wants? Their dreams? What are they? Do you feel a responsibility to keep things as they are for your kids or have you found that your kids adapt well to change?

Mommy Monday: Getting To Know You

Your children assume that your life began the moment they were born.

Kali is always shocked to find that I know things.

“Oh my God, Mommy. How do you know this song? I’ve never heard it before.”

“Um, cause it’s from 1982.”

Once, we were headed upstairs with our dinner and I carried both of our plates and glasses.

“You’re really good at that.”

“Well, I used to be a waitress. This is a breeze compared to some of the stuff I carried.”

“You used to be a waitress?!”

“Uh huh. In Texas.”

“You lived in Texas?!”

She asked both as if I’d just confessed to inventing ice cream.

The older she gets, I realize there’s a lot she doesn’t know about me. The other night, while driving home from the library, I dropped another bombshell.

“I have to tell you something.”

*pause*

“I used to be married. To someone else. Before Daddy.”

We’d already had the biological Dad convo a few years ago and I thought I’d save the first husband revelation for a later date.

“You were?!”

“Yes.”

“To who?”

So, I tell her about my first husband – met him when I was 18, married at 22, divorced before you could say, “infidelity abound.”

She leans forward from the backseat and whispers conspiratorially, “Does Daddy know this?”

“Yes!”

“Well, just checking. I mean, I can’t believe he married you knowing you used to be married to someone else.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He wasn’t married to someone else before.”

“So? He had girlfriends and stuff.”

“That’s different.

The conversation was taking an ugly turn. I thought this revelation might make me seem worldly and mysterious to my daughter. That she would see me as someone other than the woman that worries about bills and drives her to the library and after-school book club. I wanted her to think I was cool. Instead, she kinda made me feel like The Whore of Babylon.

We get in the house and she says, “Are you sure Daddy knows, cause I’m gonna tell him.” And then, just in case I was lying, she proceeds to confirm that Donny did indeed know that he wasn’t my first husband.

Nice to see whose side she’s on now.

“When will you tell Jack?”

“Well, I don’t know now. I’m sure you’ll tell him soon enough, Ms. Judgey McJudgerstein.”

Last night, I thought she’d get a good laugh out of this pic from my 18th birthday:

“Can you believe Grandpa let me wear that out of the house?,” I asked, giggling like a fool. “It was a nightgown, but I wore it as a dress.”

“I can’t believe anyone let you out the house like that!”

It’s odd what impresses her. She’s more in awe of my past in the food service industry than my tales of hob-knobbing with, now, irrelevant celebrities or how damn hot I used to be.

“I mean, why would you wear a nightgown in public? Why not just buy a real dress? I know your birthday is in August, but it couldn’t have been that hot, could it?”

“OK. Go to bed.”

“I don’t have school tomorrow.”

“Go to bed anyway.”

So, how do you handle discussing past relationships/escapades with your children?

Mommy Monday: You Can’t Make Me!

I am painfully aware that everything I do is allowed only because my children are feeling charitable. Take changing Jack’s diaper for instance. Sometimes he lays there nice and calm and allows me to do what I have to do. Other times, he throws a major fit like his ass is covered in paper cuts and I’m using salt-soaked wipes. During the times that he lays quietly, he kinda eyes me like, “Yeah, that’s right. Make sure you get under that scrotum real good.”

And then I realize I’m his bitch.

With Kali, it’s a different story. And though I’m not one of those “because I said so” parents – I’ll supply a reason for why I’m making her do something or forbidding another – it is expressly understood that once I give my reasoning, she will abide no matter what.

So, I was very firm in my decision to force Kali to participate in a book club at school. Every two weeks they meet after school to discuss a book and practice quizzing each other on it. Next month, they will compete against other schools’ clubs that have read the same books. Personally, my nerdy ass thought it sounded like a lot of fun. Kali? Not so much.

I told myself that this wasn’t the same as parents that suit up their kids to play sports two seconds after they learn to walk without any idea if the child 1. has any desire to play the sport and 2. is any good at it. Hell, Kali’s 10! I know she likes to read.

“I hate to read!,” she yelled recently when I told her that she could not quit the club.

How could any child of mine hate reading? Then I remembered that she was, indeed, my child and therefore prone to exaggeration.

“You like to read!”

“Well,” she said, “I don’t like to read the books in the club. They’re boring.”

