Unfit Mother

Fish and House Guests

We’re moving on this morning. It has been a bittersweet reunion with Knoxville; sometimes you can’t go home. It is interesting how some of the things I liked about Portland when I moved there in 1994 was really part of a larger movement and not just about the west coast – the place I held as the great Mecca of all things cool and progressive. Some of those same things exist here and everywhere across the US. I still prefer the anonymitity I enjoy living in a city with many like-minded people, but there is also some loss of community in that. Still, it is easier to live in a city where I am one of many moms with tattoos and not someone upon which to cast sideways glances and who startles the other moms at the park. I was exhausted from swimming against the cultural current and was tired of being the “weirdo”. In Portland, I blend into the status quo.

I think what I have to resolve is that I am no longer a southerner. I am only sort of from the south anyway. My father is in the army and we moved around my whole life. Even as an adult I kept in the habit of storing things in boxes and moving every few years even if it was just to the apartment down the street. I still have a hard time putting holes in the wall to hang pictures because I can’t make any permanent changes. As a result, I’ve been looking for “home” my whole life. I remember crying inconsolably as a child and just wanting to go home.
But you are home, my mother would say.
Even I didn’t know what I meant at the time. I guess I just wanted things to be the same for a terminal designation of time.

Being here now feels a little like being the bastard child, the outsider, the Yankee-go-home. I never wanted to live in Tennessee when I put there in 7th grade. I was miserable, but it was the place I remained throughout the duration of Junior and High School (we didn’t call it “Middle School” back then). I even stayed in Tennessee for college until the first opportunity presented for escape. Once out of the south, being from the south provided an identity in the homongenous northwest where few people are natives. I banded with other ex-pats and settled into a niche. I always meant to make it to California, but when I went to work for the regional planning government as a graphic design intern, I fell deep in love with the well designed antics of Portland. And once I met my husband and gave birth to my children there, I went native.

Back in the south, my southern identity seems false. As I entered Kentucky I immediately re-affected my accent, but it was more like knowing a foreign language. There have even been a few times when I honestly could not understand what someone said to me because of their speech. And now here for the last several days, the novelty is wearing thin. Once again I feel displaced. I imagine grappling with this identity crisis is like integrating the various and sundry personas of someone with disassociative identity disorder.

My friends have been good to us and I can only offer the return in kindness for future travel. It is time to be on the road again. We mark our heading for a brief jaunt into Georgia and then to Nashville and Memphis. I have an old shoulder injury that is proving to be a real problem. I’ve had a torn rotator cuff for years and I think I have made it worse somehow with the repetitive motions of driving. It hurts like the Charles Dickens.

Home Dentistry

As a mom, I love having a revolving evolution of assimilated occupations to add to my repertoire. Today it was dentistry.

Bea managed to pull a pen apart (obviously not meant for children under three, although she is one month shy of the big triple...) and crown the little round metal ring from the middle of the pen around one of her molars. I immediately had a bad reaction (me yelling, her crying) which gave no one an advantage. I recovered and then donned my camping miner's head lamp and armed myself with a screw driver. I had Bea lie back on the couch and open her mouth big big big. I few gentle hammer taps and the ring popped off on the second try with very little blood loss - a dinky bead the size of an ovum.

The whole time I was wondering if I should call the dentist and rush her in, but then I thought: I can do this! I am just glad she has actually had a dental appointment under her adjustable elastic waistband; she knew exactly what to do. Which reminds me I need to reschedule their next 6 month check up since we'll be hitting the road to Memphis at the time.

The Patient:

(please notice the tiny little tears on her cheek and lashes)

The Outcome:

This will be the kid who gives herself braces at age 10.

