Unfit Mother

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.

Precious Moments

Just when I sat down to try and get some good ole blogging time in, this is what I find my children playing with outside:

one piece of broken glass bottle, four rusty nails and and a screw driver.

It came back with the rain. The draining in the clouds washed away the knot in my frontal lobe. At least that’s where it felt like it was. I am not a medical doctor not do I even have basic first aid training. Maybe it was simply being able to read again. Because I couldn’t do that for a couple of months either. Usually I read voraciously, binging like a bulimic. All I have been able to read from start to finish in two months is Rose of No Man’s Land by Michele Tea and No one Belongs Here more than you by Miranda July. I haven’t even been able to commit to any television shows unless you count the feigned interest in Gray’s Anatomy for the benefit of our foreign resident house guest. The only movie I watched with any attention is Juno. Once in the theater and again on Sunday from a pirated copy burned by the husband of someone I know. It starts without any menu selections or the ability to pause with commitment. So I had to watch it. But Michelle, Diablo and Miranda ministered over me and eased the veil. Last week, I couldn’t even write 10 sentences about my day. Given, these sentences had to be in Japanese, but I couldn’t even form the ideas for them in my own language first.

I still have a headache, but at least my husband is home and I have time to do something in the evenings now other than fall asleep. My absent partner in parenting has been gone 5 out of the last 8 weeks. I feel for single moms, I have to say. I did not sign on for single parenthood and am inspired to secure more life insurance.

But the cleansing rain is not supposed to last. According to the mortal wonder of weather forecasting, we will be cursing our 100 year old home and consider air-conditioning in paint sealed windows come Thursday. Even as I write, the sun approaches. But I have a beautiful new yard to enjoy at the expense of hard labor. I still have to finish planting the snack bar (blueberries, strawberries and grapes) but it is a veritable oasis.

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.

Fear Based Parenting

I have more to say about this shortly...

and this

 

Bodywise

Like you, I am critical of my body. I always have been but I wish I always had not been. I feel an enormous responsibility in raising three girls with healthy self-perceptions. And I have become increasingly conscious of the effects of expressing my attitudes about my own body to my daughters. I should not wage them in this personal (is political) battle. I need to set an example of accepting one’s body; I am learning to bite my tongue. Which leads me to question the impulsive thoughts fighting between my id and super-ego while I Freudalyze my feelings over my ever-changing form.

I have an alter ego – her name is Big Face. She was born just before Ivy when as my pregnant belly spread, so did my edemic facial features. My face became distorted, bigger. Big Face. Big Face loves to eat and enjoyed the extra calories required as a nursing mother and later was in pure bliss by the requisite 3500-calorie teen-age boy diet while gestating twins. And Big Face still makes self-effacing appearances for the guaranteed laugh, but I am conscious that it must have a negative effect on my daughters.

I was undressing in the women’s locker room at the gym last night when I was suddenly overwhelmed by how vulnerable I felt in a room containing at least 20 other naked women. But these were women with many different body types, with shapes as various as the myriad coils snaking along each double helix that determined the physical outcome of it's host. I was empowered by my more corpulent counterparts unabashedly maneuvering into swimsuits. These snorkel-armed women gave me courage. But when I came out of the shower, I kept my towel tightly cinched around the gelatinous twin skin of my belly as I shimmied into my underwear. Backing into a corner to change into my street clothes, my confidence was bolstered by a six-foot wall of lockers. There were two young girls in the changing room with one's mother as I dressed. As I unwrapped my towel, revealing the ravaging effects of nursing twins for two years, I wondered if I would stagnate their puberty. Was I a cautionary tales of tattoos before motherhood?  Positioned away from any mirror that would reflect a truth I could not bear, I looked down at my body. I sort of recognized the misshapen shell. Somewhere beneath the tubular National Geographic breasts, the fleshy overlapping rolls, and the sagging tribal ink is my former self.

