You are currently browsing nyjohnson's articles.
While I was in the shower this morning (a necessity since I skipped yesterday’s), I heard my oldest say something to the effect of: ‘Henners has the laundry stuff,’ in a tattletale singsongy kind of voice.
By ‘laundry stuff’, I assumed he meant…..the bottle of Tide liquid detergent. Which I store in the laundry basket. Because there’s really not another easily accessed place to store it.
I’d scarcely processed the remark; had just begun to utter the commands of the momentarily immobile parent: ‘take it away from him’ or ‘tell him not to touch it’ when the next news bulletin was delivered.
‘Henners has dumped the laundry stuff on the floor.’
And with that bulletin my three minute shower was over.
I stepped into the hallway just in time to see the Tide bottle lying on its side. With the lid off. Clear liquid (I use Tide ‘free’) crawling all over the wood floor. My only recourse: to use my towel in an effort to stop the liquid from traveling to another city.
When your morning starts off like that, it’s hard to regroup; to retain any sense of optimism about how the day is going to go.
I’d managed to get the big boys to the front door on time for our 9.30 departure, both wearing socks and shoes and coats. When we discovered the Hen had lost his ‘da’. His pacifier. The only pacifier he will put in his mouth. The pacifier he insists on taking with him everywhere he goes.
Upstairs, downstairs, bedrooms and bathrooms were searched in an effort to find the pacifier. With no luck.Ten minutes of searching yielded nothing, and at that point I was considerably late. So we had to depart with his ‘ba’ (the infamous ubiquitous white pillowcase) but not his ‘da’. I braced myself for the inevitable tantrum in the car when he realized one of his ‘comforts’ was gone.
We arrived at our destination and I got everyone settled. The tension in my body started to fade as I held the baby on my lap. The only person who had not caused me any trouble. Yet.
His eyes closed, and his face turned a dull red from the strain. Sure enough, the exertion paid off with several loud noises two and three minutes apart. After five or so squirts I decided it was time to investigate.
I was prepared for his soiled clothing. I wasn’t prepared for mine. The kid had literally pooped on me. Through his clothes. It’s the quirky thing about parenthood, I suppose, that someone can defecate upon you and you’ll still talk to them.
Especially if they’re cute and smiley. With a half dimple hidden in their left cheek.
Being a savvy, third-time mom, I had an extra outfit for him. I did not have any extra pants for myself. Charmed, I’m sure.
Fast forward another twenty minutes or so to where my boys were running around in circles with some friends. I’d turned my back to gather my belongings in preparation for exit when I heard giggles and the word ‘banana’.
Sure enough. Someone had found two bananas and had thrown them on the floor and stomped on them. Mushed banana on carpet? Fan-freaking-tastic. ‘Who did this?’ I asked the group of five boys. Fingers pointed in five different directions. I had to assume, since two-fifths of the group belonged to me, at least one Johnson boychild was involved in the banana massacre.
Many pieces of paper towel later I’d removed the biggest chunks of banana from the carpet and the boys’ shoes. And, for the second time, tried to gather my belongings and children for exit. A process that took thirty minutes….from start to finish.
Naturally we got in the car and the Hen, upon realizing he had no ‘da’, started wailing. Right as the baby, who hadn’t been able to take an uninterrupted nap, started wailing from hunger and fatigue. Right as the Gort said: ‘when are we going to have lunch? Are we going to have lunch now?’ Over and over.
It’s days like these that I wonder about people who spout airy platitudes (about children and parenthood) like: ‘don’t blink…it goes so fast’, ’soak it all in’, ‘it’s the greatest thing ever.’ Etcetera.
Did they somehow end up with the world’s only perfect children?
Have they just forgotten the days when they wanted to send their children to boarding schools…in other countries? The days when it seemed like the only words they uttered were: ‘no’, ‘timeout’, ‘go to your room ‘and ‘no candy, presents, toys or television for you until you turn eighteen.’ The days when their kids took hot pink tissue paper, shredded it into nano-particles and dumped it all over the house. All while laughing hysterically. Right before guests were due to arrive
I read a snippet of an interview with a celebrity-who-shall-not-be-named who said , about motherhood, ‘there’s nothing I don’t love, even the sleepless nights believe it or not!’
I’ll file that one in my ‘gems’ folder.
