the modernity ward

The Used-Up Tits Are A Metaphor

I don't want to give the impression that I am always down. Because sometimes I feel pretty great!

I mean I'm like totally bipolar or whatever! HA HA HA

(Okay but you have to admit it's kind of funny.)
(Or you could just sit there with your arms crossed staring at me like the audience at open mic.)

I'm not flying too close to the sun, I don't think. I just had a nice day. A nice day after a pretty good week (that had a few dips and freakouts but righted itself, eventually), and the house looks better and I did all the grocery shopping and we have a washing machine that works and the air conditioner done got fixed and tomorrow, tomorrow, my task for the day is to purge the children's dresser of the faded, stained, too-small, and holey, and replace that stuff with the giant tub of hand-me-downs we just got. And wash and hang up all the school uniforms, because Sophia, child who began as a most determined little sea monkey no matter how uncertain her mother was, is about to begin second grade.

Second grade! Could you just die? 

And Daphne, no less a blessing for how much we didn't have to sweat for her, will start full-time day care. On MONDAY, people. Which means the days of dressing her in a shredded pajama top and a skirt and no underpants and sending her out into the world with the Kool-Aid Mustache of the Subsequent Child (and we don't even HAVE Kool-Aid, I don't know where it comes from) are coming to a screeching halt. 

Let us not mention the fact of my own classes, beginning in oh about two weeks.

Or of the things that must take place before that happens: The purchase of the remaining books, of the smartphone, the receiving of the holy Hep B shot #2, the flu shot, oh can we get a Trileptal level and a sodium level while we're at it, and oh yes the CPR course.

I am determined to do one more open mic before school starts. Mostly because after one of those the terror I have of the social upheaval of beginning school will seem as deflated as my used-up tits. 

The used-up tits are a metaphor, of course. They represent the depletion of that certain little-baby mothering energy I had. That part is gone away and not coming back, and I will admit defiantly that I am looking forward to the paradigm shift. I want to be a school-and-daycare mom. I want to spend large chunks of the day in the company of adults, using big words!

It was awful nice while it lasted. But to everything there is a season blah blah blah. 

I'm not sure where the tits metaphor goes after this. 

 

The Best Old Lady in the Grocery Store

Tuesday morning shopping with a suspiciously well-behaved Daphne. That child, accidental murderer of poultry, driver-crazy of sisters and mothers and fathers, unstoppable irritating machine -- in short, a totally ordinary three-year-old -- was being charming, responsible with her miniature shopping cart, chatty with strangers. 

A grandma-aged woman said, "Oh, how old are you, darlin'? You must be four!"

"I turned fwee for my birfday," Daphne informed her, holding up three fingers.

"My goodness," said the woman, turning to me. "She's very tall for her age!" I agreed.

"And she doesn't act like a three-year-old! Why, that was the only time I really hated being a mother -- when my children were three. Three and thirteen. Those were the only times I just didn't want to do it any more."

I assured her that today's behavior was unusual, that I knew exactly what she meant, and that I was grateful that our good day could be shared with the shopping public. And off we went to the dairy case. I said a little prayer in my head, that her kids take good care of her as she ages. 

May I grow up to be that lady in a grocery store someday: Complimentary, kind, admiring, and unabashedly honest about the reality of parenting little children. 

Awful

I went out to lock up the chickens after the girls were off to bed and could only find three of the four.

I hunted under the porch, in the nesting boxes, the shed -- nowhere. Chickie Emma, the smallest and nicest of our hens, a little blue-egg-laying Araucana, was not to be found.

Then I noticed the 25-gallon plastic tub turned upside down.

I lifted it.

Underneath was a very dead Chickie Emma, along with a final blue egg.

I knew immediately what had happened: Daphne, my holy terror of a three-year-old, was the rooster of the flock, and when she came walking all the chickens froze in their tracks, let her pick them up, docile for only her. She also, of late, had been experimenting with trapping them in the shed, once even hiding two under the plastic turtle-shell lid of her sandbox. I spoke seriously then, explained that they would die, sent her to her room.

But I must not have been watching closely enough early this morning. In fact I know I wasn't. And then we left the house and were gone most of the day. The hot, sunny day. That poor little hen. What a horrible way to die. Not the humane death I had envisioned for the animals under my care. No, a hot, unpleasant, miserable, protracted death for a sweet little creature I loved best -- we all loved best -- of our chickens.