Happy Birthday KK

I lost touch with one of my BFF's from high school. It was a mistake I promised never to make, but somehow as our separate lives got in the way, it happened regardless of my paved constructions on the road to hell. I belong to one of those classreunionmates websites that help you stalk track your former friends, boyfriends and enemies – you now what I’m talking about. Anyway, I received a message from one today that said, “Tomorrow is Friend X’s 38th Birthday!” And my heart leaped before it looked when I remembered I have only the vaguest notion of where she is. The loss of her in my life, never mind how different we became, makes me sad. This is a consequence of moving across the country and not looking back.

K and I made a pact to move to California together. She made it LA, the last I heard, and I ventured on to the West Coast. But at classreunionmates’s last count she was back in the south, getting ready for her first baby. My membership lapsed while hers was active and now I am the sucker who paid the $30 to lurk in her profile hoping that she rekindles hope to look for me again.

I’m still out here, KK. I miss you and Happy Birthday!

How to Interpret My Daily Horoscope

From Monday, July 14:

You need to let the whole world see what kind of mood you're in today -- because you might influence your people to lighten up a bit! It's a good time to let your smile shine through the day!

“You need to let the whole world see what kind of mood you're in today”
TRANSLATION: While I began the day very optimistically making arrangements for our upcoming camping sojourn, my “mood” later turned. Two two-year olds left in the back yard with a new tent, can make quick work when co-operating. My little budding deconstructionists dismantled the dry run construction and managed to break two segments of the fiberglass shock cord poles. On two different poles. Meanwhile, I was absentee parenting and trying to stitch them some new girly frocks from fabric found at a woman’s going-out-of-the-kids-clothing-biz yard sale. So while they now have some darling tulle/ velour /funky Asian inspired patch appliqued apparel mamafactured by moi, I now have to order replacement poles for the habitat for inhumanity in a crumpled mess on the back porch. 

“because you might influence your people to lighten up a bit!”
TRANSLATION: My People? I’m the one that needs to lighten up or at least remember that the dynamic duo can only free-range in 10-minute increments when their tattle-teller is at Karate with dad and not shepherding their antics.  And who exactly are my people? Do they replace tent poles?

“It's a good time to let your smile shine through the day!”
TRANSLATION: Does barring my teeth and issuing grit orders to "go.get.in.the.bath."equal a “smile”? I wouldn’t call it shining, but glaring maybe.

And they also managed to tear up a yellowing jalapeño pepper plant, a thriving tomatillo plant and some carrots greens. At least the carrots will survive the impact, but I think the other two are goners. So much for my life in pictures. At least they were getting along.

But look at my NEW babies:

The Extra Pancake

She lies in the middle of the kitchen floor wearing a plush lined pink hoodie, flannel ducky pajamas and her perennial “cow boots” (no socks). It is 82 degrees outside. The nanny wants to move her to the couch. “Leave her if she’s comfortable”, I suggest gently. “There might be something about the floor that feels good.” We leave her on the cool tile to nap.

Tavi is always a little odd, but it is days like today when I come back to the uncomfortable consideration that this is autism.  We began private occupational therapy last Friday at the suggestion of the county’s limited resources. We will go every week until they deem differently, our insurance refuses payment and / or we run out of money. The latter might come first.

Every Wednesday, an MECD (Multnomah Education Service District) designated special ed teacher visits our home and offers suggestions like: use a visual schedule, give her a two step process such as First we eat breakfast, Then we go in the car and have her take turns with 10 second allowances. All these strategies have been successful in taming the tantrum monster that hurls her to the floor screaming in pitch registers that threaten our leaded glass windows. To say Tavi has difficulty with transitions is an understatement.

On most days I can take her behavior in stride. It has become our lives. But some days it is too much for everyone. Bea shifts her personality to the middle child syndrome, when technically she is not. My husband, who is not home often enough to have adjusted to our new routines, throws his hands in mock exasperation. Ivy stares at me, waiting to read my reaction and decide to cower away from angry mama or be soothed by compassionate mama. Yesterday I was angry mama.

