Clean-up in Isle 5

It is one of the last warm days of the season.  A sweet gift that Mother Nature placed gently in my lap with a pleasing smile and a little wink – because we know that this is the end of summery weather.    Just around the New England corner it will turn chilly and well, you know what happens next.  And don’t say ski-season – because I don’t ski.

Knowing that today was going to be warm and sunny and everything that I love, I had a day planned around this seasonal swan song.  I wasn’t called into school to work, so I was going to get my house stuff done and out of the way and spend a good chunk of the day writing.  And then – I was open.  A walk and some yoga on the beach and then I was going to take the girls afterschool for ice cream downtown.  My intention was to be productive and be outside.  I was going to go to the beach – and be super fun mom with ice cream treats by the water on a warm, sunny day.

And then, I received the dreaded phone call from the school nurse. 

“Hi Stephanie, this is the school nurse.  I have Katie here.  She threw up in class.”

“Really?  My Katie?  Are you sure?”   (I could feel the nurse rolling her eyes at my question.)

“Yes, I’m sure.  You should come get her.”

Of course I got her.  And she was looking pale and pasty and droopy– nothing like the bouncy girl that I kissed goodbye on the lips an hour prior.  She looked like a little girl who just barfed in a waste paper basket in her class – apparently her teacher had quick reflexes.  (Thank You!)

As I helped her out of her dress, into PJ’s and settled her in on the couch with a blanket and the throw-up pot, I had to resist the internal urge to feel a little pissy about the situation.  “Damn,” I thought to myself, “This is not how I envisioned my day.  It is too gorgeous to be inside with a barfy daughter.  Rats!”  I mumbled and grumbled and tried to get over it.  It’s not like she planned on getting sick to be a brat and ruin my plan to walk on the beach.

Isn’t this the beauty, the reason why I have a flexible job – so when I get the barf call I can drop anything and zip right over and scoop up my girl?  Isn’t this part of my job description – no matter how beautiful the weather or planned out my day. Sometimes it all has to stop and I have to change everything I thought I was going to do.  As I worked out my mood I came to realize that it is one of the aspects of parenting that I am good at – I am a flexible person.  As much as I need to work on organizing I am very adept at being adapdable.

Cruise Control

This house is quiet and it is kinda freaking me out.  For the first time in nine weeks I have been alone in the house for hours at a time.  The girls are in school - that beautiful, exciting, noisy place for six hours.  Even though they are in there for six hours, somehow it translates into feeling like only about two for me.  Similar to the human/dog years ratio.  For every three hours the girls are out of the house it only feels like one.

                I am not in any way, shape or form begrudging this blissful time alone.  What I am experiencing is a temporary adjustment period.  I am not all weepy when dropping them off at school, clutching and sniffling into their clothes while they are at school.  But there is a little getting used to moment for me.

 I spent two months being a drill sergeant, camp counselor and chirpy Julie McCoy cruise director every moment of the day.  From the moment I woke up it was a steady, forward motion – “Girls, get on your bathing suits, put yer sunscreen on!  Let’s make lunch, pack it up, find your flip flops, and turn off the TV! ” The girls responded with a similar barrage of demands, “Momma!  Can we have ice cream, momma watch me jump in the water!  Momma did you see that perfect hand stand!  Momma I need a Band-Aid!  Momma!”   

Every day the girls asked the question, “What are we doing today?” I answered clearly and consistently.  We went to the beach and the pool and visited friends, went through cases of sidewalk chalk, ate ice cream and picked blueberries.  We squeezed every ever-lovin’ drop out of our summer– we are all tan and happy.

                And now, my motivation in the form of two highly energetic daughters has changed.   I have to be my own cruise director – and that is not so easy.  I feel hung-over from the summer.   Every day I want to do everything and nothing.  I want to read all afternoon.  I don’t want to spend my time cleaning, but I want to clean that damn shelf in our living room that makes me grrrrr every time I pass by it.  I want to get back into yoga. The list for the cruise director is endless.   For today, I was able eat lunch without talking to anyone.  Baby steps.