I dug a hole in the dirt just to do something with my rage. Daphne was asleep already but Sophia wandered out. I showed her Emma's stiff body, let her pet the chicken's feathers, explained what had happened. She was unfazed, and tried to comfort me by suggesting we get another chicken.

I didn't bury Emma. I put her in a trash bag in the freezer. When Daphne wakes up in the morning I will show her, and we will talk about what happened, and we will bury Emma in the yard together. We will plant a tree over the spot. ("An apple tree?" asked Sophia. "With branches to climb on and a tire swing?" [She's been agitating for one lately.])

Not that I expect this to change Daphne's behavior. She's three. Innocent, in that her brain isn't capable of making the connection between her action and the chicken's death, or for that matter of stopping the action even if she DID understand that at the very least she would be in trouble.

Obviously there's one person at fault and that's me. I didn't see what happened, I didn't watch closely enough. Worse still, I was congratulating myself all the while for providing a little wildness for my girls, an unfettered life in the confines of the backyard, with dirt and animals and bare feet and tree climbing.

That wild dirty-footed life includes death as well. Sometimes at the hands of a child.

I'm so sad for that little chicken. 

So Here's the Plan

I? am gonna sit on my ass and let my sick child watch television and wait around until it's time to eat. 

That's as far as it goes. 

I'm getting that airy floaty feeling that signals the beginning of A Sick. I don't think I'd've caught it had I not busted up in those Thin Mints -- the sugar, it'll leave your immune system bullet-riddled on the curb! -- but here we are. The cookies, they are gone, and so is my resolve to unstick these bits of tin foil and broken crayon from the bottom of my feet.

At least when I am exemplifying the stereotype of the Stay-at-Home Mommy Who Just Gave Up I can enjoy it with some kind of ironic distance. Abandon myself to it and yet maintain a detached awareness of how my house, it looks like a movie set if you were trying to get across to a bunch of single twentysomethings just how comically terrible things get when you have little kids. The only thing missing is a a wailing sweet-potato-besmeared infant in a high chair. And that's only because you're too late. Come back thirty-two months ago, we'll see what we can fix up.

 

 

 

Episodes

I think we talked about this before, right? How some of us get huge waves of energy and creativity, and you have to learn to ride it because count on it, sister, it is gonna recede?

It's exhausting to be all rolled up in one. But I'm getting so much done. I only have five months. After which point I am either in school or it's The Nothing. You know, that roiling cloud in the Neverending Story that eats everything. So one or the other but it's a deadline, either way. I think, what, two books and a finished house? Ducks in a row. Freezer full of enchiladas. A place for everything. Everything in its place.

I have to get a piano. Next week. A good old one with a voice of its own.

Would I be more productive if I didn't have children? Maybe not. There would be no urgency. Nothing kicking me in the back, literally and figuratively. This morning I woke up to Daphne's tiny fingers on my neck, her babyish face whispering a reassurance directly into my mouth: "Mama, I will never leave you again."

Yeah. I don't know either. But okay, sweetie. See that you don't.

 

 

Sunshine in February

I sit in undying gratitude that I was brought up to believe that small children are best left to their own happy devices out in the mud and chicken shit, chattering to hens and inventing worlds with pebbles, while mothers sit and write. Or draw. Or think. 

Well done, Mom. 

I can see how some would criticize it as a type of detachment parenting -- the polar opposite of the symbiotic closeness of the baby days, where I wore my children on my body and fed them that way too, reading their needs without a conscious thought. I think it is exactly the same thing: an honoring of essential human nature, which likes its needs met without a struggle and then to go off wandering.

At any rate: the kitchen sits in disarray and I have a clean spot at the table for my sketchbook, and Daphne has come inside with two eggs still hot from a hen's body. Why waste sunshine in February wiping up crumbs? 

Oh for the Fuck of Shit, Children

Sit right in your goddamn chair. Don't make that disgusting chuffing slurping noise when you spoon your milk into your mouth instead of fucking drinking it like a regular person. No, don't tell your sister to be quiet STOP SCREAMING STOP SCREAMING okay. 

Don't clink your spoon on your cup that way. Don't touch me. Don't CLUTCH at me. Don't GODDAMN FUCKING RUN WITH THAT. No you may not climb on that WE ARE NOT GETTING THE PLAY DOH OUT it is BEDTIME. Would you PLEASE sit like a person in that chair. Turn your legs TURN YOUR LEGS so that they go under the table and FACE YOUR FOOD. No, I don't care if you hate it, and I can't hear you when you use that whiny voice. Or I wish to god I couldn't. I don't care if you never eat anything again, that's right, Mommy don't give a shit. Here's your goddamn rice, assholes. It already has butter in it OH GOD DO NOT CRY ABOUT THE BUTTER how on earth could I have anticipated you would want to put the butter on it yourself GODDAMN IT DO YOU NEED TO CRY IN YOUR ROOM.