With the turn in good weather, a mere fickle pause for Portland in May, I feel inspired to cook a grand meal on the grill. I slice the polenta, break the asparagus and season the chicken for skewers with peanut sauce. Everything is prepped and drenched in extra virgin olive oil. I install the new tank of propane in the cabinet and re-secure the childproof latch. But when I turn the knob and push in the safety-rubber ignition button, nothing happens.  Angry mama begins to curse. On closer inspection I notice the line has been cut. It’s choppy strands unfurling from the synthetic encasement like hot wires that could jump-start that cool car on Starskey and Hutch.

But this chrome heap of assembled parts does not start. It does not even sputter. Now angry mama is really pissed. Last weekend I was sure the reason the grill did not roar to life was because Tavi had left the gas on, hence the childproof lock now protecting the new propane tank. But now I realize she has sabotaged our meal by cutting the electrical line that carries spark to gas. I was also chagrined to realize this meant I had returned a full container of gas to Lowes, retail $20. I grit my teeth and spit profanity through my barred lips.

She cut.
What?
She cut.

Her twin tattles on her, confirming my suspicion. She, Tavi, was the culprit. Not some super species of wire splicing spider. I mutter more obscenity under my breath and begin dismantling the barely one-year-old grill to inspect the damage. I did not know where to begin. Even after perusing the manual, I could not figure out how to repair or replace the line. Tavi is our practicing engineer, always eager to deconstruct. It is this challenging trait as a child that I know will ensure her some success as an adult, but dealing with it in the midst of dinner preparations and an already altered daily routine at 5:30 pm is difficult to say the least.

On other days when I am feeling generous with my role as Tavi’s mama, I can take these quirks and habits in stride, choosing to see her antics as amusing anecdotes; be the other mama, the compassionate one who reassures her children with open arms. That mama would never storm out of the house, leaving charge to the father who just arrived and slam the front door. The compassionate mama smiles wryly when other parents encounter her child’s strange behavior and look quizzically, searching her face for answers.

And if I am in an especially indulgent mood, I may even offer explanations doused in humor as if I am also a third party coming on the scene. Dispensing commentary from the side of my mouth, I do not scoop her screaming into my arms and leave the scene embarrassed. Compassionate mama is above the personalization of her child’s lurid display of displaced emotions. I may casually ask the time and quip, “Hey kid are you all done now? Do you feel better about having to wait for a drink at the water fountain?”  All while I turn to the other parent and casually remark how these little things set her off.

And even other times I feel like I should preface any pending maneuvers with explanations. I fight this compulsion during Romp and Roll and Messy Art classes at the community center. But sometimes in my hesitation, as much as I long for consoling looks from strangers and musings behind my back about how strong I must be, I know enough to let Tavi challenge her diagnosis, whatever that might be. Instead of the explanations about sensory integration, I offer Tavi the benefit of experience without caution. I see them, when I have explained; their mouths caught in an “O” as they stop mid stoop and uncoil back to standing. With arms crossed they no longer engage my daughter; they turn and assist the other, normal children. But without explanation, the interaction continues and I am the one held in surprise.

And I am delighted that Tavi is not as limited as I think she might be without biting my tongue. She giggles in delight to a reward by Teacher Nancy of bubbles blown across her face as she jumps into a soft foam pool of plastic balls. I cannot limit her if I want to continue to challenge some diagnosis. That is what my husband was afraid of by having her assessed two months ago. But I might be the one holding her back.

When I can be the compassionate, Zen mama, I relish Tavi and think of our relationship as a teaching model. I would be the angry desperate mama if Tavi were my first child. Like most second time parents, it is only after the exasperating trials of my first pancake that I have relaxed. Finding amusement instead of danger lurking in the playground. And adding twins to the second experience has relaxed me even more. There are some situations I physically do not respond to because, by circumstance, I am forced to issue commands to keep one’s little fingers from the snarling jaws of dogs while I run across the the yard to catch the other one mid-fall from the top of the slide.