Eight is Great

My darling, powerhouse of a first born daughter, Sophie, turned eight years old this month.  To quote her card, “Eight is great!”  It really is.  She is the epitome of girl power self confidence.  School is an amazing place and math is not intimidating but an exciting challenge.  She rides a bike with no hands, and when she grows up she wants to be a basketball player and go to graduate school.   I want to preserve this moment in time for her – before girls become catty and she thinks her butt is too big and she still thinks that I am cool and beautiful and I have the answers to her all of her questions.

Since her first birthday, I have always felt that it was a very important day for ME.  I gave birth.  I experienced a life changing and defining moment.  My soul and girl parts will never be the same again. Sophie was just there – she has no recollection of her birth-day, but I surely do.   

 Until this year.  Something shifted inside of me.   I was able to look at her, not as my daughter that I can lay claim to and think, “Look at what I did today!” But as Sophie - an energetic eight year old girl who is excited about her birthday, a special day just for her. 

It has taken me eight years to understand that Sophie’s birthday is about her.  It is not about what I experienced that day.  It is all about celebrating Sophie.

Writer's Block

I love the season of summer.  I love all things beachy, chloriney and sandy. I don’t mind being sweaty and hot and I dream about the summer in the dead of winter.   If I didn’t have to do the dishes and make three meals a day, I could write a book of sonnets professing my undying love for the fleeting season of summer.  Since June, I think we have consisted on a diet of hot dogs, ice cream and Fritos. 

But I have come to realize something – the summer wreaks havoc on my creative life.  When the girls were in school and I was working part time, I settled into the best writing groove I have had for years. I wasn’t a prolific writer by any stretch.   I wasn’t following the Artist’s Way and writing three pages upon waking and then settling into a thousand words a-day by noon rhythm,  But for the first time in years I could write a few times each week  – by myself.   I didn’t have to feel pointlessly guilty by plopping them in front of a show or feel drained by trying to write at 10 pm after a full day.  It was decadent to write at ten in the morning without a child in sight.   Sadly at the zenith of summer, I have come to realize that  I have barely written in the past five weeks.  My last post was in June.  My journal has cobwebs. 

I try with all my might to not complain about the stretch of summer vacation for the girls.  I don’t want to be that hag mother at the pool bitching about the heat and rolling her eyes when her kids ask for another snack, asking out loud to all the mommies at the pool, “How many more days until school starts?” 

 Although, how can any person not get a little nuts.  Sophie, Katie and I spend fourteen waking hours with each other, every single day.

I fear that I am becoming dangerously close to being that crazy lady.  I already had a moment last week in the frozen food isle of the supermarket, where the girls were pecking me endlessly with, “Mommy, mommy, mommy.  I want Coco Puffs.   Mommy, Mommy, mommy.  I want to push the cart.  Mommy, mommy, do you need any tampons?  Mommy, mommy…”  I stopped my full grocery cart next to the Hot Pockets.  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, and said, out loud, “Dear, sweet baby Jesus and Mother Mary.  Please give me the strength with these children.  Give me guidance Mary.   Help me have patience with these creatures, so they understand that I am human, and not a machine and I will not get them Coco Puffs.  Help me get to the checkout line.  Help me not leave my children at the Market Basket.  Thank you Jesus.” 

I called the babysitter.  She is playing Uno with my girls right now. 

We're here! We're queer! Get used to it!

I discovered my kinship for gay men when I was at Emerson College.  Emerson was dedicated to the arts.  It was a place where performance ruled and people got to re-invent themselves and some magic happened.  From my point of view, it was a safe place where people could discover and explore being gay.  I befriended many of these guys and we danced the night away, watched and studied every move Liza Minnelli made in Cabaret.  We went to parties, trying to out do and out funny each other at every turn.  They sharpened my funny bone and helped make it what it is today. 

