kyle

Coffee Cold as a Blizzard on Mother’s Day

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It sits there with just a few sips missing and I know I’ll end up drinking my coffee as I do almost every other morning. Reheated.

The usual escapades are unfolding. My daughter is angry that her brother has infected the air of her bedroom with his cootie-like oxygen molecules, and Miss Petite is having a meltdown about wearing snow boots with her favorite dress.
I know, I want to say to her. It is nearly two weeks into May and the idea of that blizzard, the one outside, makes me want to spread eagle on the bathroom floor too. But one of us must keep it together. So I’ll do it. I guess.

I get ready in spurts, half-listening to the articulate speeches on inequality in our household republic given graciously by my oldest. Except then I remember this is a dictatorship. Go change into something not jammies, and without peace signs. Thank you.

The clutter of combs, earrings, toothpaste, too many hair ties, an old watch, or two, and various sizes of brushes slam against the face of the drawer as I open it. I pull out the big round one and turn up my drier. I think they talk to me, the kids. At least, I see their lips moving but it’s like listening on the other side of glass. I make some confused motion that will exasperate them from still trying. They just get louder.

Finally, I’m in a zone. The kind where I’m doing something monotonous and there is just enough space for me to think. I push myself to come up with words but instead, it’s all faces. Beauty. Of the amazing women I know.

There’s one with fists like iron, to fight lawmakers by day and to keep her marriage together for her kids by night.  

There’s one who sits on the toilet lid as tears slide from her knuckle to the hundredth stick test that never shows a second line no matter how much she prays in those 4 minutes.

The one who knows the only baby she wants is the revolving door of patients that walk through her office, and a small cat named Tibbles.

The one who is actually a dad carrying both roles, spent and depleted in every way and still missing the wife he sees when his little girl giggles.

One who has a daughter she’s never said by name, or held, or heard whimper because she was called home before she made it to her mommy’s arms.

One who lives with newspaper ink on her fingers from scouring coupons to feed the five foster kids that need a place to name home.

I sit on the side of my bed and tell the kids to come close as I open my card from them. The first word is Grandma, picked out by my son who really just loves Snoopy no matter what the sentimental words declare on the front. I mean, he’s seven, and has obviously not made me a grand anything but messes. I open it, and I’m grateful. To be their mom, to be in their life.

But also to know some pretty incredible women who do some pretty unbelievable caring, biological mother, or not.

Would anyone like to warm up my coffee? I need to sit here and remember a few people.  

 

I Would Want to if I Didn’t

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Not a corner in our house is sacred when your name is Mom. Not the spaces that lack speakers, Wii controllers, and Disney titles. Not the bathrooms, the pantry, or closets. One would think certain subtle clues would keep the mongrels from disturbing me. Like when I’m in the middle of a sentence on my cell phone. When the doors are locked. Even when I’m sitting in the passenger seat of my car…in the garage. No, they are not deterred.

It’s in one of these situations that the ear-splitting screams of my youngest daughter come piercing into the bathroom. She’s so distraught her lips turn a sallow gray between breaths and wails.
“He jumped on me right here!” she chokes out, hand to her nose.
I’m instantly ready to do battle, which is a conflicting emotion when the enemy is also someone you protect. I take a second to avoid reaction, to keep myself from grabbing him by the hair. Experience has taught me to be wise to the other side of the story.
“What happened? Why did you do that?”
He’s already cracking, holding back his own tears. “She hit me.”
Ah, there we have it. “But you’re so much bigger,” I say. Within seconds I’m assessing the morning and I realize we all need a time-out before this escalates. “Everyone grab a book and get on their bed.” One of the greatest parenting skills I’ve ever learned and will never master: redirection.
“Whyyy?” they moan. Well, because I’m about to tear my eyeballs out, that’s why.
“Go.”

While I really want to escape into the numbing affects of social media, I don’t. We have zoo plans and we’re not going to ruin them. Hopefully all the lions and giraffes and penguins will pull this family back together.

On the drive there I go over what happened.
“Buddy, you’ve been given the gift of strength. You are powerful and jumping onto your sister’s face could hurt her. You might have broken her nose. It wasn’t okay for her to hit you but it’s also not okay for you to body-slam her.”
A giggle bursts out of his mouth.
“Let’s use that gift to protect your sisters, all right?”
“Ok.”

The small one falls asleep (hallelujah) and the older kids quietly listen to music…after elbowing each other and being separated. We bob to the likes of country music with the sunroof open, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I even start to believe this day will turn out.