She had a point. Of the half dozen books assigned so far, only two have been anything Kali would have chosen on her own. The rest were boring books about dogs on the open range and little Native American girls.

The club isn’t fun for her, but I’m remiss to let her quit. What kind of message is that sending? Or is it okay to encourage quitting something you forced them to do anyway? Am I just as bad as those parents living out their varsity dreams via their offspring?

I think I’ve come up with a solution. I still think reading and discussing books is a good thing. It teaches them to really think about what they’ve read and see things from other perspectives. With that in mind, Kali and I will have our own book club.

We’ll read the same book and discuss it. We’ll come up with a handful of questions each to go over together. Any of you are welcome to join in with your kid of the same age (or close to it.)

So, where should we start? I’m thinking of starting with the Percy Jackson books. Here’s the trailer for the movie based on the first book.

So, suggest some titles for Kali and I. And don’t judge me when I force her to read the Harry Potter series.

Class Act

For years now I’ve wanted to get Kali involved in some kind of extra curricular activity. It’s been hard because most activities are ridiculously expensive and Kali is ridiculously picky.

When she was four she took ballet at her preschool for a year. She enjoyed it, but became too old for that particular program once she started kindergarten. Since then, we looked into piano lessons and soccer. Both were very expensive. We were thisclose to signing her up for soccer, but when we explained that she’d have to attend weekly practice and compete against other teams, her interest quickly waned. Thank God too, because the costly registration and uniform fees were non-refundable.

A few weeks ago, Kali’s school sent home some information on local activities for kids. One that caught my eye was a creative arts program. The class meets once a week for an hour to learn acting, dance, and video production. They put on two performances a year and it was only $50 a month. I told Kali we’d be going to the signup – with complimentary pizza and beverages – whether she liked it or not.

She did not.

She hit the roof. She insisted that she’d be no good at singing, dancing, and acting and that she didn’t want to talk in front of other people. I explained to her that she had no idea what she was good at because she refused to try anything. She agreed to go simply for the free food and also, the small minor detail that she really had no damn choice.

Now, I’m not a fan of parents pushing their kids to participate in programs against their will, but my child has never tried anything past the elementary ballet lessons. I figured I’d pay for it for a month or two and if she didn’t like it – or sucked at it – I’d pull her out.

Saturday, my Mom and I took Kali and my little sis (who is very much interested in the performing arts) to the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet place in order to sign up for the program. I’d warned Kali before we left, “Don’t get there and act like you’ve never had anything. You can have one slice of pizza, maybe two, and something to drink.”

It was the ghettoest thing I’ve ever seen. There was no organization at all. The director who ran the program looked like she’d had a Xanax shake before we got there. There were no forms to fill out, no program schedule and the website promised that each child would receive a bag of items needed for class complete with a journal – I didn’t see those either.

The director floated around talking to each parent without saying much of anything. Kali sat and ate her two slices of pizza with a smug look on her face. She knew I was not feeling it. When the director made her way to our table, she couldn’t even tell me the exact address of where the classes would be held. She was not getting my $50!

“Mommy, can I get more pizza and maybe a brownie?”

“Sure, Kali. Eat up.”

Not all is lost. Friday, her school sent home a sign-up sheet for a book club. Every other week Kali will stay after school for an hour to meet with the club. They discuss the assigned books and come up with questions about what they read. Then they practice competing with each other using a buzzer to answer the questions. The ten best participants will make up a team that competes against other book clubs in the county in February. Cost? $5 to cover the snacks provided at the meetings.

“I don’t want to do it!”

“But you like to read!”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to do the buzzer thing.”

“Are you kidding? Buzzers are fun! I’m all about buzzing in before the other guy. It’s awesome!”

“I don’t want to compete on a stage and have everyone looking at me.”

Now, I reason that if she doesn’t like the competition part of the meetings, she’ll suck at it and won’t make the team. And that’s fine. But I want her to have the experience of discussing books with other students. Book clubs are fun!

“Fine! But I’m only going cause there’s gonna be snacks!”

“Yeah, that and I’m making you.”

Are you sensing a pattern here?

All Night Long

Every summer Kali’s sleep pattern gets thrown out of whack. I allow it. Maybe I feel guilty for not being able to afford summer camps (not that I’d allow her to sleep away from home) or fancy family vacations. (Once Mama graduates and gets a J-O-B that will change.)