The experience reminds me of the agonies of 2nd period gym class in high school. How I thought I was fat at 117 pounds. And the stealth strategies required to transform into regular clothes, hiding my figure flaws. I was thankful for the fashioned approved and heavy use of shoulder pads to compensate for my small breasts atop heavy hips. No one used the showers. Sneaking glances, we were sure to avert our curious stares. Is this the legacy I will leave for my daughters? Will they be as self-conscious, critical, even as loathing as I am? It is not their image I want to change, but their attitude.

At home, my daughters love all of me: my big butt, burgeoning waist and tube boobs. All of me. I try to remember that my actions sing an opus while my words issue a whisper on their little ears. If they can love my lumpish flab, then so should I.

The Age of Parenthood

I read this and thought this:

My sister always comments that I am an “older mom”. I find this amusing because I am about the median age among my peers with children of a similar age. And I can’t help but note a tone of resentment in her voice when she says it.

I was 32 when I had my first child. My sister married at 21 and had her first child a month after her 23rd birthday. Likewise, my mother was 23 when she had my sister, who was also her first child. Comparatively, my mother had me, her last child, at age 31. I have noticed that among my mom friends, many entered motherhood at roughly the same age their mamas were when they half consciously squeezed them out into the waiting arms of a scrub clad, masked spanker.  I have no scientific data to support this equated age claim; it is anecdotal at best, but a curious observation nonetheless.

I neither would have nor could have had a child in my twenties. That decade was a time of lost and found. A raging period of self-indulgent exploration and healing that only after, emerging in my 30’s, was I stable enough financially, emotional and maybe even physically to begin my family. A choice. Or maybe it is just the way things worked out. Circumstances.

I have navigated my life by the course of my sister’s mistakes. I don’t mean this with any disrespect or in judgment of my sister; quite the opposite. The big sister I always look up to and admire offered cautionary life experiences to which I took notice and headed like mythical parables. I simply learned from her hardships struggling as a young mom with three children. That was not a life I wanted to live. Which again is not a judgment on choosing to become a mother in one’s 20’s. But in the 1990’s, as an urban, educated, middle-class, white woman, I was able to make my choice with nary an eyebrow raised.

And while working through issues of post-traumatic proportions in my 20’s, I also lived with the relish of a wanton grrrl exploring all that life has to offer. At the prime age of 20, I suffered through a disastrous break-up with my first “true love” (which I now consider a near miss [near Mrs.]). Otherwise the course of my life could have echoed my oldest sibling’s. In retreat, I partied through college, trekked across Europe, moved cross country and had countless potential life partners (ok, maybe two or three real contenders) before I felt ready to “settle down”.  And at 27 I was ready, finally, to inventory my accumulated adventures and make a big change. I met my husband at 28, married at 29 and had Ivy at 32. My husband and I honeymooned by spending a month in Japan riding our bikes across the rural countryside and setting the stage for a life long cultural exchange.  In other words: before Saturn returned, I had sown my proverbial wild oats. 

My point is this: I would not trade my chosen path for one of different opportunities to have my children. And demographically, I insist I am in the norm and protest the “older mom” label. I have several friends, after all, who began their families in their 40’s. I have plenty of energy to chase my heinous monkeys around the living room or the neighborhood park. And I have the budget necessary to indulge them occasionally and keep them in the candy colored clothing proffered at the Hannah Anderson outlet. I am a better mom by having waited. I can be the mom I want to be.

The Sugar Fairies

2007 will be the first year I ration empty calories to my goblins on Halloween. Last year Ivy had a full understanding of the trick-or-treat tradition and the rewards reaped from holding out a pail and offering the obligatory “trick-or-treat” and “thank you” after being plied with candy. (Very little effort for the return.) Still she forgot about most of the candy after three days and then it disappeared. I am not counting on that kind of sugar-induced amnesia again. In previous years, the accumulated candy was minimal and controlled. So I have set out to ruin yet another American rite of passage for my children by over analyzing the situation. But I am attempting to establish some holiday traditions in our home as a result.

