TheMommyBlog

Dylan and Daphne each insisted on my holding them in my arms. There was no seating. They were both tired, and cranky, and needing mommy love. They weigh 60 pounds combined. For about 15 minutes, we had a very sweet cuddle going on, with each child nestled into a shoulder and resting, ocasionally patting the other on the shoulder and giggling. Then the slapping, scratching, and biting started. And the crying, wailing, and whispered threats. Then the juice cups came out of mommy’s purse, and then Daphne threw hers up, and was exceedingly distressed about her now-damp sandals. Then they both wanted back up in my arms.

Phone call to Gil, still out on the field: “Aborting mission. Troops cannot possibly last another hour to watch 2 innings. Cannot even pick you guys out of the cast of hundreds, so no joy there either. I’m really, really sorry about this. I’m taking them back home.”

How far away was the car again? A quarter-mile? I had the 2 year old on my shoulders, and marched the 3 1/2 year old along on the ground, walking backwards in front of me, sobbing and holding his arms up to be carried. Amazingly, he walked like that for fully half the distance to the car, stopping now and then when I tripped over him and had to swoop the tumbling Daphne back upright onto my shoulders.
I did get a cute pic, though.

So, we are now at home, and happy, and quiet. Dylan & Daph are snuggled up in my bed with Goldfish snacks, raptly watching Cinderella. And I may go lie down while it’s quiet…

So, I thought I was being clever when I handed my three-year old a bowl of soapy water and a sponge and asked if he wanted to help scrub down the butcher block peninsula in the kitchen. I wandered off for a few minutes, humming to myself and thinking lofty thoughts. Five minutes later, Dylan came tumbling out to announce that they were finished! And that they had cleaned the floor as well! And used lots of soap! Logan was busily smearing the viscous mess back and forth with a dishtowel, beaming with pride at his industry.

My heart sank. “OK! Wow, guys! Thanks! All done! Scoot!” Fuck. The butcher block was swimming in water and bubbles, as was the address book, the answering machine, the savings bonds newly arrived for each child as gifts from my father, and the linen-clad bill organizer (damn you for tempting me, Martha Stewart, damn you!).  There on the floor was a similar pool of water, plus the pump-bottle of Sunlight concentrated dish soap, down about two inches. Under the barstools, a river was forming, fed by rivulets of soapy waterfalls cascading off the edge of the counter. Jesus wept.

I fetched a bucket and got it all mopped up, though it took a while. But when I was done, that floor was clean.

Two additional notes: that same three-year-old who so industrially soaped the counter top was sent to the living room to watch Thomas the Train while I cleaned up, whereupon he promptly fell asleep and peed all over the couch. And then, not 30 seconds ago as I sat here typing, I heard a loud ker-plop! and a fffffffiiiiiizzzzzzz in the kitchen. It sounded exactly like a dropped bottle of beer, spinning in circles and spraying its contents in a glorious arc…

I went to the movies by myself this afternoon to clean out the cobwebs and to to feed my brain some new, possibly constructive thoughts. I had been moping around the house all day, desperately trying to achieve four and a half minutes without children hanging off my limbs or jockeying for position on my lap (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I begged Gil for a hall pass; he was happy to oblige, and naturally, the very next movie showing was Cheaper by the Dozen.

I am embarrassed by how much I laughed at this movie. I was all by myself in the theater, wedged between a dad on my right and a mom on my left, and it was all I could do to keep from jabbing one or the other of them with my elbow and saying, “Alumnus!” or “See this bruise? Same exact thing happened to me.” or “I heard that!”

I even grew up near where it was filmed, and believe me when I say that they completely nailed Evanston parents. The Crate and Barrel trucks lining the streets and signature white boxes littering the house were all too familiar. The triple throne of Chicago is occupied by the Bears, beef products, and fine home furnishings from good ole C&B. I was raised on the stuff and still get a little misty when I think of any of them together; no trip to Furniture Mecca was complete without a detour through the drive-thru at Byron’s Hot Dogs.

After the movie, I met my family at McDonald’s for a treat, and proceeded to tell the kids all about it, since we will definitely be buying the DVD when it comes out. When Logan heard that it was about a family that had twelve kids, he said, ”Whoa. I thought families only went up to ten.”