After my brief, but wondrous stint at Emerson I moved back to New York City, where, you guessed it, my love for all boys gay continued.  They were everywhere and I couldn't have been happier.  The guys I meet were creative, scathingly funny and loved to go out and have fun - traits that I admired and thrived on.  My jobs seemed to draw them to me.  I worked one summer as a bar-tender at private parties on Fire Island.    Another job I had was the office girl for a small PR firm owned and operated by gay men.  One Halloween my husband and I dressed up as Axl and Slash from Guns-n-Roses.  I was Axl, and I wore a flannel shirt, bandanna in my hair and a pair of white, skin tight bike shorts. To give the costume that final touch of authenticity,  I stuffed my shorts to re-create Axl's sweet and prominent bulge.  We went to a wild gay Halloween party that night -  I got felt up by gay boys all night long.

Ahhhh, those were my gay salad days.  I miss those days so very much.

I don't know what happened.  I moved out of the city stopped working in restaurants, had a couple of kids and here I am now, without a single gay friend in my town. 

I'd like to think for a married woman with two kids, I have a happening and solid social life.  But, I am missing my gays.  There is nothing in the world like a gay friend - and I need one -one that lives in the same town as me.  I have been on the search lately - I feel as though I am looking to pick some gay men up for fun and friendship.  But either my gaydar is sorely out of practice or there just aren't many rotating in my circle.  I have come across a few gays, but either they live too far away or the timing wasn't right.

Then at the supermarket last week, I spotted a gay couple - with a kid!  I tried to pace our food shopping together, but that didn't work because I didn't want to look like a stalker.  I kept trying to find a reason to talk to them, "Oh, I love the peaches they have in store right now, so tender!"  But everything seemed forced.  I even considered walking up to them and just laying my cards out on the table, "Hi!  I'm Stephanie!  I love Elizabeth Taylor and Rufus Wainwright and I really would love to be your friend."  I wasn't feeling it.  By checkout time, our paths never crossed and I wistfully watched my chance at gay love drive away.

 These guys could be militant right-wing Republicans for all I know but I haven't stopped thinking about how I am going to talk to them next time I see them.  It is not that big of a town.  Everyone has to eat, they will be at the supermarket again.

The big "O"

  Our neighbor's daughter was selling magazines as a fundraiser and she never comes to hit us up for anything, so I felt compelled to buy.   I broke down and I bought "O" the Oprah magazine.  The magazine choices were slim and I despise any sort of parenting magazine for many reasons. I am convinced that their purpose is to make you a paranoid freak about your child's health and give you an inferiority complex that you are never a good enough mother.   My primary distaste for parenting magazines comes from the abundance of recipes that make food into an object.  It isn't enough to just feed your children healthy and daily.  These magazines pressure mothers into thinking we are supposed to entertain our children with each meal.  My hackles are raised at the sight of  'pine cone treats' which is some cracker, cheese, almond concoction to represent a pine cone, "spooky fingers", with red nails made from fruit leather or any sandwich made into animals or smiley faces.

 It depresses me to know that there are writers (ahem!) who have been trying to get their work published in a national magazine, so they can get paid, and the editorial board at Conde Nast is deciding, "Hmmm.... we could run this funny and poignant piece about women being supportive of each other at the playground or we can do a story about Halloween and make grapes into eyeballs!  Eyeball grapes it is!"

 I open the latest "O" and one of the feature stories is about the women behind the scenes at the Oprah show.  I start looking at their makeover outfits and doing the traditional scoffing at the price of the dresses (because really, who pays $620 dollars for a dress?! Not even my wedding dress cost that much). 

Then I start reading their job titles and ages of the women featured in the article.  Senior Supervising Producer - 43, Production Designer - 45, Senior Booking -39.  As I read on I started on the dangerous and unproductive downgrade of questioning and comparing myself to these women.   Before I knew it I had begun the traditional questioning of,  "what the heck am I doing with my life?" and ending with "why don't I have a Very Important Job like them -  and we are the same age!?"