That may have something to do with it, but the main reason I allow it is because I remember the magic of staying up all night. When I’d visit my father in the summer, I did it many times. Hanging out in his basement after everyone had gone to sleep was how I discovered Elvis, The Beatles and Jimmy Stewart movies. More importantly, it’s where I discovered my favorite author Ed McBain. When you’re a kid, breaking night somehow makes you feel all grown up. It’s during those times that I did some of my grandest dreaming and plotted some of my most ambitious adventures.

Staying up all night is one of the few times you have the house to yourself as a kid. You know, without the whole “child neglect” involved in leaving kids home alone. I remember the fun of it and I don’t want to begrudge Kali that.

Of course, times are different and with satellite cable and the internet I have to be more vigilant in what she’s doing while the rest of us slumber. A quick history check of the web browsers shows that she (and my little sister) are more interested in Twilight fan fiction than Jimmy Stewart movies, but whatever.

As school time approaches, I slowly start to get her back on a normal schedule. Today, I made her get up at 9:30am to go with Jack and I to the doctor (she went to bed at 1am.) That beats the down at 6am and up at 4pm schedule she was on a few weeks ago.

She has never had a problem bouncing back once school starts so I’m not worried. If she wants to build pillow and blanket forts in the summertime, and read Maniac Magee and Tales of  a 4th Grade Nothing until the sun comes up, I’ll allow it. There will be a time, before she knows it, when she won’t be able to enjoy such luxuries even during the summertime.

Do your kids sleeping habits change during the summer? If so, do you find it difficult to get them back on track once school rolls around? What are some of your favorite breaking night memories from childhood.

More Adventures With The Tooth Fairy

Kali still believes in Santa Claus and The Tooth Fairy. Well, not really, but we pretend that she does. This is funny since I was convinced that I wouldn’t be one of those parents to indulge such things. Then Kali started school and Santa Claus went from being some guy who works in the mall to the man responsible for providing my child with all the things she wanted for Christmas. That bastard.

I know she knows there’s no such thing as Santa Claus, and she knows I know she knows. That doesn’t stop us from leaving cookies and milk on the fireplace every Christmas Eve. I know she knows there’s no such thing as The Tooth Fairy, and she knows I know she knows. That doesn’t stop her from expecting $5 under her pillow the morning after she loses a tooth.

Now, we face a battle of wills. Who will be the first to break? I think she wants me to admit that I’ve been lying all these years and I want her to admit that she knows better and stop making me jump through damn hoops.

For example, a few week ago Kali lost two teeth within days of each other. I’ve yet to give her $10. Why? Because Kali stays up all night long in the summertime. All.Night.Long. Now that my little sister lives with us its even worse. The two of them stay up all night watching TV, playing video games, reading, giggling, and writing Robert Pattinson fan fiction… or whatever the hell it is little girls do when they stay up all night.

So, here’s where the conflict comes in: Kali has put the two teeth under her pillow and then proceeded to hang out all night. I fall asleep at a reasonable hour and then the next day, I’ve forgotten. She wakes up in the afternoon all shitty because there’s no money.

“Mommy, the Tooth Fairy didn’t come… again!”

“Really?”

“Really! And my teeth are still under the pillow.”

“Well, maybe you should go to bed at a normal hour.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“She comes at night when you’re sleeping. You have to be in the bed so she can put the money under your pillow.”

“Okay, first of all, that’s creepy and second of all, why can’t she put the money there when I’m sleeping during the day?”

“Because that’s not the way it works! People shouldn’t sleep during the day. Little girls should go to bed at night so the tooth fairy can come. Maybe you threw her off with staying up all night. Maybe, maybe, maybe she doesn’t have time to come during the day just for you. Maybe she’s sleeping because she was out all night collecting the teeth of kids who went to sleep when they were supposed to.”

“You just said people shouldn’t sleep during the day!”

“She’s not people! She’s a fairy.”

“Yeah, and fairies are magic so it shouldn’t matter. She should come when I’m sleeping. No matter what time it is. She owes me ten dollars!”

And on and on it goes. Who will break first? Stay tuned.

Other tooth fairy adventures can be read here and here and here and here.

Oldie But Goodie: The Daughter Becomes the Mother

This blog was originally posted on March 23, 2007

It’s a scary moment when a woman realizes she’s becoming her mother.  Not that there’s anything wrong with my mother. She’s beautiful, strong, generous, and funny. She went from welfare to the NYPD. No, she wasn’t arrested you ding-dongs! She was a cop.