Then she wakes up sassy and unwilling to do anything I tell her to do. Then the others argue with me about needing jackets and water bottles. Then the walking doesn’t end and the clouds turn no humidity into an arctic blast of frigidity. Then the whining ensues, and though the hippos are heavy with entertainment, the traffic home is not. It’s just heavy.

We enter the house bone-tired and grumpy. Everything is how we left it, all stacks, and strays of crayons and shoes and dishes. My margin for making dinner is thinned to a sliver.

While we eat I tell them how I didn’t hear a single “thank-you.” Of course then they say it as if they’re offering me fresh strawberries, but you know how those taste when they’re forced. Sour. I remind them that they need to respect me, be grateful for a mom who takes them places. Good grief the entry tickets were as much as a third of our grocery bill.

Now this morning I’m looking at a clutter of hair products near a mirror splattered with toothpaste. Demands return, nail polish is painted on the dresser, they fight over which cartoons to watch first, and I wonder why I’m so tired of it all.
When something in me shifts.

I HAVE CHILDREN.

If I didn’t, I would long for the mess atop the counter. I’d do anything to hear arguments about who sits where and who is breathing whose air. I’d ache for bad attitudes after miles of elephants and seals. I’d relish the picking up of flung jammies and washing melamine plates with superheroes.  

Guess who’s ungrateful.
Yeah.

It’s Fave

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Eyes sag droopy and we are lazing around like the cold of the day calls us to do. We’re tired from staying up so late last night, talking to Grandma and watching movies well beyond a sensible hour. Friday nights over spring break demand this kind of irresponsibility.

We don’t really all fit on the Queen bed but that’s beside the point. Dad is teaching chess to the girl with stringy hair. The boy is watching, waiting for his turn in his too-big jeans held steady with a belt he found in our closet. The little one is cross-legged, coloring while she sings with abandon Father Abraham. Right arm, left arm. The pen marks she accidentally swiped across her cheeks are only cute because her voice is small and she’s three. I could never get away with such behavior.

Most of us haven’t brushed our hair, a couple of us our teeth. We’ve disregarded normal eating schedules for snacks and we’ll probably watch another movie after we’ve all been beaten by rooks and pons at least once. I’ll push for a round of Yahtzee, maybe a few deals of cards first.

One of us yawns, someone else sings in operatic tones and before we know it we’re all laughing hysterically.

This could quite possibly be the best day of my life.

Pass the Cadbury chocolates.  

I’ll Figure it Out as I Go, Thank You

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If you don’t enjoy or relate to stories about children, you may not want to tune in for the next 16 days, 19 hours, and 17 minutes. I’m not counting or anything but that is how much time is left for Spring Break and many of my posts will likely be about my kids. Although come to think of it, if you don’t appreciate stories about children you may not want to tune in ever. It is my life.

“Mom, can you print me a NEW Hello Kitty?” My youngest daughter has such passion, no sentence is without emphasis. “NEW,” she says again with a pucker. 
“I got it. And yes, when I finish this.”
“Uhhh! I JUS,’ want, a Hello KITTY picture.”
“Sh.” I am watching Ramona and Beezus with the older kids while I eat breakfast. Hey, boundaries are boundaries and I happen to have them with my three year old. She can’t boss me.

We stretch when the credits scroll, procrastinating at getting our butts in gear for the day. I scoot them upstairs with motivational applause. “Come on, get dressed.”

As promised, I sign into the computer. The Hello Kitty picture is picked oh so carefully, thoughtfully, until all her wrongs are made right.  

“Mom, can I print one too?” my son asks.
“Yeah, go brush your teeth and slick that hair down from the two-inch Alfalfa cowlick you’re sporting first.”

He hops away while I take a face pad that intoxicates the entire bathroom with an antiseptic perfume to clean the night of sleep off my forehead. I straighten sheets and pillows, and stuff a thousandth load of darks in the washing machine.

“This isn’t working,” he says with a crack in his voice that tells me he’s frustrated.  
“What’s the problem?” I say squinting at the screen and clicking the links. Load. Reload. Hourglass timer. Reload again. Close the window. Open a new one. Google searched for Donkey Kong coloring pages.
“There ya go, Bud.”

I dole out to-do lists for the girls and grab stranded socks that have strayed from their partner. 
“How do I do this?” He is worried he will never get his beloved page.
“Right-click. Then paste it in Wor-“
“Okay, okay,” he tells me with annoyance. “I know.”
Oh. Well of course you do. The way your father knows his way around a grocery store. Hardly at all, save for the candy aisle.