I don't know why I make that wrong turn into the valley of comparing my life's journey against another.  It is one thing to be inspired by accomplishments and set goals for myself.  That sounds healthy and productive.  It is not productive to keep going over in my head stewing that I am not a senior producer for the Oprah show, and how come I am not going to a television studio everyday working on some seemingly glamorous job.  The thing is, it's not like I ever had dreams pursuing a career as a television producer - so I am not sure where this jealousy is coming from. 

Or maybe I do know where it is coming from.  I have gotten into the bad habit of comparing myself to others and telling myself the untruth that 'they' are better than I am.  That she is more successful and better.  Maybe it started when I became a mother and all of the bravado and cocky self confidence I had in my 20's was crushed.   I was so unsure of myself as a new mother.  My brain was filled with a constant internal voice of self doubt.  I was convinced that every other woman out there was giving birth with less tearing, breast feeding better, skinnier than me, their houses were cleaner and generally happier and more joyful about mothering than I was.  I resented any mommy blogger or writer out there who said she wrote with their baby perched happily on her lap or grabbed what ever time they could write while their baby napped.  My first child napped in about the time it took for me to take a crap and when she was on my lap, I couldn't write if you held a gun to my head.

 I don't think I wrote a sentence for two years or said a kind word to myself either.

Years later, that droning self-doubt in my parenting abilities has slowly evaporated.  I am feeling that confidence again - it is like a muscle that I have to work at every day - and boy was it flabby!  I kick-ass and I remind myself of this fact on a daily basis.   I laugh and do that old Saturday Night Live sketch with Stewart Smalley, where I say, "I'm good enough.  I'm smart enough.  And gosh darnnit, people like me!"  But I do have to work on that demon of comparing myself to others.

Mundane Monday

When Sophie was an itty bitty and Katie was a twinkle in my eye, we all took a trip to visit friends who had two children.  Their kids were potty trained, going to school kinda kids.

 I love staying at a friend's home, because you spend some good meaty time together.  You are like roommates on good behavior for a few days, negotiating eating, cooking and bathrooms.  I enjoy being a guest (and having them in my home) because I snag a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a family. I can see what they have in their fridge, how they discipline (or don't) and a new aspect that I discovered on that visit - how laundry was handled.

At some point I had to put some clothes in the drier that got wet from the pool.  Simple enough.  I entered the laundry area, and I was floored by the huge, overflowing piles of clothes that spilled everywhere, from the tops of the washing machines, to the floor and out of various hampers.  Surveying the area it wasn't clear what was clean, dirty or a sedimentary layer from the Paleozoic area.  I tossed my damp clothes into the drier and stole one more look at the mayhem. I stood in the hallway viewing the carnage, mentally wagging the finger of  judgement at my friend's laundry room.

I talked about this wreck of a laundry room for weeks after the visit.  I made sweeping pronouncements to my husband that we would never, ever let our laundry situation get that far our of hand.  "I mean, we have a washer and dryer right in the house!  It couldn't be more accessible than that!  Walk three feet, toss some soap and clothes in - boom - we're done!" 

It is easy to be judgemental.   I did it more when the girls were little and I was unsure of my own strength.  I hadn't built up the self-confident parenting muscles that I have today.  I still judge though - it is a bad habit and I am cutting down.   Really.

But back then,  I was so clueless.  I had no idea the shit storm of dirty clothes that would follow with two kids.  At the time of laundry judgement Sophie was a baby.  There were barely three of us in the house. We hardly made a mess.

Cut to -  my day today and the large slice of humble pie I ate and the hulking giant of laundry that needed to be slayed.   I spent three hours this afternoon sorting, folding and washing clothes.   A small dent was made before I had to stop and pick up the girls at school.  I just came back from round two.  One more hour and I have destroyed the laundry beast.  At least this time I had a glass of wine to drink to ease the pain of the calluses that formed on my fingers from all of the folding.

 Now we have the problem that since every single piece of clothing in the house is clean - we don't have enough drawer space to fit it all.

So to my friends whose laundry room I judged - I am sorry. If you guess it is your home that I am writing about - I owe you a few rounds of drinks - and the free reign make fun of me the entire time.