Let go. No, get off. Do not climb on me. Do not touch me with your tiny greasy fingers or put them on my glasses or OH MY GOD YOU BENT MY GLASSES.  I am trying to eat my goddamn dinner OH HOLY JESUS DID YOU JUST SPIT IN IT? DID YOU?

I don't even care because it's still hot and I'm eating it. Except OH FINE I will get you a drink of water because it's not worth it to watch you climb in and out of that stupid booster seat and almost tip the chair and want to do it "all by yourself" and it'll take forty-five minutes and here is your water.

You want a what? More bread? No more bread. No more goddamn bread. Eat a carrot. Eat those carrots that are right in front of you. DO NOT WHINE AT ME about the carrots. Just eat them. You begged for them yesterday.

If you ask me for dessert I am going to spear my own motherfucking eyeball with a carrot and I am going to goddamn well serve it to you and YOU WILL EAT IT. 

 

Oh, I Remember This Part

It was at this age Sophia pretty much quit napping altogether, except when strapped down in a warm car for a minimum of forty-five minutes. If she did accidentally doze off at home, she would jiggle her foot, then her whole leg, until she was awake again.

It was a time of tremendous explosions in language abilities, physical abilities, developmental things like potty learning, and plain old growth; it was a time I regularly found myself brought to white-hot rage by the combination of exhaustion (oh, did I mention that her nighttime sleep also went to shit about that time?) and never ever getting that single hour of quiet during the day.

Daphne has been a comparatively easy sleeper, but lately she's been skipping naps, and today she jiggled herself back to consciousness. I felt like jumping out the window. Granted, it's a first-floor window, but it would have been satisfying to flee. I don't remember if Sophia was quite as tearful as Daphne is, but I assure you not fifteen minutes go by that Daphne doesn't let loose an unearthly moan, screech, shriek, sob, or other sound that makes you want to pull your ears out by the roots.

This stage is survivable only because they are exceedingly cute when they're not being insufferable. And because...well, I don't know any other reasons. Perhaps you would be so kind as to share.

All I know is, I am NOT the kind of person who is good at this age. I can do need-intensive newborns as long as you like, but this age is a killer for me.

Oh and also, my cycles are returning in a delightfully irregular way, which means I have near-constant PMS without getting the relief of completing the hormonal cycle and actually getting my period. Last time this went on for about six months, at which point they got regular again and I almost immediately got pregnant. On which subject, NO. NO NO NO NO NO.

The only thing I can think of to do is try to find a babysitter (all the great ones here have moved on to their next things -- full-time jobs, babies of their own, etc.). And to try for more freelance work so I can justify the cost. The alternative involves self-inflicted blunt force trauma or one of those trendy mommy-drinking-gin-from-a-sippy arrangements, and neither of those is especially appealing.

 

 

Our Piece of the Pie

A mother is a person who, seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.

-Tenneva Jordan

I saw a lot of that quote around Mother's Day, especially on Facebook, and at first I was all, "Yeah! That's awesome!" and then I was like "That's aweso...well, hold on a minute."

Because you know, I like pie.

I like it a lot. In fact, I would cut you for a slice of pie right now. Even if it wasn't strictly necessary. Even if you were offering me a piece of lemon meringue, I might shove you out of the way and take the whole pan.

I can see the appeal of the quote. Gracious sacrifice for the sake of others can be a lovely thing. It's generosity without martyrdom, an everyday kindness freely given. Lord knows we give up a lot as mothers, big and little things, and it's nice to see a funny quote acknowledging our constant tiny sacrifices.

On the other hand, though, why couldn't we just divide up the pie a little differently so everybody gets some? Or why can't the toddler go without pie? She'll just cram it into her ear canal anyway. The four-year-old won't eat anything involving cooked fruit, and would be happier with honey on toast. Or you know, maybe Dad was served lunch at a symposium, and there was dessert. Maybe Mom gets two pieces of pie.

These are all completely fictional examples, of course.

