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. 

 

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. 

 

Why I Haven't Posted

Despite the fact that it is still possible to swim in an unheated pool in Maine, school has started here in Nashville. Where it is always, always 97 degrees and humid -- but I digress. Sophia, who was naught but a gleam in her mother's blog back when I started writing, has begun kindergarten! Cue trumpets! And thank God!

The lead-up to the first day of school consisted of three of the most challenging weeks of my parenting career to date, and people, that is saying something. Maybe what it's saying is that my threshold for challenge is too low, but never mind: it was awful. That child sassed her mama like it was going out of style, earned time-outs before breakfast most days, and slammed her bedroom door so hard and so often I feared for the glass in the transom. I was afraid we were going to make the news, and not for my clever back-to-school themed crafts.

And every night, she asked me to tell her about kindergarten.

But I bought her a special hook for her closet door so that she could hang up the next day's outfit each night; I organized all her school clothes; we went to the school to meet the teacher and check out the classroom. To say that went well would be an understatement; when I realized I'd forgotten something and needed to walk back home for it, Sophia insisted on staying with her teacher -- by herself -- while I ran home.

First day of school was delightful; ditto the second day. Those were half days. Third day was a full day, and she came home happy but then chose to play in bed until right before supper. Yesterday she came home and said: "You better not send me to school any more. My neck hurts from looking up at the teacher!"

She loves and respects her teacher, though; I hear her using her best manners with Mrs. I-Don't-Have-A-Clever-Name-For-Her-Yet. The teacher, in turn, is one of those adults who takes little bitty kids seriously -- she's kind but not cloying, and has definite and high expectations for the kids.  Which is a really good fit for Sophia. She's happy to go to school and we are all benefiting from the structure. The neighbors have warned us that there will be the inevitable crash, probably a couple weeks in, when it sinks in that this is pretty much forever, this school thing -- but I'm enjoying the peace while it lasts.

It's also strange to have Daphne alone, all day: it reminds me very much of being home with baby Sophia, except now we have structure to our days (boy, wouldn't that have been a blessing) and I don't have OCD (wheee!). 

I am still a big believer in homeschooling, but I'm an even bigger believer in it not being right for us -- especially not for me -- at this age. We'll see how school goes, but so far, so good.

Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Roundly Derided on My Blog

This week the girls and I strolled down to the elementary school to register Sophia for kindergarten. (My GOD.) We were chatting with the secretary about Standard School Attire at our school -- because it's a magnet, they allow any color of shirt, since kids are being drawn from all over the district and each school has its own special allowable colors, and they don't want to render useless a closet full of hand-me-downs or whatever -- and the other mother in the office, also registering her kindergartner, chimed in.

"My daughter will be so pleased," she declared, "since she's really sad about not being able to choose her own clothes otherwise. Because of the uniforms," she clarified. "She's really more of a sequins-and-feathers kind of girl." (I am not shitting you.)

"I'm a fan of the Standard Attire," I said, "mostly because I don't like having the sparkly-high-heels fight every morning."

At this point Other Mother fixed me with a wet-eyed pitying look, pressing her lips together in a concerned semi-smile.

"My daughter has always dressed herself," she said. "You know" -- and here the pity turned to syrupy condescension -- "clothes are really the only way children have to express themselves."

And there I stood agog for what felt like fifteen minutes, while my future entire flashed before my eyes: clearly our children would be assigned to the same kindergarten classroom, the same first, second, third, class play orchestra recital middle school high school summer programs OH MY GOD.

"Sophia has always dressed herself," I stammered, "but I insist on sensible shoes." Although it's possible I actually said "Oa bllfft ggnn bruup!" I was catatonic with...something. Not rage, but utter speechless disbelief. Because, hey, lady, do you think I forced that child to come to school that morning in a bathing suit, obviously homemade American flag-themed skirt, and frilly undershirt?

As Sean put it later: "Judging me: UR DOIN IT RONG."