My teeth have that after-coffee grime I’m always urgent to brush off, but when I pull the drawer out for toothpaste and mentally prepare the speech I’m about to give on chores, I hear him once more.

“Do I hit ‘OK’?”
Hm, that depends. I’ll require more information. Click ‘OK’ to close the window and erase the hard drive? Click ‘OK’ to join an Over 40 single’s chat room? Send a complaint to the White House (Leave that one to me. I have a few items to discuss.)? To print?

“Let me see here,” I say, bending down to assess the situation. Everything’s off. The copy is horizontal when it should be vertical. He’s widened it far beyond the bounds of the paper size. The selection is too light of a gray, and I simply want to tell him that the next time he thinks he can do things “by himself” could he please, just, not. It would be so much easier if I did it for him. 

Great advice, until I’m hit between the eyes with the force of a Mack truck. Because he’s exactly like his mom.

Don’t show me the instruction manual, keep any advice to yourself, I’ll figure it out as I go, thank you.

So how do I parent a child who is as independently spirited as myself? Let him fail, I think. Allow him to run full boar into his dreams, into what he thinks he knows. Watch him succeed and be there when he doesn’t so he’ll have a safe place to hurt. Then brainstorm about what went wrong, where the motives got skewed, come up with better options for the next time.

Try again. Always try, because you will anyway. You’ll think you know, and when you find out you didn’t, I’ll be right behind you ready to help map out the next route.

“Yep, you got it. Hit ‘OK’ and go see if it came out of the printer.”
He barrels down the stairs and is back in prompt fashion. “There were two since I clicked ‘print’ before you told me.”

Of course you did. And look how you figured it out.   

 

 

Gum and Eternity.

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Lucky Charms is hitting their bowls and smelling oddly like the yeast I use for pizza dough. They’ve already made time to fight over who will put away the milk and which spoon goes to whom. They are trying to annoy each other with repetitive noises. Thank you, I’m thoroughly exasperated.

“I read something this morning and I’m curious what you think it means,” I tell them. Their interest is tickled enough to stop poking and grunting. “Things that we can see are temporary and things we cannot see will last eternally. Ideas?”

My oldest daughter takes the challenge by starting first, which is more about not letting her brother talk and less about having something to say. I know this by the way she hesitates after each word. “Temporary…means…power,” she says with white dribbles on her chin.

I’m trying with great effort not to let myself get distracted by the learning curve of her hairstyle.
Um, no. “Try again.”

“Wait.” She is stalling again. Must. Answer. Before. Him. But his patience can only last so long.

“It means-” he begins.

“Let her finish and then you can try.”

She takes another stab at it, and at her brother. It’s a one-two punch if she can pull it off. “Temporary means, like, it won’t last forever.”

“Exactly.”

“But,” she says. “We can’t see, like, fairy godmothers or Santa Claus and they won’t last forever.”

Now I’m the one feeling a kick in the gut. Think fast. “Right, but they aren’t real. I think it’s talking about things that are real.” Whew. Save. Back to the exploration. “So the things we can see like our house, the trees, even our bodies, won’t always be around. Our souls, our spiritual hearts will live forever.”

My son picks up a small box. “Like this gum. We chew it and when we’re done we spit it in the trash.”

OK. Well, I think we got lost somewhere. Go get ready for school.

Rounding to 30

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For as long as I can remember I’ve had an unrelenting ache to be known. When I’m caught in a confrontation, it isn’t as much about being right as it is about being seen, heard, understood. While I’m rounding the corner to my thirties this week, I think about those three decades, what they’ve meant, who’s walked beside me, who’s let me slip away, and there’s a phrase I read last week that I just can’t shake.

I HAVE FORMED YOU.  – Isaiah 44

What I don’t remember is where we were or the age I was when I did this. What I do remember, was looking for the familiarity of knee-length ironed shorts, the aroma that is my mother, and her safe form I was certain would shield me from the shyness that was creeping in when I looked up at foreign faces. I found her, squeezed her thigh as only a toddler can, and then was caught by surprise when the person attached wasn’t my mom at all.

I HAVE FORMED YOU.  -Isaiah 44

Our kitchen carpet was like a kaleidoscope of oranges and browns, like all carpet laid in the 80’s. It was morning. And it was my birthday. I squealed and lowered into a crouch with my hands out like I was about to receive the biggest balloon of all my short years. “I can’t believe I’m nine!”