As a research junkie, I searched online for two queries:
1. Ideas for leftover Halloween candy
and
2. Should I let my child eat all her Halloween candy?

The first search lobbed back an array of helpful suggestions for freezing candy and making artful Christmas garlands. Not what I was expecting, but more to consider since I just today ate the last piece of Halloween candy from Forgotten Candy 2006. (Unexpectedly, it was neither frosted with white fungus nor stale.) But the second request dumped me into the parenting zeitgeist, The Poop. It was here I began to feel like I was constructing mountains from backyard rodent domiciles. So while I believe that left with too much time on one’s hands, some mothers often intellectualize parenthood, I cannot help myself. I think about these things. In a vain effort to undo the grudges left from my own childhood, I want healthy relationships with my children that will last well into adulthood. And more importantly, I want my children to have healthy relationships with food (something I struggle with and do not want to impart on them).  I do not want to restrict some confectionary indulgence, but also not condone binging behavior.

I found the middle ground among my friends’ suggestions. Surprisingly, many of my parent friends have established something along the lines of a Halloween / Candy / Sugar fairy who makes off with some designated amount of candy (each child keeps the number of pieces equal to her age – rounded up) and leaves a small token in return. Ivy’s friend, Jemimah, has such a tradition in her home. She told Ivy all about it and as Jem has a very clever mama, Ivy and I decided to appropriate their family’s mythology. I included Ivy in the decision and allowed the opportunity to construct her own variation. Ivy liked Jem’s family creation of the sugar fairies. I asked Ivy to tell me what happens with the fairies and draw pictures of them. Apparently, the sugar fairies need all that sugar to make it through the long dark fruit flavorless- non chemical rich- chocolate less winter ahead. Like hibernating bears, I guess. I like that it is in keeping with the origin of Samhain (winter =death yada yada yada).

But I am also the mom that never indulged in the Santa Claus mythos in our home. Ivy decided to adopt the figure after hearing so much about him from that notorious source of information: the playground. I asked Ivy if she thinks Santa is a “real” person but that’s a whole other story. My point is, I have this issue about lying to my kid and creating a subtext of dishonesty and conspiracy. I have employed many underhanded techniques to scapegoat these issues over the last 6 years. Anyway…

As a family, we decided to believe in the Sugar Fairies who will take the hard earned trove of sugary treats in exchange for a prize. (I’m thinking the copy of The Wizard of Oz tucked away in the basement for Christmas since it’s already on hand and in keeping with a theme.) I am also considering sending residual candy stash to soldiers in Iraq as per one online suggestion. This way I can work in a whole global, less biased anti-war conversation as Ivy helps the Sugar Fairies craft a note to the GI’s. That is IF there is anything left over from my 35 36 37 (er, HOW old am I?) piece share. (Or maybe I should sell the candy on Ebay and endorse the check to Ivy's therapy fund... At least I am aware of my neurosis.)

Is It Working?

I can feel their hearts beating against my palms, fluttering like two trapped birds. I am trying to put Tavi and Bea down for their nap; more like holding them down. Without regular childcare, this is the only opportunity I have for undisturbed work. Bea can fake snore, feign sleep. Their rhythms slow, the giggles and conspiring looks cease; they might be asleep. If I am clumsy getting up from the bed, disturbing the covers, I will have to start this ritual over. Precious time is ticking away and I am growing impatient. Finally they rest heavy in my arms and my workday begins.

On the days the nanny does not come, I can sneak in a couple of extra work hours if I plug them into Sesame Street and fudge on the shows before and after. I reassure myself of its educational branding, slink out of parental guilt and assume my work self. It is difficult affecting this duality. Working from home on so little pay that I can afford a nanny for only a few hours a couple of times a week. In my head, I play all the usual arguments. I can express nothing that has not already been stated on the issues of mothers who work versus mothers who stay home. It is a media created war in which I refuse to participate. We all make choices; I judge no one.