In my previous job, I spent quite a bit of time visiting various elementary schools. As I walked around said schools I couldn’t help but notice that some of the kids looked fairly….shabby. Many looked like they’d basically come to school wearing their pajamas. ‘Why don’t their parents dress them a little better?’ I’d wonder to myself. Perhaps I’m old-fashioned, but I think kids should look ‘presentable’ when they go to school. Maybe it’s because I began my school career wearing an unflattering maroon uniform.
But now that I have a kid in school, I understand why those aforementioned kids looked less than stellar. Because they’d dressed themselves and their parents were tired of fighting about clothes, so they let it go.
The Gort went to Kindergarten yesterday. ‘He looks like someone living under a bridge,’ the professor quipped as we headed out the door.
Which, he kind of did. His ensemble du jour consisted of baggy, too-short fleece pants, a white t-shirt several sizes too big and black snow boots that, upon first glance, looked like ill-fitting ankle boots.
I like to think I support my kid’s creative expressions. After all, I’m the person who let him wear a life jacket to a university function last winter. But there comes a point when ‘creative’ turns into ’sloppy’ or ‘just plain terrible.’
And that’s where we were yesterday, in the ‘just plain terrible’ category.
For starters, the white t-shirt he was wearing….it was a shirt we received as a door prize at an annual University picnic a couple of years ago. It’s emblazoned with a red and white checkered rectangle with ‘Ball State Family Picnic’ printed in the center. And it’s intended for someone much larger than our Kindergartener. Frankly, it’s an ugly t-shirt. One that, if it were mine, I might wear while painting something or using a phenomenally toxic cleaner. That way if I spilled anything on it or ruined it, I wouldn’t care.
But the Gort claims to really like this t-shirt. So until I remember to bury it in his closet, the shirt will continue to make an (unfortunate) appearance.
I’ve tried to preempt the self-selection debacle by presenting him with an outfit to wear; figuring if I remove him from the [clothes selection] equation, he’d end up with a reasonable outfit. But of course it’s not that simple.
The kid has, let’s say, ten long-sleeved cotton t-shirts in different colors. Yet he refuses to wear most of them, claiming they’re ‘too itchy’. It’s a lame excuse that drives me nuts. If the shirts were wool or polyester, I’d buy the itchy argument. If he rejected all of the shirts, I’d buy it too. But the shirts are cotton and tag-less. And he ‘only’ refuses to wear seven of them.
The same goes for pants. One day… jeans are deemed too itchy, the next they’re not. Which means his ‘winter wardrobe’ consists of about three shirts and two pairs of pants.
Last week, disillusioned with his warmer clothes, he dipped into the summer wardrobe and left the house wearing an orange polo short-sleeve t-shirt and navy blue pants with mustard yellow accents. It was a vile combination, not to mention weather inappropriate, and no amount of intercession convinced him otherwise.
This weekend, as I was folding the newly laundered clothes, I came across those blue and yellow pants.
They’ve been enrolled in the witness protection program and are currently living in an undisclosed location…in the dark recesses of the closet.
I don’t have lofty expectations where Halloween is concerned. I’ve never even worn an official costume in my life. All I want for the 31st of October is pumpkins glowing on my doorstep, kids happily dressed in their costumes, making the trick or treating rounds at a few houses and handing out candy to trick or treaters.
In our case, one out of four is bad.
Jason ‘helped’ the boys carve their pumpkins on the 10th of October. Which I thought was a reasonable amount of time before Halloween. Apparently, I made the rookie Calgarian mistake of assuming that last October’s weather would be similar to this October’s weather. As in, last October the weather was balmy, so this October, my pumpkins won’t rot within seconds if I place them on my porch twenty one days before Halloween.
Except last October there wasn’t any snow. And this October. It snowed at least three times. Which means that within forty eight hours of outdoor life, the pumpkins died.
For some reason I also think kids (should) enjoy wearing costumes. And might want to wear their costumes as much as possible. Happily.
Not the case at the Johnson home.
To the Gort’s credit, he’s not prone to changing his mind about what costume he wants to wear. And, unlike some moms, I haven’t had to purchase three costumes in order to get him to wear one. However, I was not prepared for a lame argument about footwear on Halloween. His dad suggested he wear boots with his ensemble. Because it doesn’t seem like a lot of firefighters wear tennis shoes on the job. But, come to think of it, most firefighters don’t wear red and yellow plastic coats made in China either. So in retrospect, we should have dropped the shoe-fight.
