I was talking to my sister about the changes in her life since she decided to commit parenthood. She said she never guessed that she and her husband could spend so much time analyzing their son’s last diaper efforts, or that climbing Everest would sound easier than taking him on a visit to his grandparents.
A while ago, I made just such a mistake when I decided to take three kids out to California. Following my usual travelling technique, we arrived at the airport considerably early so the kids would have plenty of time to lose their carry-on luggage. This put us all in a cheery traveling frenzy even before the announcement that our flight was being delayed because the restrooms were not functional.
Our fellow passengers in the standing-room-only gate area watched in horror as it sunk in that this crazed woman and her three small children were joining them aboard a jet with a coach section roughly the size of your average bathroom. They glared at me as the airline pleaded for people to give up their oversold seats and take later flights, but I pretended to concentrate on getting my son out from under a row of seats before he spilled more fruit punch down the legs of unsuspecting strangers.
At last we made it out to California. My brother picked us up in his new car so the girls would have something classy to throw up in. We went to my parents’ house, where I spent a couple of relaxing days trying to keep three non-swimming kids from drowning in their pool (required in even the meanest hovel in southern California.)
While there I committed a crime so horrible that its inevitable discovery shook my children into stunned silence – I never told them that we were near Disneyland. The sheer scope of such parental perfidy left them gasping, “A child could think you don’t love her…”
But I remained unmoved. I figure there is nothing further they can do to damage my self-esteem because I don’t have any left.
It’s funny – you graduate from school, get someone to actually hand you a paycheck, and you meet The One who is willing to sit around and discuss your wonderful qualities. Just when you start to believe in all this, there’s Mother Nature standing over you with her loaded Magnum: “Are you yuppie DINKS feeling lucky today?” Ker-blam! You’re parents.
Instead of cultural and world affairs, you now spend your time discussing what sleep used to feel like and baby bowel habits. I heard a woman say she’d been a mother too long when she noticed she was changing a dirty diaper with one hand and eating a peanut butter sandwich with the other.
Not realizing that the chief purpose of encouraging baby talk is to keep the child unintelligible for as long as possible, we were careful to teach clear enunciation and precise terminology, allowing our children to deliver publicly humiliating statements at will.
For example, I pinched my two-year-old’s neck in the top of her coat zipper once. Toward the end of church services the next day, I tried to take advantage of a lull to put her coat on her. “Mommy,” she shrieked amid the hushed congregation, “Don’t hurt me again!”
We had to find a new church.
Another time we had stopped for some toddler haute cuisine at Chez Big Mac when my other daughter inquired in ringing tones, “Mommy, why is that person so ugly?”
“That’s not a nice thing to say,” I hissed back in my best parental fury whisper.
“But, Mommy…”
“No.”
“But, Mommy, I was only…”
“NO!”
“But, Mommy,” she said, sobbing now. “I wasn’t going to ask again why that person is SO UGLY.”
“OK, what?” I relented.
“Mommy, WHY IS THAT UGLY PERSON SO FAT?”
Then there was the time the two-year-old asked me where her tail was. I explained that children don’t have tails. “Michael does,” she stated and pointed. I immediately explained about male and female plumbing differences. She was fascinated, and the next several days were spent speculating – loudly – on who had what where. This interesting period culminated in a visit to a crowded local restaurant where she was inspired to announce – at full volume to a spellbound roomful of diners – what MY daddy has and what MY mommy has.
This time, we moved to another town.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Flu + Dad's Cooking = Survival Training
“We are given children to test us and make us more spiritual.” – George Will
There are a number of things nobody told me before I said, “I do.”
Oh sure, we got a lot of nice advice and a lot of nicer money. But Uncle Harry didn’t say, “Here’s $50 and by the way, your children will never throw up on anything but you.”
Aunt Thelma never mentioned, “I hope you enjoy the silver-plated toast server and have they told you about suppositories?”