On the paid work spectrum, I am somewhere between the two poles: A Work At Home Mom. But what I find most compelling is I cannot afford to work full time. I borrow the book, The Two Income Trap, from the library hoping to shed light on my economic status. The book is written by a mother and daughter duo, Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi. The two blame the demand for two income families on the drive to buy houses in neighborhoods with good schools. We live in an urban area and although Ivy attends a specialty magnet program, it is a public school. I am privileged. On a budget, we can subsist on my husband’s solitary salary.

What I cannot afford is day care for Tavi and Bea. To send the two of them to Ivy’s former preschool (which has since raised their rates) just two days a week would cost me almost $1300 a month. I would have to work enough hours to justify the expense as well as the extra gas, food and extraneous spending that would result. It is more cost effective for me to hire a nanny a couple days a week and keep them in their food and snot stained jammies at home.

We once mused over the potential traditional role reversal. G would stay home while I worked. But with binary gender roles intact, I found myself a stay at home mom. I could not compete with his salary. And more than the traditional argument on how much money women make versus men in the same position, G has more education, an MBA, out of my league in salaries.

But I am caught in an internal struggle because I want to work. I am puzzled by the idea that some two-income families of five are living on $30K a year. I see them on the paperwork at the beginning of every school year. Do you qualify for free or reduced lunch?  We are well above the cut-off, but more paper work from the public school board shows more than 40% of Ivy’s classmates meet those requirements.

When Ivy was 18 months old I got antsy. I needed to be more than her mother. Even after resuming my film courses and my part time job, I was hungry for earning; climbing the economic ladder. Needing to keep myself occupied, I started sewing cute little outfits while Ivy napped. Somehow my hobby developed into a cottage industry business. The aprons I crafted for friends’ birthdays were stitched and hawked at street fairs and local shops. I kept it up, only making a small profit, because it was more for myself than for economic gain. That is until I became very ill. I had a stretch of months that I was really sick. The apron production slowed and then I was invited to apply for a coveted position in my chosen profession. I submitted my resume and was called for an interview while I was still in the hospital. Barely functioning, I nailed the interview and was offered the job. I deposited Ivy in daycare and worked until I was 8 months pregnant with my twins, Tavi and Bea.

When Tavi and Bea reached the 18-month mark, my usual fidgeting limit, again I was in that "just a mom" slump. My mobility is more limited as is my time with three children to manage as well as the usual drudgery around the house. I started volunteering as I did after Ivy was born, this time as a peer counselor for breastfeeding women. And then I began researching an independent documentary project and blogging. None very lucrative endeavors. Without any hope for financial gain in sight, I plugged away nonetheless. I had something to offer and was lacking adult companionship and intellectual stimulation.

But then I received another call to work. From the same person who had invited me to apply for the position before Tavi and Bea were born. She assured me it would be simple, something I could do from home. I was both eager and ready. The project had a deadline, a finish date. So now with a self-indulgent blog (neglected like a Christmas puppy and speaking of puppies), a new puppy, still-nursing-toddler twins, a 5 year old and a film project I plunged back into employment. It was summer vacation but I started treading water, keeping my head afloat. But I reached a limit somewhere between the deadlines and the laundry. The volunteering dropped off and I had no time to socialize even though we have an average of one birthday party invitation per week. The puppy needs obedience lessons and I am taking a Japanese class to keep up with the dinner conversations at our house. I feel officially overwhelmed and I realize that nothing from my plate shifted because my husband’s job became more demanding of him.

I may be a type A personality, but I am also stretched thin. In the words of a famous hobbit: “Like butter over too much bread”. My last deadline for work looms at the end of this month and I will wait to take on another paid challenge with real life deadlines. I recently submitted a magazine article that has since been accepted for publication and more importantly, pay. So Instead, maybe I can do something I love for just a little bit of money in return. At least enough to pay the babysitter once in a while.

Style Tips

Diaper Cream makes a great hair gel and it tastes good too!

*The author of this blog does not recommend the use of zinc oxide as a hair product. Use diaper cream only as the manufacturers direction indicate. May take multiple washing to remove from child's hair.

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.