I HAVE FORMED YOU.  -Isaiah 44

Midwest summer days nearly suffocated me. Still, it was better than school. My cousin and I tromped around the fields, dodging bees and boredom in the in-between of elementary. We wound our way through the strawberry patch and picked our afternoon snack. Sweat tickled my ears when I brushed dirt from the red wonders I ate, and memories etched into my mind, not letting me go even 20 years later.

I HAVE FORMED YOU.  -Isaiah 44

Standing in front of my peers I suddenly couldn’t get away. The desks were too close, the eyes were all on me. I wanted to speak what I was going to say but in a rush I went to the bathroom. “It’s a panic attack, not a heart attack,” the doctor later said. It came to be the first of many.

I HAVE FORMED YOU.  -Isaiah 44

We drove over a day to get home from Texas, my mom and I. More than once. In the desolate, dry spans of Oklahoma we made up songs. Particularly about the friend of ours with big lips, the one we’d just visited. (He knows who he is, and he’s proud of his smacker.) Each phrase ended in a rhyme, the beat consistent through the words.

I HAVE FORMED YOU.  -Isaiah 44

I didn’t make it to the end of the driveway before I broke down in tears. I wanted a baby, and my friend had just announced she was having one. What if I never hold my own, a part of Chase and a part of me? What if there’s something wrong with me? Or him? What if it never happens? In the days that followed I learned why I was so emotional. That the girl who is now one year from a two-digit birthday was already growing.

I HAVE FORMED YOU.  – Isaiah 44

Yesterday my kids were outside in their bare feet, when they weren’t roller blading or getting their socks wet. They were breaking apart the crumbs of a snowman they built over the weekend, a large mass refusing melt. I was kneeling by the new green of my lilies starting to peek from the ground unaware that today we’d be 30 degrees with more white falling from the sky.

When I struggle to know how to do this life, when I have mornings I don’t want to make lunches or agreements on how much Wii will be allowed later. When the cold of the day seeps too deep into my soul, I remember One who hasn’t left since I was too small to see with the naked eye and just starting in the womb. He hasn’t missed a moment, a skinned elbow, a tear, or a laugh.

“And another will write on his hand, ‘Belonging to the Lord.'” -Isaiah 44:5

And He won’t miss the ones ahead.

 

Whoops Abound

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Whoops and hollers abounded this Christmas when the kids opened a Wii they didn’t even know they wanted. Inwardly, Chase and I were whooping too. We are not forerunners on the technology front. We live simply in this way, without satellite or cable, with movies we borrow from the library or rent for $1. It was a decision we made in protest to all the family time that was being robbed by Wipeout and American Idol. Still, we open the lid of our Toshiba when we want a Parenthood fix but the Wii, let’s just say it was a big hit.

My son is a Mario extraordinaire. A fanatic.

My daughter, the little one, she holds the remote and shouts like she’s part of something big. She is.

My other daughter, the oldest, she tries. Oh how she tries.

It is such great entertainment when they play together. My older daughter will often die on her first jump, a single slide, an erratic I’m- just- going- with- full- force attitude. It’s hilarious. But even funnier is the way she’s perfected “Button A.” The button that puts you in a bubble. Milliseconds from a painful death in rolling lava and she bubbles herself. Midair and heading for the enemy, she floats. It’s genius, really. Until her brother dies. Until he has to be in a bubble too. Because then the game is over.

I feel like I’m in a bubble right now. A writing bubble. I might come out for a snack or to ensure that no is strangling anyone else. I do what I have to, and not much more because I’m dangling above everything in my own space. While the kids jump and run and fight enemies below me, I am hovering with 26 letters and a passion.
In this space, my characters are like real people, the intersecting story of their lives, a part of me. I know them. I like them. And I think you will too.

Indebted to Royalty

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Any time there is declared a day without electronics, my children nearly collapse.

“Can I watch cartoons?” my son asks while I’m grinding eyelashes awake.
“No, we watched a lot yesterday.”
“Well can I play Wii?”
“No, let’s wait until tonight.”

That’s when legs start jumping and he thrusts his upper body onto my bed in a less than controlled outburst. Still, it’s nothing of the magnitude of his younger sister.

Hours later we’ve stopped mourning the loss. (It’s a loss for me too at first. I mean, I get serious Facebook scrolling done while Popeye is eating spinach.)