I reflected on the fact that parenting builds strong character and stronger stomachs as the flu made its way through the household recently. I still think teenage pregnancy rates would plummet if teens were forced to spend a week doing the cleaning and laundry for a family of flu-sufferers. But after nine years of motherhood, I noticed that I was finishing up my coffee as I mopped up the latest flu victim, and getting dinner out of the freezer as I dumped her sheets into the washing machine. As one of 10 carsick-prone children, I used to marvel at my mother’s ability to take care of such disasters without losing her own lunch. My mother never got sick. On the list of The Basic Facts of Life, “Mothers never get sick” comes right between “Budgets never contain your actual expenses” and “Don’t drink the water”.
The arrival of new siblings, however, did assure Mother of lengthy hospital stays at regular intervals. At these times, my father took charge. “Daddy boiled the peas until all the water was gone,” we told visitors. “We couldn’t eat them, but they made great play dough.”Thanks to my father’s cooking, some of my sisters are pretty fair potters today.
My husband also took charge last week when I, a card-carrying mother, woke up to discover that my stomach was doing its level best to evert my toes and spit them out.
My husband’s cooking does have one advantage over my father’s – our dog. Natasha, who doesn’t want to strain either of her brain cells by involving them in food decisions, has a policy of eating anything which might have started out as food or have once had a label with a picture of food. She is also quite happy to eat the label. This left the children free to pursue their usual frozen waffle and peanut butter diet.
Being sidelined gave me the opportunity to reflect on the differences in our parenting styles. My husband is a great believer in personal responsibility. For example, he will do the laundry, but the clothes must be personally responsible for sorting themselves. He will also do the kitchen, but the pots and counters are their own responsibility. When the kids wanted to dye eggs, he retired to the porch, leaving them responsible for coloring eggs, counters,, furniture, and floors.
The 4-year-old takes after his father in this respect. When he was hungry, he decided to fix himself potato pancakes. He cracked about a dozen eggs, shells and all, into my largest bowl and grated the skins (both his own and the potatoes’) before floating several large potatoes in the bowl. I came in as he was about to dump it into a frying pan and light the gas stove.
He also made the mistake of turning to his sisters for assistance at one point. I overheard the young rajah demand, “Butter my waffle.” They immediately set him straight. “We’re not your slaves. That’s what Mama and Daddy are here for.”
I have to get downstairs before any more laundry becomes personally responsible, so I’m going to let the 4-year-old finish this column with his butterfly story:
“When you have something bad in your heart, the butterflies come and lick up all the bad stuff out of your heart. Then they take the bad stuff to a big machine and drop it in. The bad stuff gets turned into butter, and the butterflies fly it to big trucks. The trucks take the butter to the grocery store, and you go in there and eat it. This is called the Butter Cycle.”
There are a number of things nobody told me before I said, “I do.”
Oh sure, we got a lot of nice advice and a lot of nicer money. But Uncle Harry didn’t say, “Here’s $50 and by the way, your children will never throw up on anything but you.”
Aunt Thelma never mentioned, “I hope you enjoy the silver-plated toast server and have they told you about suppositories?”
I reflected on the fact that parenting builds strong character and stronger stomachs as the flu made its way through the household recently. I still think teenage pregnancy rates would plummet if teens were forced to spend a week doing the cleaning and laundry for a family of flu-sufferers. But after nine years of motherhood, I noticed that I was finishing up my coffee as I mopped up the latest flu victim, and getting dinner out of the freezer as I dumped her sheets into the washing machine. As one of 10 carsick-prone children, I used to marvel at my mother’s ability to take care of such disasters without losing her own lunch. My mother never got sick. On the list of The Basic Facts of Life, “Mothers never get sick” comes right between “Budgets never contain your actual expenses” and “Don’t drink the water”.
The arrival of new siblings, however, did assure Mother of lengthy hospital stays at regular intervals. At these times, my father took charge. “Daddy boiled the peas until all the water was gone,” we told visitors. “We couldn’t eat them, but they made great play dough.”Thanks to my father’s cooking, some of my sisters are pretty fair potters today.