And the Hen; the kid who walked around in his ‘Ba-ma’ costume several times before Halloween? Wanted nothing to do with it on actual Halloween. In the end we convinced (forced) him to wear the outfit but not the cape. Seeing as he was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt over it along with green rainboots, I really didn’t expect anyone to know what he was supposed to be. Thus, when a boy at one of the houses said: ‘is he supposed to be Batman?’ I wanted to give him a hug.
I don’t really see the point in stopping at a lot of houses for trick or treating. I mean, the more candy you get…the more candy you have to eat. And since I can’t seem to keep my fingers out of the kids’ stashes, it’s really more troublesome for me.
Last year was the Gort’s first year trick or treating. I nearly died laughing watching my ’shy’ child barge into people’s homes, eager to grab whatever candy was available. This year, his younger brother did the same. The kid who casts his eyes to the ground the minute a stranger even looks at him, boldly walked into homes like a bloodhound following a scent. He almost started watching television on the couch in our neighbors’ home. (The neighbors whose names we barely know).
Strangely, his boldness only extended to homes that weren’t decorated on the outside. If there were pumpkins or skeletons on the porch, he stood behind me, too scared to go to the door. An hour and twelve houses later, I was rather happy to oblige my oldest when he said: ‘okay, we can go home now.’
Our first stop on the trick or treating route had been at our neighbors’ condo. ‘Will we get a lot of trick or treaters?’ I asked her, because I’d only bought one enormous box of mini chocolate bars. ‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘hardly any. Last year I bought chocolate and I ended up eating it all, so this year I bought sour candies.’
Sour candies. That would have been a smart idea.
And, sure enough. Not a single kid stopped by our house for trick or treating. At the end of the evening, the professor and I had made a substantial dent in the box. ‘You have to take these to work on Monday,’ I insisted. Whilst helping myself to another Crunchie and Caramilk bar.
So, to summarize the evening’s festivities:
0..the number of decent pictures I got of the kids in costume
3….the number of times I threatened to never go trick or treating again (before we’d even left the house)
1…the number of people who stepped in dog poop during trick or treating
125…the number of mini chocolate bars I bought for trick or treating
0….the number of mini chocolates I handed out to trick or treaters
50…the number of mini chocolates Jason and I consumed after trick or treating was over
2…the number of un-potty-trained people who peed on the floor after their post trick or treat baths
The professor was staying up late preparing for an exhibit on Wednesday, so I went to bed. Because the cherubs are making me tired these days, what with summoning me to their chambers at all hours of the night….to find their pacifiers and cover them with blankets.
Jason came upstairs just before 10 to bid me good night. He started talking about some architect. It morphed into a discussion about what it takes to become famous in the world of architecture. I believe shortness may have been one of the criteria. It was past ten at this point and my initial dream of being asleep by 9.30 was fading fast, as the professor showed no sign of terminating the conversation and returning to his work.
So I turned off the light on my nightstand, thinking he might get the hint.
‘Well,’ he rubbed his hands together, ‘I can see that you’re really interested in this discussion. So how about I go downstairs and make us some coffee and then we can stay up all night and talk.’
I burst out laughing and bid him good night.
It’s good to see that he’s retaining his sense of humor in his old age. Because he is old. Another year older today. Now he comes home from his weekly soccer games smelling of muscle ointment. ‘Did you lose again?’ I ask each time. Because his orange team is on an epic streak…of defeat.
And then he holds his arms aloft and proudly declares: ‘our record is untarnished…by victory.’
It pleases me that he doesn’t take himself too seriously.
But the older we get, the lamer the birthdays get, it seems. ‘Did you get anything exciting for your birthday?’ his mom asked him over the phone. ‘Well, I got to sleep in,’ he replied.
As if sleeping until nine is the mid-thirties’ version of a really thoughtful birthday present.
It’s true, I entertained the troops so that he could rest his head until 9am. I made scones too. The Gort grabbed one off the cooling rack and took it upstairs, pressing it into his father’s hand. ‘Here’s a scone for you.’ (And a very random green marker drawing…of a triangle with legs?)
‘What do you want for your birthday dinner,’ I asked him. ‘Butternut squash ravioli, a good salad and creme brulee,’ he ordered. Apparently people in their mid-thirties have particular tastes.
So in lieu of a Porsche this year, you’re getting squash.
Happy Birthday professor hotness. I promise I’ll get you a (miniature) Porsche next year.
I hate going to the dentist.
Something about people digging in my mouth with metal instruments and the chalky, medicinal taste of latex gloves. And the way the office smells. It’s vile and I dread all of it.