It's a truism that mothers sacrifice. It's the reality of our daily life, it's something the sodden-with-sympathy conservative right trots out to venerate us on one hand while snatching away support with the other. The job we do is so important and it doesn't pay has long been twisted to read the job we do is so important that it doesn't pay. And no mandated extended maternity leave or decent affordable child care, either. Be sure to breastfeed but be sure to get back to work after six weeks too! Stay home and don't let strangers raise your kids, but earn a paycheck and don't drop out of the workforce and don't waste that degree!

Being a mother -- indeed, being a woman -- in our culture means getting screwed six ways to Sunday, and told you're doing it wrong in the bargain. I am happy with the choices I've made and grateful that I had the opportunity to make them, but you know what? If there's pie to be had, I am damn well going to have a piece.

Topeka Means "A Good Place to Dig Potatoes"

There's this ongoing thing with my dad in which he is, despite his best efforts, growing healthier, thus revealing the depths of his decades-long untreated mental illness, and blah blah I wrote an impassioned heartfelt letter blah blah blah. Because I'm tired of the way we talk around him and tiptoe around his crazy behaviors and enable him and I'm just done. So of course he thanked me for my insight and caring and immediately proceeded to rationalize why he is not going to do any of the things I suggested and why he doesn't have a problem but maybe we could work on our relationship? Which made steam shoot out of my ears. Steam and those weird sea creatures who live around deep volcanic vents.

So with strange mollusks and many-legged eyeless things coming out my ears I wrote back "BULLSHIT, DUDE. NO MORE BULLSHIT. ENOUGH WITH THE BULLSHIT." and some other things more or less along those lines, because I have literally been hearing the words he used since I was a tiny child, words about how we're gonna do that later, and "that" sometimes meant "arranging for one's retirement" and sometimes it meant "fixing that hernia before it engulfs Topeka" but never once did "that" get done. Not once.

And I am all done pretending that hollow promises are worth anything, and I am all done going away after hearing them, and I am all done pretending like I even believe them just a little. I am going to loom over my Dad's life like a slag heap over a picturesque Welsh town. I don't even care if he hates me forever, because if I don't do it, I will hate myself. I love him too much to let him bullshit me any more. I love him so much I don't care if he hates me.

But, you know, hey. I'm not one to spill my private business all over the internet!* And you don't really want to hear about all that stuff anyway, do you? Naw! So let me tell you some hilarious stories about my children. 

So, Sophia. Sophia has recently become enamored of our next door neighbor Mark, a middle-aged single man who is friendly and better still, easily visible from our back yard when he is on his deck. Poor man has been trying to build a lattice screen between our porches but it is very difficult to run your saw when a four-year-old is chirping at you about Calvin and Hobbes. "Remember the time he went outside naked?" she says. "And the snow goons? Remember the snow goons? And he went to Mars?"

Mark does remember, but Mark also wants to finish his deck in the few minutes of daylight remaining. I drag Sophia in for dinner, though not without a good show for Mark about how she does NOT need to mind her mama, oh my no, who do you think calls the shots around here, that old bag in the cutoffs? No way! After dinner, she overhears his saw start up again, and she literally GASPS and runs to the back door to dangle in Mark's general direction.

I'm not sure what he did to win her affection so completely, but I wish you could have heard that gasp. A lifetime's worth of longing and joy was in it. It broke my heart a little.

Oh, and also: I have video of Sophia performing Magnetic Fields' "The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side" while playing a guitar. Will have to post that.

Next, Daphne! Apparently she is so busy working on all her crazy developmental skills like brushing teeth and spitting PPTTTT into the sink and flushing toilet paper and sprinkling salt from a salt dip and fitting the rings onto the ring stacker (not to compare, but Sophia was not able to do that until she was like 3, for reals) that she's not devoting a lot of attention to talking. Fifteen-month-old Sophia was uttering sentences. Daphne growls. She growls really, really well, with a variety of tones and volumes. She can also meow. She can sing the ABC song without words, and Dayenu without words, and wave bye-bye while saying "Dah!" and say "MUH MUH MUH" when she wants something. She calls me "Ma ma ma" or "Da da da" and she calls Sean "Da da da" and she calls Sophia nothing at all. Although she does like to push her. She also likes to come up behind you and grab your hair and pull and yell "OW OW OW!" She does it to herself too. You can tell her to go find Dada or go find Sophia or throw the ball or shut the door and she'll do it, too.

So clearly the receptive language is all there. I hope she keeps the growls as she adds words.

*Except for the time I spilled my private business all over the internet. By which I mean "live blogged childbirth twice" or, you know, something. I don't really remember.