And I thought ours only went up to three, but strangely, I started to think that it would be much livelier (yeah) and entertaining (no doubt) and so much richer (not) to have more children in the house. Now, please excuse me while I post this and then stuff the computer in the closet. If Gil sees this entry, I’m a dead woman.

Logan: “Ooooh, that’s nice.”
Me: “You know where that is? It’s in Montana. That’s above Colorado, to the north.”
Logan: [skeptically] “ I don’t know about that. Colorado is pretty high. It’s like nine feet.”
Me: “True.”
Logan: “Well how tall is Montana?”
Me: “I think about 10 or 11 feet.”
Logan: ”Whoa.”
Logan: “Is there more snow there than in Colorado?”
Me: “I think there is.”
Logan: “More than Tahoe?”
Me: “Sometimes.”
Logan: “Well, in Colorado, there was grass everywhere and just a little bit of snow. I wish there was snow everywhere and not very much ground. There’s more snow in Tahoe, because it was everywhere, and not a single bit of ground.”
Me: “Yeah, I seem to remember that.”

When I fold laundry (am flashing back to Amber’s post on ironing here), there is a plan. Each family member gets a pile. Each actually gets several piles until the piles can be combined. Pants (trousers for you yurpeens) go on the bottom, then long-sleeved shirts, short-sleeved shirts, undershirts, jammies, underwear, and socks. If there are sweatshirts, these go under the jeans and sweatpants at the very bottom. I fold laundry the same way I play Solitaire; when I know I’ve finished a category, I transfer the next one over. Last pair of jeans for Logan? His shirt pile goes on top, and when that’s done, on go the jammies. Long ago, a decision was made to combine socks and underwear for the boys and keep them all in one drawer (they are only one size apart--let ‘em fidget). At that time, and if I were to be completely honest, each time I dump the whole pile into one drawer, it feels wild and reckless. I have never told anyone about this. I hope we can still be friends.

Fully aware that it sounds compulsive, I stand by my system. Look: I’m a busy girl. I don’t have time to spend straightening something only to have to straighten it again when I get round to putting it all away. Gil has his own method. I think. Yes, he does. [nods] He makes piles too, but he makes dozens of them. All over the place. On every surface. The couch, the chairs, the arms of chairs, backs of chairs, butcher block, kitchen table, dresser, beds, anywhere with a slope of less than 30 degrees. And when he gathers them together for putting away, they are stacked up every which way. He will go to his grave denying this, and I will go to mine swearing it’s true, and we may have to buy plots in separate counties because of it. It drives me absolutely nuts to be putting things away only to have to put it all down and sort it again. With five people going through clothing on a weekly basis, this is no trifling matter. We’re talking serious volume.

When I ended up the sole wage-earner and Gil graciously became the stay-at-home parent, I made concerted and conscious efforts to let go of domestic spheres of influence. I really did, though said efforts may have been invisible to the naked eye for the first year or so. I just could not switch it off and let go (as some of you who know me may be surprised to learn). Finally, two and a half years later, I think I’ve largely done that. I am really not at home much during the week, and so Gil does all of the shopping, school chores, dressing, diaper changing, straightening up, cooking, clutter management, playdates, shuttling, sitter arranging, and, yes, the laundry. He does a great job. The best. He is a very understanding guy for a post-boom Silicon Valley ex-high tech executive who had to swallow his pride and take over diaper duty while his wife supported the family working at a non-profit. Just typing that makes me say, “ouch.” So I am not selling him short. However, if he shrinks one more of my turtleneck sweaters, I am filing for divorce.

You see, I adore my turtleneck sweaters. I’m too big to carry a blankie, or to wear a blue-and-yellow backpack and Superman cape, so I wear comfy clothes. I must have at least 15 of them, in every color, and they are lovely, every last one of them. They fit like snuggly mittens. Go on, try one. I reccommend those from The Gap and Hanna Andersson, when they’re in stock. You won’t be sorry.

So. On arriving home at 8 p.m. last night for the umpteenth time in a long, not-yet-competed string of late nights, I said hello to everyone and started to gather up my newly folded laundry (if you had been there that morning when I couldn’t find a single bra to wear, you’d have been excited for me too). Halfway across the kitchen, I froze in my tracks, looked up at my husband and asked, “You didn’t put this sweater through, did you?” For those of you watching from home, this is where you go fix yourself a bowl of popcorn.