But what I dread even more than going to the dentist’s office, is losing my teeth.
I have a very strange, abnormal fear of losing my teeth. And I’m not sure where it came from. Perhaps the ’science fair’ at my junior high in Morgantown, West Virginia? Where they’d displayed posters of the teeth and gums of chewing tobacco users? (Or was it crystal meth?)
And no, I’ve never in my life used chewing tobacco or anything else. But for some reason, those pictures were permanently engraved upon my retinas and, ever since, when I go to the dentist I worry that I’m two weeks away from dentures and polident. Or that the dentist will bust out words like: ‘crowns’ and ‘root canals’ and ‘denture implants’.
I was at the dentist a couple of weeks ago, for the first time in eighteen months. Because we moved. And I had a baby. And I’ve things to do – like play a lot of Bejeweled Blitz and WordTwist on Facebook. And bake cookies four times a week.
First, the dental assistant insisted on taking x-ray after x-ray. And all I could think, when I wasn’t hyperventilating that they’d seen doom in my mouth, was ‘how much is this going to cost me?’
After the x-rays were taken, she loaded the images onto the flatscreen monitor twelve inches away from my face. So that I could SEE what they’d seen. I’m of the opinion that there’s nothing pretty about teeth and gums. Even in ‘flattering’ black and white.
My earnest dentist came in and introduced himself. Then he went through each set of images in painful detail. Clearly he did not see the look of panic on my face or the way I was clenching my hands while waiting to hear if he was going to deliver bad news. ‘These are really kind of gross,’ I finally managed to say. When it became clear that he wasn’t just going to say ‘well done’ and turn off the screen.
‘Really, you think so?’
Maybe when you spend all day looking at people’s teeth and pictures of their teeth, you don’t give a second thought to the shadowy skeletal images. But to me, it looks like my mouth is a ticking time bomb and I’ll be smacking my gums by Christmas time.
In the end, the news wasn’t so bad. He suggested I have two fillings replaced – of the old silver variety. And a few other little things. I aged five years during that sixty minute visit. They scheduled a cleaning appointment for me and I hightailed it out of there before they could summon me back for a full-set extraction.
Today was the scheduled cleaning. An appointment I wasn’t dreading too much, because, in my mind, the scary part – where I potentially lose my teeth – was over. I breezed in, expecting the usual spiel: ‘your teeth look great’. Or something like that.
Instead, the hygienist said: ‘when was the last time you had your teeth cleaned?’
A year and a half ago.
And she proceeded to ‘probe’ my teeth and gums, to assess their health. And she made copious, secretive notes on the little paper at her desk. She’d poke around in my mouth. Then roll away on the chair to her table. And write stuff down. Poke. Roll away. Write stuff. And I’ve no idea what she was writing down. Could she not see the fear on my face?
All I could think was: they missed something last time and she’s spotted it. Today is the day.
She tossed off various phrases like calculus and gingivitis and I don’t even know what else. And I was freaking out. And then she whipped out the camera and turned on the screen.
What’s grosser than looking at dental x-rays? Looking at footage from a ‘live’ camera inside your mouth. Dees-gus-ting.
I imagine those Skoal users of West Virginia would have seen the error of their ways if they’d been confronted with live images from the inside of their mouths. The jostling footage, the fleshy gums, the distorted looking teeth.
Make it stop! I wanted to shout. But I didn’t. I just kept clenching my poor little fingers, bracing myself for the news.
After the fluoride rinse, she handed me a warm towel. ‘Here’s a warm towel for you,’ she said as she placed it in my hands. I had no idea what I was supposed to DO with the towel. Was this related to H1N1? Another immigrant experience to suppress in my embarrassing moments file? So I wiped my hands and dabbed at my mouth. It seemed a reasonable thing to do with a warm towel. And I handed it back to her.
It reminded me of the professor’s recent experience at an undisclosed location. When a woman he didn’t know handed him a pack of gum. And he had no idea if she meant for him to TAKE a piece of gum. As in, ‘here, would you like some gum?’ Or if she thought it was his gum that he’d accidentally dropped on the floor. Which it wasn’t. So he took the pack of gum and stuck it in his pocket.
The hygienist sent me on my way with a ‘complimentary’ toothbrush, floss and toothpaste. And a ’suggestion’ that I use a ‘rinse’. And an appointment for another cleaning in six months.
When I got home I was too scared to eat.