Last week, another mama bulged her eyes in fear as I nonchalantly watched Ivy swing her little sister in a two-foot arc by the arms. Her face pulled an expression questioning my cavalier consent. “I have another one if anything happens.”  I chuckled as I thumbed the child on my back.  My oldest might have endured my overly cautious pitfalls as a first-time parent, but Tavi is my spare, my extra pancake. I am more willing to let her be, let her surprise me and challenge what I perceive as her limitations.

Fear and Loving

Aren’t you afraid of your children walking so far ahead of you, in the dark?

That was the question perched on my lips. I was impressed with the fearless faith of this couple, friends of my husband and mine, in the safety of their 3 year old and 2 year old toddlers skipping happily more than two feet in front of them. I clutched my 10-month-old baby in her sling to my chest and marveled at the children scattered knee high around me in the dark. Flashlight beams bouncing off the hollow glowing eyes of nocturnal predators in the wings startled by preschoolers running amok in their space. Children, untethered by parents, bumping nosily en mass along the path at The Night Safari in the Singapore Zoo.

Instead of asking the reactionary words ready to fly from my mouth, I said, “In the US, parents do not let their children wander far from them. Do you worry about that here?”
The wife misunderstood me. “Because they will fall and get hurt?”
“No, because someone might take them.”

I felt silly saying it. But it was a worry I was grappling with as a new mother. In 2002, I was being indoctrinated into the fear culture of parenting, exacerbated by the post 9/11 climate of bug-eyed skepticism in every stranger’s intention. Baby Ivy could swallow the bottle of aspirin innocuously kept on the highest shelf, fall head first into an unlocked toilet  (children can drown in three inches of water!)  or be stolen from my arms by Osama Bin Laden lurking behind the bushes in a strip mall. The husband joined us; his kind smiling eyes assured me he had heard of these irrational feelings in foreigners. We reached the end of the train queue and while waiting for our turn discussed cultural differences.

“In the US”, I began, “parents worry that a stranger will take their children. It doesn’t happen often, but we hear stories on the news so we are afraid.”
“There are stories here too.” The husband told me, “Once, a child was taken to Malaysia and made to be a slave. It was a sad story.” A story. Like a cautionary Little Red Riding Hood schooling the belief that clever wolves are waiting in the woods. 

But even my more faithful friends living half a world away struggled with fears of their own. Bali was bombed the night before we left for our Southeast Asian sojourn. Our second planned destination within this trip. Our friends persuaded us to travel to Phuket, Thailand instead. In retrospect, Bali would have been very safe; the chance that a second attack days after the first was unlikely. But with fear widening their eyes, they pleaded with us at the travel agency. They knew, as Americans, we would be targeted. Somehow their fears seemed more justified than the sensational media fodder often keeping me homebound with anxiety.

While reading the article by Ayelet Waldman that I referenced in my previous post, it struck me that this blame and judgment we place on our parental peers and in turn perceive placed on ourselves is based in fear. That someone will turn us in to the bad parenting police if we fail our children. Afraid our children will resent and hate us well into adulthood. Are we trying to make up for the shortcomings of the previous generation, our parents? Are we afraid of being: Just.Like.Them? But somehow, we survived.

And while watching the FRONTLINE episode, Growing Up Online, I witnessed parents fretting and wringing their hands over the expanding technology gap between themselves and their children. The boogeyman is now astrally projected into your home via the Internet! One PTA mother vigilantly kept watch over her child’s computer use until it wedged irreparable damage between their relationship at the expense of “being safe”. Shouldn’t teaching your child safety include trust in their abilities, to use the tools with which, as a parent, you have provided them? Again, the statistics show that the pervert is not going to show up at your door followed by Dateline cameras.

And we know we are fear mongers. Scholars and academics write theses and bestsellers about how fearful we are. How unjustified it is in the context of irrationality. The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things by Barry Glasner, Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine and even the preachings of Noam Chomsky deconstruct our overactive primal instincts. These speculators are featured on Oprah as she consoles and tell us not to be afraid. But next week the guest is the woman who let her unattended 7-year-old fall into an abyss at a local theme park where he was saved by a Good Samaritan who turned out to be a pedophile and began stalking her son. It is pervasive, this misdirected emotional alarm.