My husband also took charge last week when I, a card-carrying mother, woke up to discover that my stomach was doing its level best to evert my toes and spit them out.
My husband’s cooking does have one advantage over my father’s – our dog. Natasha, who doesn’t want to strain either of her brain cells by involving them in food decisions, has a policy of eating anything which might have started out as food or have once had a label with a picture of food. She is also quite happy to eat the label. This left the children free to pursue their usual frozen waffle and peanut butter diet.
Being sidelined gave me the opportunity to reflect on the differences in our parenting styles. My husband is a great believer in personal responsibility. For example, he will do the laundry, but the clothes must be personally responsible for sorting themselves. He will also do the kitchen, but the pots and counters are their own responsibility. When the kids wanted to dye eggs, he retired to the porch, leaving them responsible for coloring eggs, counters,, furniture, and floors.
The 4-year-old takes after his father in this respect. When he was hungry, he decided to fix himself potato pancakes. He cracked about a dozen eggs, shells and all, into my largest bowl and grated the skins (both his own and the potatoes’) before floating several large potatoes in the bowl. I came in as he was about to dump it into a frying pan and light the gas stove.
He also made the mistake of turning to his sisters for assistance at one point. I overheard the young rajah demand, “Butter my waffle.” They immediately set him straight. “We’re not your slaves. That’s what Mama and Daddy are here for.”
I have to get downstairs before any more laundry becomes personally responsible, so I’m going to let the 4-year-old finish this column with his butterfly story:
“When you have something bad in your heart, the butterflies come and lick up all the bad stuff out of your heart. Then they take the bad stuff to a big machine and drop it in. The bad stuff gets turned into butter, and the butterflies fly it to big trucks. The trucks take the butter to the grocery store, and you go in there and eat it. This is called the Butter Cycle.”
Pink Stuff: one of the basic food groups
People often ask me if the things I write about really happen. The sad truth is I don’t write fiction: this is my life. Of course, everything doesn’t happen at once. Well, actually the kids are all on antibiotics right now, but not the same ones.
They all used to take the same medicine for their ear infections. In the interests of efficiency, each child got a new infection 10 days after finishing up their last prescription of Pink Stuff. (Feeding your children pink stuff, an antibiotic made from powdered platinum, is only slightly more expensive than mounting your own space program.)
My own kids, who think antibiotics are one of the basic food groups, have consumed enough pink stuff to send the children of several Pharmaceuticals-R_Us executives through Ivy League colleges.
But I’m not complaining. I like diseases that can be cured by pink stuff. In fact, strep throat is my favorite disease – 24 hours of pink stuff, the B-52 of antibiotics, and the kids are back in school getting more germs from their friends.
A few years ago, my husband had to make a business trip to another continent, but I wasn’t worried about handling things without him. Our house was on the market, the dog had developed a mysterious compulsion to perform unnatural acts with the cow manure in the pasture behind our house and all three kids were on pink stuff – in other words, things were pretty normal.
There is a clause in my wifehood contract which states that in such circumstances, I (the wife of the first part) shall be permitted to complain to him (the husband of the last possible part) that mothers never have conventions involving beaches on foreign coasts. Such complaints are not to exceed the number of times I draw breath, up to and including the moment said husband boards his plane.
I have added a rider which states that said husband must also say to me at least once, “I wish you could go instead, and I could stay here with the kids.” If he chokes on the words, it doesn’t count.
My husband managed to look sad as he said how much he would miss us, and in a remarkable demonstration of iron-willed self-control, avoided running up the ramp to his plane.
By the next morning, my 2-year-old son had developed an all-body rash. Exhaustive allergy testing had earlier revealed that he was not allergic to anything except air, food, plants, animals, and siblings, so our pediatrician was baffled. In hours, the 2-year-old’s joints were swollen to the size of softballs, and the rash had colonized his entire skin surface. His sisters were very impressed.