It makes me laugh when I read interviews with celebrities on parenting. They say things like ‘we make sure we’re all sitting down for dinner at the end of the day. That’s our time together.’
Well, in my house that ‘time’ together would be about 5 minutes. And it’s not necessarily ‘fun’.
There’s the whole ‘what to have for dinner’ conundrum. Which is its own beast. Maybe if you’re a celebrity you have a chef who takes care of that little issue. I’ve been trying to do better where dinner is concerned. But it’s all dependent on whether the baby needs to be held or will entertain himself in the bouncy seat. Or take a nap. If he doesn’t…it’s toast and sliced apples all around.
Then the dinner plans hinge upon the bigger two: how well they can entertain themselves without drawing blood or rupturing (my) ear drums. Monday night this was particularly heinous, which is why I ended up with flank steak and charred broccoli stirfry. With two sides of tantrums.
I sent each kid to the ‘naughty step’ more times than I care to remember. Except for the baby, who got so tired of all the noise he took a nap on the couch.
For the first half of last night’s entertainment, the older Johnson boys could be found running around in a circle, each holding on to one end of a piece of string. It was rather amusing, initially, the two boys running around in a high tech world with a low tech piece of string. Something you might expect from two young boys running around in poorest Africa. My first thought was ‘cute’ and then…’we should maybe get them a Wii. Or something.’ I can only imagine the Gort inviting a friend from school over for a playdate. And showing him the ins and outs of…string running.
‘You hold this end and I hold this end and now we run around in a circle. Isn’t it fun!’
Of course, ’string running’ is really just a thinly veiled opportunity for the oldest to run into the younger one from behind and push him to the ground. Purely accidental, I’m sure. But, of course, it results in a lot of tears. And a lot of ‘I don’t know why he’s crying’. Even though I kind of know by now how these games go.
When the string game had run its course, they moved on to costumes. A fellow Kindergarten mom brought me a couple of Halloween costumes yesterday, because I’d told her I still didn’t have a costume for the Hen. So she brought me a Batman and Superman outfit. Because her boys are going to be a skeleton and a psycho clown this year.
I’d made the mistake of looking at the costumes in front of the blondies so naturally they were clamoring to change into superhero gear.
The Hen became Batman (‘Ba-ma’). In a costume several sizes too big. It killed me – the way he insisted on wearing the cape, walking around while shaking his head like a circus elephant. Probably because the ‘eye holes’ came to his nose. Instead of his eyes.
The Gort donned the Superman outfit. Even though he’s going to be a firefighter on actual Halloween. It took about ten minutes to get them into the costumes. And they played around happily for about five minutes. And then fought like dogs for the next five.
As I was trying to capture their costumed cuteness, the meatballs (for the meatballs in red curry sauce) were cooked a little longer than necessary. What started out as a twenty minute meal, turned into an hour and a half of intermittent cooking and cleaning and serving.
‘I don’t like that.’ My oldest pronounced. Before he’d even taken a bite. ‘I’ll still try it,’ he compromised when I gave him the evil eye, ‘but I probably won’t like it.’
The professor walked through the door around 6. Right as we were sitting down to eat. I wonder if it’s a coincidence that all his classes go until 6 this semester? I don’t think so. I imagine he specifically talked to his department chair about taking any and all classes occurring over the dinner hour.
‘This is too spicy,’ the Gort announced. ‘How many more bites do I have to eat?’ The Hen ate his meatball but refused the rice. ‘I wan mo’ he declared with a plate full of rice still in front of him. When another meatball did not appear on his plate, he hopped out of his seat and climbed onto my lap. And ate all of my meatballs.
‘How was school today?’ the professor asked his son.
‘I don’t remember’ he replied.
About seven minutes after we started, both boys had left the table.
Family dinner: such a sacred and bonding ritual in our home.
Dear Martha,
Well, you’ve done it to me again. I’ve been ‘martha’d’ for the umpteenth time.
Your November issue found its way to my mailbox. I flipped through it when I had a few moments of quiet. Not expecting to be sucked in by another one of your infamous ‘crafts’.
But, there it was. On page 152.
Glitter painting.
Cruel, cynical person that I am, my first instinct was to LAUGH at the proposed glitter pet portraits. Currently petless, I imagined emailing my mom and asking her for a picture of her cat. And then turning the picture into glitter art. Which I’d mail to her as a (gag) gift.