Him: “You put that sweater in the washer yourself yesterday.”
Me: “But did you put it in the dryer?”
Him: [fuck, shit, why does this always happen?] “Yeeeeesssss...”
Me: “...[obviously pissed]...”
Him: “Well what do you do with them?”
Me: “I hang them over a chair, or if they go in the dryer at all, it’s only for a few minutes, and then they go over a chair.”
Him: “But I follow the instructions on the label. The label says they can be washed and dried.”
Me: “I know what the label says--but that doesn’t mean they won’t still shrink!”
Him: “...[wondering why he ever got married]...”
Me: [sigh] [Yes, I know how annoying that is--sighing is a vicious weapon]
Him: “What? What??”
Me: “OK. Well. I’ll try it on later.”
Him: “....[knowing what’s coming]...”
Me: “Haven’t we agreed that you wouldn’t wash my sweaters?”
Him: “Why don’t you just buy another one, then?”
Me: “Didn’t we agree that if I stuffed the clothes that need special handling off into a corner somewhere that you wouldn’t touch them?”
Him: “Mindy, there is so much going on here all day long, you have no idea...”
Me: “Actually, I think that stuffing these things into the corner on my side of the bed should make things easier. Not to mention safer for my sweaters.”
Him: “...[hating this woman standing in front of him]...”
Me: “Really--every time I separate out my stuff, you come in and put it all in the basket with the rest of the laundry. Why?”
Him: “It just gets so cluttered around here...”
Me: “And having less clutter in my little corner is somehow more important than having me not blow my stack every time you shrink my sweaters?”
Him: “Maybe we could have a little pleasant interaction before you launch into the laundry thing. Or maybe you could be a little nicer when you talk about it.”
Me: “Maybe I could, and maybe I did, the first twelve times we had this conversation.” [See? I am such a bitch.]
Him: “Nice.”
Me: “Well, honestly!”
Him: “So why don’t you put your things somewhere out of the way...”
Me: “You mean, like a corner of the room you never have to go near? Like that?”
Him: “It’s just messy and the kids get into it...”
Me: ”WHO CARES? I have like two hundred dollars’ worth of sweaters that are too short, or too small, or just weird now! And we’re talking Gap sweaters which were like fourteen cents apiece!”

You really don’t want to hear the rest. It was embarrassingly stupid.

As I was drying my hair this morning, Daphne came running in to perform her daily ritual (”Mommy! It’s too loud!"), and then stayed to play with the goodies on the vanity. She held up various clips and watches and makeup for me to identify and admire, and at one point, picked up my Tweezerman tweezers. Uh oh. These little babies are a wonder of engineering, and are extremely sharp. I do love them so. So I continued drying my hair, now watching her very carefully to see what she would do and poised to snatch them away if necessary. I actually remember thinking, “I’m six inches away. What could go wrong?”

She knew that they were off-limits. I could tell by the way she paused to see if I would do anything to stop her, and then started moving slowly and carefully, holding them just so, almost like chopsticks. She then began to cast about for something to pick up. Hairband? Too thin. Watch? Nope. Ah. Yes. Toothpaste. She picked up the tube, which was open (why do people do that??? Why??), got toothpaste all over one hand, and proceeded to to try to clean it off her hand with the tweezers, pausing to brush her hair away from her face with, you guessed it, toothpaste. I turned off the dryer (which was pointed somewhere over my shoulder warming the ceiling all this time) and opened the drawer to put it away. She began to walk away at the same time, which she always does when she senses I am about to confiscate something, and she became entangled in the cord and I looked down to see her pulling up short with the cord all around her neck. She of course began to trip and I nealry strung up my own daughter with the Conair.

At this point, she was covered with toothpaste and still holding the razor-sharp Tweezermans, and was flailing about and trying to free herself with both hands. I was trying to hold the hot dryer away and up and disentangle her at the same time, while beseeching her to stay still and put down the tweezers.

Moment of clarity: You know, when you don’t let children play with something dangerous, they don’t tend to learn its proper name.

“Daphne, hon, hold still, and put the tweezers down.” “Aaahhh!” “Daphne, put the tweezers down and I will help you!” I could see her processing, and then she decided I wanted her to put the toothpaste down. On her nightgown. Arrrrgghh.