The pediatrician referred us to the allergist, who asked if I could bring him immediately. Since this only meant loading three sick kids into a non-air-conditioned car for a 1 ½ hour drive on mountain roads in 95-degree weather, I replied that I’d be right in. About halfway there, I noticed two things. The first was my son gasping for breath, and the second was the smoke coming from under the hood of my ancient station wagon.
I did what anybody with my extensive knowledge of car maintenance and repair would have done – ignored the smoke and drove on.
By the time I made it into the city, I had the freeway to myself. A few drivers assumed that I just hadn’t noticed the smoke pouring from my engine. Bravely, they pulled up alongside, honking and pointing frantically at the hood. Nodding and smiling like the Queen of Valium, I waved them on – nothing to worry about, it always does this…
My son only had to spend one day in the hospital, which none of us minded because it was air-conditioned. Unfortunately, the car also survived and was repaired by the time he was ready to go home.
But the real tragedy was that the cause of all his trouble was pink stuff. Now when he gets an ear-infection, we have to use scud-antibiotics instead of sending in the carpet-bombing pink stuff.
The rest of my husband’s absence passed fairly smoothly. (No, we don’t need to go into how I gave myself a concussion when I decided to repaint the kitchen cabinets. It could have happened to anyone…) When he came home, my husband said that he’d had problems on his trip too. The castle, (on the beach, in Spain – I’m not making this up) where the conference was held had very short showers, and also sometimes it was hard to convince the castle staff to give them seconds on their coffee. I’m so proud of him for sticking it out.
They all used to take the same medicine for their ear infections. In the interests of efficiency, each child got a new infection 10 days after finishing up their last prescription of Pink Stuff. (Feeding your children pink stuff, an antibiotic made from powdered platinum, is only slightly more expensive than mounting your own space program.)
My own kids, who think antibiotics are one of the basic food groups, have consumed enough pink stuff to send the children of several Pharmaceuticals-R_Us executives through Ivy League colleges.
But I’m not complaining. I like diseases that can be cured by pink stuff. In fact, strep throat is my favorite disease – 24 hours of pink stuff, the B-52 of antibiotics, and the kids are back in school getting more germs from their friends.
A few years ago, my husband had to make a business trip to another continent, but I wasn’t worried about handling things without him. Our house was on the market, the dog had developed a mysterious compulsion to perform unnatural acts with the cow manure in the pasture behind our house and all three kids were on pink stuff – in other words, things were pretty normal.
There is a clause in my wifehood contract which states that in such circumstances, I (the wife of the first part) shall be permitted to complain to him (the husband of the last possible part) that mothers never have conventions involving beaches on foreign coasts. Such complaints are not to exceed the number of times I draw breath, up to and including the moment said husband boards his plane.
I have added a rider which states that said husband must also say to me at least once, “I wish you could go instead, and I could stay here with the kids.” If he chokes on the words, it doesn’t count.
My husband managed to look sad as he said how much he would miss us, and in a remarkable demonstration of iron-willed self-control, avoided running up the ramp to his plane.
By the next morning, my 2-year-old son had developed an all-body rash. Exhaustive allergy testing had earlier revealed that he was not allergic to anything except air, food, plants, animals, and siblings, so our pediatrician was baffled. In hours, the 2-year-old’s joints were swollen to the size of softballs, and the rash had colonized his entire skin surface. His sisters were very impressed.
The pediatrician referred us to the allergist, who asked if I could bring him immediately. Since this only meant loading three sick kids into a non-air-conditioned car for a 1 ½ hour drive on mountain roads in 95-degree weather, I replied that I’d be right in. About halfway there, I noticed two things. The first was my son gasping for breath, and the second was the smoke coming from under the hood of my ancient station wagon.
I did what anybody with my extensive knowledge of car maintenance and repair would have done – ignored the smoke and drove on.