Would she display it? Hide it? Why would anyone want a glitter painting of their pet? Even if mounted on foam core with a lovely grosgrain ribbon border in a complementary color.
BUT. And there’s always a but. Then I flipped to page 156. And saw the cards. Maybe not a pet portrait. But perhaps a shadow box with a glitter photograph of my home? (Except it’s not really MY home). Or maybe a Christmas card with a glittery nature scene?
And, within the hour, I was at Michael’s, chomping at the bit to pick up the lengthy list of suggested supplies. Except your ‘fine glitter in assorted colors’ kit costs $40. I could only imagine the height of the professor’s eyebrows if I told him I’d spent $40…on glitter. For the purpose of making glitter cards. The word preposterous came to mind.
Savvy shopper that I am, I decided to use a 50% off coupon that I had. Though it meant waiting three days – until the 25th. All weekend long I thought of the ‘fine glitter’ kit I was going to buy. For half off. Patting myself on the back for my awesome frugality.
I daydreamed about making all of my Christmas cards by hand. Maybe opening my own glitter card business. Not really.
At 4.45pm, I arrived at Michael’s, with my coupon in hand. Do you know what happened, Martha?
Apparently all the the other magazine subscribers in Calgary got the same issue and ran to Michael’s to get their ‘fine glitter in assorted colors’ kit. There was not a single one left.On Thursday there’d been five or six. On Sunday, none.
Also, there was a 25% off sale. So, even if there had been a kit on the shelf, I couldn’t have used my coupon – it’s only valid for ‘regular priced’ items. No double dipping in the discounts at Michael’s.
So I did what any reasonably minded individual would do. I bought four containers of glitter. Spending more than I would have for the whole (discounted) kit. I haven’t mentioned that fact to the professor, yet.
I bided my time until my two year old was safely ensconced in his crib. I sat at the table with my five year old, envisioning the awesomeness that was about to occur.
Except it wasn’t awesome. It was annoying. Glitter is perhaps the most invasive of craft materials. It cannot be confined, no matter how careful the crafter tries to be. Unless of course you have a hermetically sealed craft room. Which, you probably do.
But I don’t. I have a dinner table. In the middle of my house. And ‘fine’ glitter is even more invasive than regular (cheap) glitter. Within about five minutes, the rugs in my hallway resembled a glistening sandy beach at twilight. My eight week old baby had glitter in his eyebrows. Which, admittedly, only enhanced the brightness of his eyes. But still. The professor and I looked like shinier, less dewy versions of Britney Spears. (Before she had kids and married Kevin Federline and shaved her head).
Even the two year old, who wasn’t present at the festivities, ended up with glitter on his upper lip.
The cards we made…..were fine, I guess. Of course, once they’re mailed to their intended recipients, all the glitter will end up in the envelope anyway. I’m just guessing.
So here’s a suggestion for you. I know these are tough economic times. And magazines are shutting down faster than you can say ‘Domino, Wondertime, Gourmet and Cookie’. And adding to your staff is probably not in the budget right now.
But, because I think it would be such a valuable addition to your magazine, I’ll offer my services for free. At least initially. My ‘why your proposed good thing is….a bad thing’ services.
As you’re sitting around your weekly planning meetings, sharing ideas for crafts in future issues, I could conference in via Skype and be the naysayer, the devil’s advocate, the voice of reason. You’d say ‘glitter’ I’d say ‘impossibly horrendous clean-up’. You’d say ’superglue sculptures’ I’d say ‘costly emergency room bills’.
Trust me, it would be a good thing.
There are books and magazines aplenty detailing the ins and outs of creating your very own spic and span sanctuary. Line your drawers with perfumed paper. Sprinkle flower petals on your pillow. Line your lampshades with pink silk so that the light will have a soft, pink glow.
But really, the people who come up with these lovely ideas either don’t have small children, or they have more disposable income than they know what to do with and possibly a housekeeper.
As I was scouring the caked on spots of toothpaste on the upstairs sink today, I thought of some practical ‘tips’ for achieving domestic nirvana.
- Store a toothbrush for each family member in every bathroom in the house. That way, if your two year old runs off with your red toothbrush, you don’t have to try and find it when you finally remember to brush your teeth. You can just reach for the downstairs toothbrush, instead of having to (a) use your spouse’s or (b) skip the brushing altogether.
- Keep a set of cleaning supplies in every bathroom, so when the sink is laden with dried chunks of toothpaste and other nastiness, and you can’t stand it another minute…. you can start cleaning right away. No need to procrastinate because you don’t have the energy to walk downstairs to find the cleaning stuff.