I’m not saying I’m a better mother.  Sure, Kali’s life is different than mine was at her age. She lives in a house now that is much nicer than any house I ever lived in.  As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t say I’m a better mother than anyone who loves, takes care of, provides for, and protects their children.  We all do the best we can. And that’s exactly what my mother did. The best she could. We were always healthy, happy, and safe. Everything else is just packaging.

I will say I’m a lot more fun than my Mom was with me. Then again, she also had four other kids, a house to clean, and a dangerous job. Hell, she wasn’t having fun with us because she loved us less, her ass was just tired.

Imagine how scary it is to not only realize you are becoming your mother, but that your child is turning into you, all at the same time. Yesterday, Kali had a meltdown. Why? The batteries in her DirecTV remote were dead and she couldn’t change the channel to watch her favorite show. Yes, I know. Back when I was growing up I didn’t have my own television in my room. If my mother was watching Donahue my siblings and I had to imagine what was going on with our favorite programs.

Nina: Then Rog says, “You’re not gonna tell Mama, are you?”

My sister: And Dee says, “No. I won’t tell…if you give me a quarter.”

(canned laughter)

My brother: Then Dwayne comes in, “Hey, hey, hey.”

So, last night Kali storms past the study in a blur of pouty lips and wild hair.  I hear her rummaging through the kitchen drawers.  Donny asks her what she’s looking for. She growls a response. I barely make out the words “batteries.”

“Here, Kali,” I called out. I handed her two batteries from the computer desk. She stomps upstairs. Donny comes into the study, “That girl is so much like you it’s scary.”

“I don’t act like that!”

I totally act like that.

As she reaches the top of the stairs I hear a thump and then a wail.  In her huff she managed to wack her hand against the banister. Here’s what my mother would have said to me, “That’s what you get for flouncin’ your butt around.”

I settled for the more succinct, “Good for you.” Don’t worry, she couldn’t hear me. I was downstairs, remember?  After we realized I’d given her bad batteries, and with her hand throbbing, what followed was about five minutes of pure hysteria. By the time I figured out a solution (we just gave her the DTV remote from our room) my child was a heap of quivering, sobbing, flesh and tears on the floor of the formal living room.

I laid down with her. Rubbed her back and wiped her tears. I kissed her wet face. I explained that she couldn’t react that way every time something went wrong. Donny was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed watching the whole thing.

“Hello, Pot. Have you met Kettle?”

The one thing that all parents have in common is that we ask our kids to lie. We teach them not to, and we damn sure make it clear that they can’t lie to us, but all parents will ask their children to lie at some point. Anyone who says otherwise is…well, lying.

Kali’s school is having a Fun Run fundraiser to obtain a new gym floor.  For the next week the kids get pledges from family, friends, and local businesses.  Everyday they bring in their pledge sheet and get prizes. So, if I pledge $10 for every lap Kali will walk/run she gets a camera. A $3 per lap pledge gets her a ball.  The prize for the $50 per lap pledge is an iPod Nano.  Of course, that’s the only prize that the child has to complete the race, and collect the money, before they can collect.

I explained to Kali that normally that iPod would cost about $150. I told her if I pledged $50 per lap, and she did one lap, we’d get the iPod she wanted for her birthday for $100 less, and we’d also help the school get a new gym floor.  I then made her familiar with the terms, “can’t beat that with a stick” and “win-win.” The problem, of course, is that I have to trust that my child will not do more than one lap. She assures me she can handle doing one lap only and then sitting the rest out.  We decide to practice to be sure.

“Ok, Kali. I’ll be the Fun Run people, and you be you. You just finished running/walking one lap. You ready?’

“Wait.”

She then proceeds to run through the kitchen, foyer, formal living and dining rooms, and back to me in the kitchen.  She stands before me huffing and puffing, leaned over with her hands resting on her knees.

“Ok, I’m ready.”

Hey, my child’s a professional.

“Hey, little girl. You only ran one lap. Don’t you want to do more?”

“No, just one.”

“Are you sure? All your friends are doing more. You can really help your school!”

“No, that’s okay. I just want to do one because my Mommy said we can’t afford an iPod the other way.”

Yeah, so. We still gotta practice that part.