By the time I made it into the city, I had the freeway to myself. A few drivers assumed that I just hadn’t noticed the smoke pouring from my engine. Bravely, they pulled up alongside, honking and pointing frantically at the hood. Nodding and smiling like the Queen of Valium, I waved them on – nothing to worry about, it always does this…
My son only had to spend one day in the hospital, which none of us minded because it was air-conditioned. Unfortunately, the car also survived and was repaired by the time he was ready to go home.
But the real tragedy was that the cause of all his trouble was pink stuff. Now when he gets an ear-infection, we have to use scud-antibiotics instead of sending in the carpet-bombing pink stuff.
The rest of my husband’s absence passed fairly smoothly. (No, we don’t need to go into how I gave myself a concussion when I decided to repaint the kitchen cabinets. It could have happened to anyone…) When he came home, my husband said that he’d had problems on his trip too. The castle, (on the beach, in Spain – I’m not making this up) where the conference was held had very short showers, and also sometimes it was hard to convince the castle staff to give them seconds on their coffee. I’m so proud of him for sticking it out.
Turn left at West Virginia
One spring day without any provocation (unless you count my husband asking for the two previous years when “we” were going to finish unpacking and move into our house), I unpacked all our books, and Martha-Stewartized the family room. It looked so good that we decided there was nothing else to do but sell the house. So he took a job in a distant city, and we put the house on the market.
Moving is almost as fun as having your fingernails pulled out while being slowly boiled in oil, so I won’t dwell on the lovely months that followed. A few scenes do stand out, like the time I was in the bathroom indulging in a nasty case of stomach flu when the doorbell rang. I ignored both it and the lockbox on the front door. This marvelous invention allows Realtors to inconspicuously descend at convenient hours like dinner time – “Mmmm! Don’t those fish sticks give this place a homey smell?”
Picture me, weakly worshipping at the porcelain throne, when I heard, “Cathedral ceilings in the living room and you must see the master bath!”
After we had been through some months of this kind of fun, the realtors began to hint that although our house was fabulously desirable to subhuman species such as us (“sellers”), higher lifeforms (“buyers”) could not be expected to set foot in the place unless we made one or two small improvements such as a new roof, new carpeting through the house and getting the windows professionally cleaned.
We didn’t want them to think we were pushovers, so we drew the line a hiring window cleaners. Actually, this was an easy line to draw because it was already inscribed permanently on each window at toddler-hand and dog-nose level.
Moving day finally came – and went – because the movers couldn’t seem to find their driver, who had apparently turned right instead of left a West Virginia. Of course, he had to keep going because, being a man, he knew it was only a small step from stopping to ask directions to becoming sensitive, going to Alan Alda film festivals, and only drinking white wine.
Since we enjoyed moving so much, we rented a house in the new city, which meant we got to do the same thing all over again in a few months. Like buying a car and certain other activities darkly hinted at during seventh-grade recess, buying a house sounds like it should be a lot more fun than one ever has in actual practice. Our realtor must have asked herself why she didn’t opt for an easy job like selling Republicans a tax increase.
But finally, my husband and I found the perfect house. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the same house. His was a contemporary on a lake where he pictured tranquil sunset canoe rides, and I visualized my children’s bodies floating face-down. Mine was a charming Victorian which spoke to me of bygone days but spoke to him of bygone plumbing. Spurred on by the glamour of the phrase, “a roof over our heads,” and a petty unwillingness to give up luxuries like food and shoes, we opted for the antique plumbing.
Moving is almost as fun as having your fingernails pulled out while being slowly boiled in oil, so I won’t dwell on the lovely months that followed. A few scenes do stand out, like the time I was in the bathroom indulging in a nasty case of stomach flu when the doorbell rang. I ignored both it and the lockbox on the front door. This marvelous invention allows Realtors to inconspicuously descend at convenient hours like dinner time – “Mmmm! Don’t those fish sticks give this place a homey smell?”