At six years old, I let Ivy cross the residential street after looking both ways for cars and walk the three-house length of sidewalk to her friend’s house. I watch her journey from the front of my house. This is how she learns to be safe. Ivy knows cars are dangerous. But what about the pervert soliciting help to look for his puppy in the unmarked, windowless van? How real is he? Ivy is taking Karate lessons from her black belt father. We want to give her life skills and good judgment so she can navigate the world on her own.  Statically, my child is more apt to be harmed by someone she trusts than by a total stranger. The more realistic danger is in those we know, or think we know.

Even Disney has a lesson for parents. In Finding Nemo, Marlin laments to Dory,  “I promised him I’d never let anything happen to him.” Dory responds in her usual bewildered tone: “Well, you can’t never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him. Not much fun for little Harpo.”

And anything can happen. We were on a plane home from Japan when we heard the news of the 2004 Tsunami that decimated the beaches of Phuket, Thailand. The vacation we had enjoyed only 2 years earlier could have been our last. I shuddered while watching the video reports documenting the very hotel in which we stayed crashing away in an angry tide. Nothing is in our control. But I cannot live in a fallout shelter or in the basement for 18 years. Someday my children will pack their bags and leave my house with their acquired skills. Skills I must teach them. They do not belong to me, these people. It is only my job to love them and prepare them to live lives of their own. I must squelch my fears and trust my children, to know that even though something could happen to them, they will persevere.

Ordinary Moments: The Whole Story

You know that voice in your head? Your inner Jiminy Cricket; the one that says, take your cell phone; make sure it’s charged. I did not listen to Jiminy’s incessant chirping and found myself instead bobbing the waters of the Puget Sound in a gas flooded jet ski.

We arrived at my in-laws the Saturday afternoon of Labor Day. Within a couple of hours, I was cruising Budd Bay on their 2-stroke Skidoo. It was an exhilarating and freeing moment to myself away from children. But first I took Ivy for a quick spin, and each life jacket encrusted baby for a short putt in shallow water. Then G and I went for faster spree though the wakes until we almost ran out of fuel. I could not wait for the next liberating opportunity. When grandma and grandpa offered to take the brood to the movies the next day, I volunteered to fill the tank at the marina pump. G and I were off with instructions for mixing oil and 91 octane. After a short jaunt across choppy water, I puttered and bumped into the Boston Harbor Marina station with a little nautical help from some locals. G jumped off, located the opening opposite the oil depository and began pumping gas into our motorized sea-faring machine o’ fun.

Sitting on the skidoo I thought 13 gallons seemed like a lot of fuel for our tiny vessel. And at 30 bucks, G figured we were good to go. Wanting to ensure our oil mixture was appropriate for some recreational time on the water, we lifted the dry container to check the oil tank. A greenish broth swirled in the hull. Were we leaking seawater in? Gee that smells like gas. The thoughts I did not heed; I habitually ignore that cautious cricket. We pushed off the dock and I pressed the engine start button. Nothing happened. And as we drifted further into the harbor, the term “dead in the water” came to mind. All these nautical terms from common language came into use; ironically applied in their proper context. Recognizing the helpless look of amateurs, a patron at the pump threw us a line. Once tethered to safety we began investigating our problem. The engine was fine before we filled the tank with gas, so what was the problem now? While G checked out the oil tank, determining if our mixture was the source of our strandation, I somehow, belatedly, noticed the gas tank. After G had filled the tank I remarked it was odd that it had no lid. Shut up Jiminy. Sitting there without power I finally realized our mistake. G had poured gas into the vent instead of the actual gas tank and the vehicle was now flooded with the newly acquired 13 gallons of fuel.