“You’re kicking my booty,” I tell him as he swoops in for another stack of victory.
“That’s because you prayed for snow. And beat me last time.”

I don’t see how this is relevant, but it makes me laugh. We begin a series of giggles that won’t stop escalating.

“Are you cheating?”
“No,” he says. “I’m just straightening my cards.”
Right. Of course. Silly me.

Sister comes in and then we are dealing in three reps instead of two.

“Nernie, nernie.” Whatever that means.

I put on Pandora and his glasses are a blur as he starts head-banging to guitars.
My daughter’s top lip roll’s under itself and she looks like a mouse. A mouse who realizes she must “pay up.” We learned a new game where face cards are owed like the royalty they resemble. Where competition can’t be avoided. And where fun started.

“Mom, is it dark yet?” I promised he could play Mario when the sun went down. “You said I could in an hour and that will be at 3:53 so…”
He laughs like we’re riding bumps. My literal, brainy boy.
“I didn’t mean an exact hour. Now scoot.”

Go find Legos and army men and imagination. Go find boyhood. And then we’ll play video games.

Sex? You Won’t Believe It. Worth the Wait.

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Every speaker of the car, in every row, is singing carols. I’m even gladly enduring The Carpenters who start to wear on me after 23 days of jolly. But we’re on break for the holidays and there’s a freedom I can’t escape.

“Say whoop, whoop if you’re excited for Christmas!”
“Me! I am the most!” they all say.

Except for my oldest who is being blasé with lips around a drinkable applesauce.

“Let’s try that again.”
With glorious fist-bumps I repeat it.
“Me! I am the most! Me.”

Fine.

We are bobbing our heads, I am speeding a little.

“Mom?” asks my son.
“Yeah?”
“Do you know how to French kiss?”

I may have swerved. It’s a bit of a blur.

“Yeah buddy, I do. How did you hear about it?”
“A kid at school told me.”
“Oh? What is it?”
“When you stick your tongue in someone’s mouth.”

Keep. Calm. Remember to use an even tone. And breathe.
I mean, I probably knew about this at six. Did I?
He’s six!

“Yep, you’re right.”
“They said they knew how.”

Is that right?

“A kid in your class has done this?”
“No, they just know how.”

I can begin to see the lines on the road once more. Consciousness is returning.

“I’ve only done that with Daddy. It’s something you do when you’re older.” Like on your 50th birthday. Maybe. “You’ll love it. When you’re older.” Did I mention to him that he’ll need to be older?

Chase and I have made it a point to remove any shame with matters like these.
Your body? It’s wonderful. Save it like a present.
Sex? You won’t believe it. Worth the wait.
French kissing? You’ll be amazed at how long you can do this activity when it’s new. Be very selective.

It’s probably a good thing he’s in the seat behind me, his face blocked by my headrest. He’s my blusher, my giggler.

Dear boy, keep being bashful. Stay innocent for as long as you can.

How Foolish to Think I Didn’t Want This

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This 3 a.m. snack was not planned. But when arms full of blankie and sippy cup need tucking back into bed, there are reevaluations of the schedule.

So here I am next to a pile of tangerine peelings. A thin shadow mimics all the strokes I make in my journal because of the glow from our Christmas tree. This most sacred of symbols is a collage of hot glue and stickers, things I swore I’d never let hang in the branches. I can see through wide gaps of fake needles, straight to a trunk that is smaller in circumference than the body of our floor lamp. (On a side note, do designers of artificial trees think that the wrapping of garland in candy cane fashion actually disguises the pole?) Wooden and leaning, our star sits in vintage style at the peak.

When we were first married I liked the idea of uniform, of ornaments that would flow together and compliment each other. I wanted ribbon to accent perfectly and everything spaced just so. I wanted any future, gaudy adornments cast out and burned.

My kids, they have changed me.

There’s a little bear with a stocking cap and a polka dot number “2”. Glitter and a picture of my youngest dressed as a star at her preschool. Three blocks covered in mod podge and sanded on the edges with three faces I will someday grieve not being here during this season. One green footprint askew a glossy ball, a reminder that small was here once but doesn’t last.
Some of them are clustered together and all on the bottom row of limbs. “HOPE” is actually hanging as “EPOH” and “PEACE”  as “ECAEP.” A select candy cane also near the floor, has been handled. It is broken and pulled through the plastic packaging in great attempt to just smell the sweetness but not taste. Yet.

How foolish to think I didn’t want this.

Welcome homemade decorations, you are like pages in a book. And I’m a sucker for a good story.