- Wear a watch. This will help you know what time it is..at all times. It will keep you from having to ‘guess’ what time it is when you’re at other people’s houses and don’t want to rudely interrupt conversations by asking ‘what time is it?’ It will also keep you from having to squint at clocks that are far away in order to guess what time it is. However, if your watch is an hour and three minutes ‘behind’ the actual time this may present a challenge to your sleep-starved brain, resulting in continued lateness for things like kindergarten pick-up.
- If you still struggle with being on-time for kindergarten pick-up, put your two year old son down for a nap wearing his jacket and shoes. That way, you can whisk him out of the crib and into the car without wasting precious minutes trying to squish too small shoes onto his feet, and pushing his unyielding arms into jacket sleeves.
- Limit every family member to five outfits and two pairs of shoes per season. This will drastically reduce the size of your laundry pile. Not to mention the pile of shoes discarded by the front door.
- Let your kids watch television or movies for hours every day. This way they don’t play with any toys or use any art supplies. And your house stays remarkably tidy.
- Throw toys away. I’m not talking about ‘good toys’. I’m talking about things like plastic spiders and ten-cent cars they get at the dentist’s office – that type of thing. Sure, they’re really excited about it for the first forty-eight hours, but after that, the allure of the cheap, smelly toy wears off. Throw it away. If they ask for it, distract them with a cookie. Or, a movie.
I was reading a fellow mom’s blog a week or two ago, in which she berated herself for being thirty minutes late to pick up her child from school one day.
The first thought that popped in my head was not ‘oh, that could easily be me’ it was ‘wow, what a slacker’. Because I’d never been late for pick-up. Yet. And no sooner had I thought it, but an all-too familiar feeling of doom came over me. A ‘because I judged, I will now commit the same offense’ kind of feeling.
Because that’s just how it goes. The second I think ‘well, I will never do that,’ it happens. Usually the next day.
So this week arrived. On Monday I decided to keep the Gort home from school. He’d been acting kind of sick the previous day, and with the ever-present flu mania, I decided it was better to err on the safe side and keep him at home. Which, admittedly, isn’t the best for my mental health; having three screaming boys confined in my home for eight hours. But in the interest of public health, I figured I’d take one for the team.
Tuesday arrived. I dropped him off at Kindergarten, on time. But I hadn’t fed him any lunch. So I stopped at a convenience store and picked up a bag of chips and some m&m’s. Not sure which food group that falls under. After dropping him off, the Hen and I (and the sleeping babe) stopped at the pizza shop. We ate our slice of Hawaiian in the van. Classy! Afterwards, I stopped at a friend’s house for coffee and, lo and behold, by the time I got in my car-van, it was ‘pick-up time’.
And I still had a five minute drive ahead of me.
I pulled into the parking lot and R-A-N to the pick-up spot. Not caring if I looked like a total weirdo. My inner mantra, which I’ve since passed on to my son (‘run, run like the wind‘) when we’re trying to beat the school bus at drop-off, spurred me on.
My cherub and one of his classmates were waiting listlessly at the school door; the last ones standing. Everyone else had been picked up. He saw me and ran towards me and we walked back to the car, right past his teacher. ‘Was he sick yesterday,’ she asked me. With what I interpreted to be a look of doubt upon her face.
‘Yeah, he had a bit of a cold, so I decided to keep him home.’ She nodded her head. Maybe it was my overactive imagination, but I’m pretty sure she was thinking to herself ’sick? He looks perfectly fine to me..apparently school is just not that important to you. I mean you can’t even pick the kid up on time!’
But maybe she wasn’t thinking any of that. Maybe I was just feeling guilty about the late pick up and lack of lunch.
Wednesday arrived. And somehow I was late for pick-up. Again?! I ran to the door and there stood my son. Solo. The previous day’s fellow slacker mom had gotten her act together.
Thursday arrived. I’d had forty-five minutes to kill before drop-off, so I stopped at a friend’s house for a quick chat and some cake. When I got in the car it was time to drop him off and I still had a ten minute drive to school. As I drove towards the school, I saw all the afternoon Kindergarten parents drive past me. In the opposite direction. Because they’d already dropped their kids off.
I parked the car, and the Gort and I walked into the school. To report for our public flogging in the office. ‘What’s your name,’ she asked him. He offered it enthusiastically, even spelling it for her. ‘Were you at a dentist or doctor’s appointment?’ she asked him.