Enlisting help from the station employee we realized we would have to bail the gas out of the skidoo. It was about this time that Nathan; our “I’m just trying to be helpful, not antagonize the situation” helper noticed gas leaking into the harbor. He alerted the marina owner and the gravity of our situation became more apparent. A woman from the harbor patrol came to tow us to the opposite beach in a kayak and about this time G’s cell phone battery died. Up until this point my role had been one of uninvolved observer, letting G control this situation. Once I realized this was not going to be a 20-minute trial of inconvenience, I reluctantly eased off the machine, quit ADDing over the delicate jellyfish tendril caught on the pier and inserted myself into the situation. G and the marina asshole owner were squabbling over whether or not G could siphon the gas out with a hose and a bucket. Meanwhile I got down on my hands and knees and started bailing the noxious stew out of the hull. I filled three buckets before an actual pump materialized out of the ether. Even with an oil boom soaking in the skidoo and three buckets of recovered petroleum, we still had a flood. By this time I thought to engage the onslaught of holiday harbor cruisers offering condolences to our plight into a more sensible strategy. We found a tow from the first boat owner I asked. (Later, G referred to this as my feminine charm, which I took to mean: I actually had the idea to get us out of the situation we were in and asked for some freaking help.) I realized that if we were towed to the opposite shore without a cell phone, we were in for a long disastrous day into evening away from breastfeeding babies and any hope of rescue. My in-laws lived on the East side of the bay and by car it would have taken anyone an hour to get to us. That is if they knew where to find us. Since G’s cell phone was dead it also meant we had no access to pertinent data like telephone numbers and addresses. Who the hell has a phone book anymore? Not the Boston Harbor Marina.

Precariously balanced behind the Lazy Lightening, G cursed his newfound hatred of motorized recreational watercraft. Steady at a menacing pace of 10 mph, I assured him we would not fall into the "drink" and invited him to think of this as an adventure that could have been much worse. After all we were cruising along the bay on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

What did I take home from this very convoluted story that could have been much shorter?

Here is what I had the presence of mind to think about even in the moment. As a parent, I believe irrevocably, that my actions are much more demonstrative than any one thing I can say to my children. And even without them present, I did not panic; I did not hesitate to do what I needed to do. I kept my cool and acted befitting a parental role model.

I engaged the nasty troll of the marina owner and challenged him when he was being not-at-all-helpful with his quips and criticism in an attempt to boost his own littleness. Without even raising my voice (which I do all too often to my children), I simply stated things like: I don’t think that is very helpful. We are not attempting to inflict more damage than we have already caused. I think arguing over whether or not the siphon will work is not helpful. I don’t think being an asshole is very helpful right now. And I am happy to listen to some suggestions you might have about how we might remedy this situation and be on our merry way. He said, “I like being an asshole.” I assured him he had a very large set of manly balls and he can relay our silly plight to many a captive audience once we leave, but “may we please have a bucket?” Even though I fought one brief moment of emotional tears, I found myself quite amused by the situation.  And offered several apologies to Nathan who was quite helpful, sincere and not at all antagonizing as he so poignantly made a point of not being.

As soon as he realized we were being towed out of there, the marina owner wanted to know what we planned to do with all the gas and insisted we pay for the supplies needed to clean up the spill. Fair enough, it was our mistake. We paid the tab and guaranteed our swift return to collect the buckets containing gallons of gas. (Even though Nathan assured us to leave it there.) And interestingly, when G did return to accept his responsibility an hour and a half later, Mr. Asshole was attempting to sell the supposed inconvenient waste. What a snake! Good thing, being the responsible parent that I am with Jiminy serenely perched on my shoulder, I remembered to call the Coast Guard and report the rainbow slick spreading on the skim of the bay.

Ordinary Moments

You know that voice in your head? Your inner Jiminy Cricket; the one that says, take your cell phone, make sure it’s charged. I did not listen to Jiminy’s insistence chirping and found myself instead bobbing the waters of the Puget Sound in a gas flooded jet ski.

MORE TO COME