Last night, I was tucking the girls in and my four year old reached up and touched my face, “You are young,” she said, “but you do have those lines by your eyes.”
This is my thirties.
I am still young-ish, but I do have the lines around my eyes. Dammit.
I’ll tell you what else I have…
I have friends that grow, cook, and make almost everything from scratch that their kids eat. They are amazing. I salute them while I rip open a box of macaroni and cheese and add an extra few tablespoons of butter. It’s Annie’s Organic on a good day…otherwise we are not above the 19-cent variety.
A friend of mine researches every health related issue, and spends her extra change on the supplements she reads about. It is her passion, and it’s how she loves her family and friends so well. I spend that money on lattes and stretch pants.
I decided to take the girls school shopping today. I LOVE SHOPPING, ALL SHOPPING, so I was excited.
I may have overshot my expectations.
First things first we got Starbucks. I got a triple, and I got cookie dough cake pops for the girls. They thought they were too sweet and now I don’t even know if I’m raising them right. Don’t worry, I ate all of them because WE DO NOT WASTE IN THIS FAMILY.
As a kid, I imagined that shipwrecks and quicksand were going to be a lot more of a problem than they turned out to be. I’d sometimes lay in my bed at night envisioning myself struggling onto a desolate shore in tattered clothes. The terror was not about getting marooned on an island, but being ALONE on that island with a ball I named Wilson. If it was a Swiss Family Robinson situation, I’d be cool. I could eat coconuts and raw fish as long as there were other people and a badass treehouse.
As a new mom I felt very, very alone. I was also newly married, so I tried to make my husband into my girlfriend. He was a terrible girlfriend. First: When I had an emotionally crazy day, he was scared of me. Second: He does not like drama. He can hash out all of life’s problems in under 30 seconds. Third: He makes fun of all TV shows. Fourth: He doesn’t even like junk food.
There I am, standing in the checkout line. One child is having a meltdown because they want a soda and the other one is doing aerial spins in the aisle. She is seconds away from taking out an elderly gentleman. He will never see it coming; she’ll take him out right at the knees. I grab her, which is kind of like capturing a demonic butterfly. I wrangle her and pin her between my legs.
I’m too damn busy.
I’m too busy making mistakes and praying my kids turn out alright anyway.
I’m too busy looking at my musty smelling laundry pile and wondering if I should fold it or light it all on fire.
I’m too busy teaching my kids good work ethics which means saying “stop playing and keep cleaning” over and over until everyone is crying.
Usually when we travel together everything runs like a well oiled machine.
If you oiled a 1950’s tractor with urine. We are a very slow moving machine that smells like pee, is what I’m trying to say.
It is a longstanding tradition in my family to create stressful family vacations. My grandpa used to pile us all in a motorhome so that he and my dad could argue over traffic laws for five days straight. I have fond memories of driving down the L.A. freeway in a giant monstrosity of a bus, while people sped by flipping us the bird.
They say that family dinners around the table are very important. I completely agree. Mostly because it’s character building. It’s very important to learn how to feed people that do not want to be fed, while attempting to have meaningful conversation. It’s kind of like highschool math…it’s unclear HOW this is going to help you in your future, but it will.
I guess It teaches patience. At least I’m assuming that’s what it does, it hasn’t worked on me yet, but we are all awaiting this gift with eager expectation.
Sometimes on Mother’s Day I find myself reflecting on how I’m doing as a Mom, and today, these are my thoughts…
We are never going to be perfect. Sometimes we are going to be messy, and human, and moody.
Sometimes we are going to feel real shitty at this. That’s normal I think.
Sometimes we are going to lose our cool. Like when I held the tablet out the car window and threatened to let it break into one million pieces if EVERYONE DIDN’T LISTEN UP RIGHT NOW. I scared them so badly that then I spent 45 minutes comforting them.
I’m going to call this bonding.
I like to think of myself as fun and relaxed, as brave with a touch of crazy. I’m the one who loves to laugh and awkwardly dance in public, the one who jumped off the cliff first and who shaved her head because she felt like it. I’m the one who traveled across the world alone.
So naturally, I thought I was going to be a really fun parent. A free spirit, spontaneous and unconcerned with dirt or danger. I’d probably raise kids who were sponsored by Red Bull they’d be so fearless and capable.