The Things That Come Out of Her Mouth

At ten, Kali is already displaying some teenage smartassy ways.  Not in a disrespectul way, but a definite glimpse into what I think her young adult personality will be.

She will passive aggressively tell when you’re wearing the wrong thing.

“So Mom, you’re wearing that shirt because?”

Then she lets it dangle there until you answer or go change your shirt.

She will not use the common phrases that everyone else does.

If she didn’t hear/understand something you just said, she doesn’t respond like a normal kid.

“Kali, can you  go upstairs, look in my room on my side of the bed, and bring me my book? It ’s on the floor under a stack of magazines.”

Then Kali will look up from her own book or video game, or whatever she was doing instead of paying attention and ask, “What now?”

What now? Not, “Huh?” Or, “What?” Or even, “What did you say?”

“What now?”

How grown is that?

Kali will make up her own words.

A few weeks ago she was on the floor playing with Jack when I told her to go take a bath. She turned to Jack and said, “OK, Jack. I gotta go clean my bootois. I’ll be back.”

“You gotta go clean your what?”

“My bootois. BOO-TWA”

“What the hell is a bootois?”

“My butt.”

“The why not say, ‘butt?’”

“Because I don’t like that word, but I like bootois.”

And wanna hear something funny? A few days ago…

“Come to Mama, Jack. Let me change your bootois.”

And Jack, at ten months old, gave me a look that clearly said, “Change my what?”

Iron Woman

My Mom has been living with us for almost three months now and I have to say, so far, its been pretty cool. Everyone is getting along, and more importantly, no one has died.

My biggest fear is that I would be expected to change the way I do things, but I’ve been pretty much left the hell alone. And that’s just the way I like it. I’m too old and stubborn to change. That doesnt mean; however, that my mother doesn’t point out certain… habits. Nothing like having a fresh pair of eyes to help you realize that you are, in fact, insane.

Take last night for instance. I bought the game Animal Crossing: Wild World for the Nintendo DS because having AC: City Folk for the Wii just wasn’t enough. Besides, I need something to keep me busy for those nights I’m held hostage as Jack’s human pacifier before he falls asleep. So, Donny and Jack had just fallen asleep when I tried to configure the DS to our wireless and it asked for the WEP code.

I had no idea what that was so I woke Donny up and asked him, “What’s our WEP code or can you tell me how to find it?” He thought for a few seconds… which stretched into a full minute. He took the DS and groggily typed in codes. All were wrong.

“You gotta go through the router on the computer in the bonus room.”

“O.K. How do I do that?”

He sighs, gets out of bed with the DS and leaves the room. I took that opportunity to run downstairs and see what Kali, Bruklyn, and my Mom were doing. It was after 11p.m., but the girls are out of school for the summer and determined to stay up to see sunrise at least once and my mother doesn’t get off Animal Crossing on the Wii in her bedroom until at least 1 a.m.

“What’s up?,” my mother asked when I entered her room.

“Nothing.”

“Donny and Jack sleeping?”

“Jack is. I woke up Donny to get this code I needed to get the DS online.”

“Nina! Why’d you wake that man up for that?”

I then gave her the honest-to-God answer that didn’t at all seem pain-in-the-assish when I did it.

“Well, he’d only been asleep for a short while when I woke him up.”

“That’s no excuse. You need your ass kicked.”

She always says that to me. She never says that about Donny. OK, once. He left Bella outside and she chewed up a bunch of cardboard boxes and she said, “Your husband needs his ass kicked.” But usually, she takes his side.

This is nothing new. She always took my brother and sisters’ sides over mine growing up. But that’s okay too because I know that deep down I’m her favorite… or it’s that belief that keeps me from developing a complex.

Having my mother around has generated many childhood memories. Just watching her with my little sister gives me wartime-like flashbacks. Sometimes, right in front of my mother, I will turn to my 12-year-old sister and ask, “She gets on your nerves, doesn’t she? It’s okay. You can tell me. I know she does. ‘Cause she got on mine.” At which point my mother will pout and feign hurt feelings. “I do not get on her nerves!!”

“Yes you do. She’s just too young and afraid to say it, but I’m grown. You’re a pain in the ass.”

Nothing triggers old-school memories though like my Mom’s big habit (read:obsession), ironing. I didn’t even know people still used irons. When she first moved in she asked where we kept our iron. It took me five minutes to realize that we owned one and another ten to remember where we kept it… and even then, Donny had to tell me. We only own one because the lady who helped us register for wedding gifts tsk-tsk’d when I tried skipping over it on the list.