I wondered why she didn’t address me during any of this. Because I’m clearly a slacker-mom? Because she’s trying to get the Kindergartener to take responsibility? Or to see if she can catch him in a lie….like the weather-balloon-boy saga?
He looked confused by the medical line of questioning, so I intervened: ‘no, we’re just late.’ She handed him his pink slip and sent him on his way.
I contemplated sitting in the parked van with my two sleeping children for the two and a half hours until pick-up.
Our oldest’s plunge into the world of ‘big school’ has prompted a host of new conversations at home.
His ever expanding logical and emotional vocabulary have made for some interesting discussion.
Like when he left for errands with his dad a few weeks ago. He stood at the door and called to me: ‘Bye Nics!’. And, for better or worse, I burst out laughing. Because you just don’t expect a five year old to call you ‘Nics’. Especially when only his father does.
By way of explanation he offered: ‘I call Mommy two names…sometimes I call her Nics. And sometimes I call her Nicola. I just call you Jason,’ he reasoned to his dad. Okay. And, with nothing more to say, they left.
There was also the week where he ordered all of us at one point or another ‘to leave the family’ when we made him mad. Most notably, he said about his brother: ’I want Henners to leave our family.’ Jason felt compelled to defend the little person, countering with: ‘but if he leaves we’d have to go with him because we’re fond of him.’
Momentarily perplexed, the Gort gave the matter some thought and concluded: ’I want you to stay….so you can cook me dinner’
Luckily he dropped the matter, and the Hen was allowed to stay.
We were talking about our dreams the other day and my oldest felt compelled to tell me about the dream he’d had the night before.
‘I dreamed Henners and I were in the car and he was driving and he didn’t crash into anything.’ Alarmed, I had to ask: ‘was he bigger than he is now?’ Aka…of the age to drive a car.
‘It was just a dream,’ he replied, irritated by my interruption. ‘We were driving to get a cheeseburger and two hot chocolate cups.’
A stickler for details, I had to ask: ‘where were you going to get a cheeseburger and two hot chocolate cups?”
‘Starbucks.’ He replied. Duh.
‘Does Starbucks have cheeseburgers?’
‘It was just a dream,’ he concluded. Deflated by my lack of imagination, I suppose.
Privately, the professor and I have had snippets of conversation about where the kid’s abilities lie, what he might be good at, what he should be involved in. That sort of thing. Prompted, I suppose, by our feelings of guilt over the fact that most of his friends are ‘involved’ in something or other.
Maybe we’re delinquent parents, but we just didn’t think too terribly much about this in the pre-Kindergarten years.
We tried soccer when he was 3 and it was something of a disaster. Possibly because his dad was the coach, or he’d just been displaced by a baby brother, or because he was 3 and more interested in the post-game snack than anything else. And that was it.
This year we signed him up for Sportball, which is a one hour weekly introduction to several ball sports.
We thought this might be a good way to gauge his natural interest in any particular sport. Four weeks in we’re no wiser than when we began. But of course, we have our own set of biases and preferences.
‘None of our boys can play football,’ the professor announced this week. Given the Gort’s lanky build, I hadn’t really envisioned him as a football player, anyway. But I was intrigued by my better half’s logic. ‘Why not?’ ‘Because some study has concluded that all the ‘hits’ the players receive can contribute to dementia.’
Okay. ‘Well, I really thought they’d play tennis, anyway.’
‘No,’ he decided,’ you can get stabbed playing tennis.’ (Ah, Monica Seles and the crazy stalker guy.)
So I’m not sure what remains for these boys. Wrestling is a definite no: the singlet, the cauliflower ear business, the ‘moves’. Ice skating: bright sequined jumpsuits. I’d thought about swimming, but the professor put the kabosh on that as well: asthma from the chlorine, apparently. (Not to mention the freakingearly practice times.)
Which leaves soccer, baseball and golf. I can’t imagine the ‘headers’ in soccer are any better than the hits in football where dementia is concerned. And baseball….would it crush my kids if I never went to any games? And golf seems pretty expensive, not to mention neither the professor nor I appear to have any aptitude where that game is concerned. (The professor having achieved something like 25 over par at his annual golf game a few weeks ago.)
‘What about music lessons,’ he finally suggested last night. ‘Maybe guitar or the piano…but nothing weird or expensive like the cello.’
Perhaps they will be professional sandbox players.