Picture me, weakly worshipping at the porcelain throne, when I heard, “Cathedral ceilings in the living room and you must see the master bath!”
After we had been through some months of this kind of fun, the realtors began to hint that although our house was fabulously desirable to subhuman species such as us (“sellers”), higher lifeforms (“buyers”) could not be expected to set foot in the place unless we made one or two small improvements such as a new roof, new carpeting through the house and getting the windows professionally cleaned.
We didn’t want them to think we were pushovers, so we drew the line a hiring window cleaners. Actually, this was an easy line to draw because it was already inscribed permanently on each window at toddler-hand and dog-nose level.
Moving day finally came – and went – because the movers couldn’t seem to find their driver, who had apparently turned right instead of left a West Virginia. Of course, he had to keep going because, being a man, he knew it was only a small step from stopping to ask directions to becoming sensitive, going to Alan Alda film festivals, and only drinking white wine.
Since we enjoyed moving so much, we rented a house in the new city, which meant we got to do the same thing all over again in a few months. Like buying a car and certain other activities darkly hinted at during seventh-grade recess, buying a house sounds like it should be a lot more fun than one ever has in actual practice. Our realtor must have asked herself why she didn’t opt for an easy job like selling Republicans a tax increase.
But finally, my husband and I found the perfect house. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the same house. His was a contemporary on a lake where he pictured tranquil sunset canoe rides, and I visualized my children’s bodies floating face-down. Mine was a charming Victorian which spoke to me of bygone days but spoke to him of bygone plumbing. Spurred on by the glamour of the phrase, “a roof over our heads,” and a petty unwillingness to give up luxuries like food and shoes, we opted for the antique plumbing.
Life begins when the kids leave home and the dog dies...
When we grew up in the '70's, they told us that while retaining our natural superiority in the areas of childbearing, putting new rolls of toilet paper on the spindle, and choosing wallpaper, we women were now men's equals in everything except whapping large bugs, getting the 12:00 to stop blinking on the VCR, and making emotional investments in televised sports. But I think the truth is that somewhere on that Y-chromosome is a little glass-ceiling gene that keeps men from wearing spandex mini-skirts or selling each other candles for 5% commissions.
For about seven years, I wrote a weekly humor column which appeared in several Midwest newspapers. In addition to over 200 columns under my byline, I also published articles in other newspapers; including the Chicago Tribune and the Wall St. Journal. However once Child #4 joined my research staff (already consisting of three kids, two attack-cats and a sheep-deprived Border Collie), I decided to take a sabbatical from the column. In some of those columns which follow, I take aim at my fellow Baby Boomers -- the 95+ million Americans who make up 38% of our population and represent the largest source of buying power in the USA. (Okay, the largest source not counting my teenager and her friends on a mall-crawl...)
For about seven years, I wrote a weekly humor column which appeared in several Midwest newspapers. In addition to over 200 columns under my byline, I also published articles in other newspapers; including the Chicago Tribune and the Wall St. Journal. However once Child #4 joined my research staff (already consisting of three kids, two attack-cats and a sheep-deprived Border Collie), I decided to take a sabbatical from the column. In some of those columns which follow, I take aim at my fellow Baby Boomers -- the 95+ million Americans who make up 38% of our population and represent the largest source of buying power in the USA. (Okay, the largest source not counting my teenager and her friends on a mall-crawl...)
In these columns, I will share some of my own experience and that of other parents whose hard-won wisdom includes the following insights:
- There are only six documented cases of females who look good in mini-skirts, and five of them aren't allowed into PG-13 movies yet.
- In the entire history of western civilization there is no evidence that any bridesmaid was ever able to cut off that dress and wear it to parties later.
- Buying a pleated, plaid skirt can and often does tragically lead to wearing perky blazers and voting Republican.
So sit up straight, stop biting your nails and pay attention to a Mom: this is for your own good.
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