My mother irons any and every thing. She will iron socks if you let her. She has an ironing board set up in her room. Once, I went in there and picked up an aerosol can from her dresser expecting to find hair spray or air freshener. It was starch!

And she’s always trying to iron my clothes. Sometimes while I’m still in them. She follows me before I leave the house. “You want me to run an iron over that shirt?”

“Not really.”

And she says “an” iron not “the” iron as if we have more than one to choose from. She’s lucky I found the one!

I pretty much leave her and her ironing habit alone. Except when it comes to jeans. I draw the line at jeans. She sends her jeans to the dry cleaners! What the shit?

One morning, she came into my bedroom and just as she opened the door I woke up. She stood in my doorway with the light from the hallway window coming in behind her. Because of that and the fact that I was still groggy, I could only make out her outline.

“You up?”

“Yeah. Where you going all dressed up?”

“What do you mean?,” she asked stepping further into the room and thus allowing me to get a better look at her. “I’m only wearing a shirt and jeans.”

And sure enough, she was. But the damn crease in her jeans was so sharp, I thought she had on dress slacks.

“Shut up and leave my jeans alone!” She huffed out the room as I rolled around on my bed in laughter.

Then, one evening I was getting ready for class and complaining that all of my jeans were dirty.

“Want to wear a pair of mine?,” she asked going into her closet and returning with a pair of jeans draped over a plastic-covered hanger.

“Ummm…”

“Girl, ain’t nothing wrong with these jeans.” She removed the plastic, unfolded the jeans from the hanger and handed them to me.

I opened them up and it was like unfolding those paper gowns at the doctor’s office. They were stiff and paper-like.

“Jesus Christ! I’m not wearing these!”

“I ask for heavy starch at the cleaners.”

“I see. Those creases could cut a throat.”

“Shut the hell up and give me my jeans!”

I’m Your Mommy

Every now and again I’ll look at Jack and say, “I’m your Mommy.” It has nothing to do with teaching him to speak and everything to do with the fact that sometimes I need to say it out loud. Then it becomes real.

I am your Mommy. I am responsible for your life. Whether you live to see another day depends on me. Whether you spend your day happy and well-fed depends on me. What kind of man/woman you become depends on me. I have a huge part in shaping who you become.

I say those words and then I want to throw up. What the hell was I thinking? Those were not the thoughts going through my head when I made the decision to become a mother… twice! I was thinking of baby names and nursery colors. I was thinking of Eddie Bauer strollers and sweet baby breath.

You would think after doing it the first time I’d get it. Nope. You never get over the wonderment and fear of being someone’s parent. Ever. I think about Kali going to college and I flip out. I think about going to bed at night without one of them living under this roof and I get sweaty palms. I think about one of them driving on the freeway and I just want to bundle them up in a protective bubble and sit them on the shelf of a closet. How the hell did my parents do this? What were they thinking?

One of the great mysteries of motherhood is love. The love I feel for my children is so unconditional and so consuming I am convinced that it is completely unique and unrivaled. I know my parents love me, but there is no way they love me this much. No way. I’m not that special.

I’ve heard women who say they have no interest in becoming mother complain that they’ve been labeled “selfish” for their choice. I don’t understand that. I think being a mother is one of the most selfish things I’ve ever done. I think of all the pain, disappointment, and heartache that comes with life and how our children didn’t ask to be here. But we have them so we can experience those things we don’t remember.

If we’re lucky we’re there for a person’s first look at the ocean, the first time they see a puppy, their first steps, and we’re the recipient of their first, “I love you.” We get to be a part of something bigger.

I’m scared of death. I don’t want to die. I don’t like talking or thinking about it. I’ve always been this way. And then I go and have children which is the one thing that makes it so that you never want to leave this world. It’s a funny thing to think about death so soon after creating new life, but I wonder. I wonder if I’ll be around for them and all the things they’re gonna do.

Lately, I’ve been telling Donny, Kali, and Jack how much I love them. Straight up and at random times. Just in case that trip to class one night is my last.

When I tell him, “I’m your mommy, Jack. And I love you very much,” I know he doesn’t understand and that he won’t remember. I do it anyway.

It took me two and a half hours to post this blog. Because I am a Mommy.

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