I mean, there are many facets of my parenting you would do well to judge me on: my reliance on Sonic shakes as a bribe, my inability to control the volume and tone of my voice in my rage at horrible four-year-old behavior, my desire to spend just a little goddamn time on Facebook which results in Sophia sometimes watching SpongeBob during Daphne's nap (without me there to mute the commercials, God, I know). But we've let Sophia dress herself, sometimes in defiance of meteorology, for as long as she's been able. She's gone out in the snow in a t-shirt (I carried the coat for when she changed her mind), she's worn elaborate formal dresses for days on end, she's mixed and matched and made beautiful fashion. Heck, there was a week in 2007 when she wore a pair of underpants as a hat. In public. All week. (She was so proud of her "ha'" that we couldn't bear to make her take it off.)

But I never made these allowances under the delusion that fashion was the only available avenue for self-expression and discovery. That's just stupidity masquerading as progressive parenting. In fact, I would go so far as to deem it anti-feminist, if you really want to go mucking around in there. Means for self-expression, sure. But not the ONLY one. Even little kids have voices -- or should, at least -- in their families and schools. Especially families ostensibly "progressive" enough to allow self-outfitting.

At any rate, Sophia is so jazzed about her uniforms that she would probably wear them even if they weren't required. She looks like a million bucks in her little khaki skort and pink polo.

She was delighted to learn, however, that any kind of tights -- colors, stripes, polka dots -- are allowed. At least she'll be able to share herself with the world that way. God knows it's all she's got.

Feminist Awakenings, Tiny Version

We are discussing the plot points of a version of Froggie Went A-Courtin', in which Miss Mousie's suitors -- the frog, an owl, a bat, and a bumblebee -- fight for her hand in marriage.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Sophia: But who did Miss Mousie want to marry?

Me: Hmm. Good question! Who do you think?

Sophia: Well, a ow-ul would only be awake at night. And a bat would only be awake at night too! So that wouldn't be good.

Me: No, I guess not.

Sophia: And the bee might sting Miss Mousie!

Me: Yep.

Sophia: So the froggie is the best husband!

Me: Sounds good to me! It's kind of silly that they fight, isn't it, since it's really Miss Mousie's decision?

Sophia: Yeah! But why is that not in the song?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I can only hope she'll be as discerning among her own suitors some day. By the way, she thinks that Miss Mousie lives with Uncle Rat because she needs cheap rent while she's off at college. How long will that last, you think?

Sprawling, Disorganized Thoughts (Brought to You by Oxycodone)

Dear Firstborn:

Listen, kid: you are this close to finding in your lunch bag a box of Mori-Nu silken tofu and a spoon, mmkay? Next time I pack you a lovingly made red bean and broccoli quesadilla, bag of blueberries, mini chocolate chip zucchini muffins THAT I LET YOU HELP MAKE, and ten chocolate chips plus raisins, and you tell me that you ate the chocolate chips AND NOTHING ELSE, you will go on a culinary tour of the Least Suitable Lunch Foods of the World That Happen to Be in Our Pantry. Thursday is dry couscous day. So eat your fucking lunch, honey. Okay? Can you do that?

* * * * *

But seriously: S did a week of Basic Swim day camp, and I am incredibly impressed with her -- not just for learning all the new skills but at navigating the uncharted social waters of a camp where she didn't know anybody. She's a girl after her mama's heart, and boy, I know that takes a lot out of her. But she did it -- learned to swim, came home with silly songs and a sunburn, and managed not to have a meltdown all week long. When did she grow up so much? Where'd my baby go? Do I really have to send her to kindergarten?

I adore little larval newborns, the slow flowering of personality; I find toddlers and preschoolers challenging but charming. My fantasies of motherhood always stopped right about age 5, though, and I never thought much about parenting older children. I'm starting to see how much fun -- and how devastating -- that's going to be.

* * * * *

In other news: Dad. His medical needs are numerous at this point. The new liver seems to be a success thus far but he needs to eat more protein (to eat more, period), he needs to heal that surgical wound and gain some muscle strength back, and he has to do those things so they can fix his hernia. If not for the hernia he'd be ready to go home, just about, but the hernia really compromises his ability to sit, move, walk, and pretty much anything else you can imagine.

His demeanor was hauntingly sweet when I saw him. Part of that was the Percocet, but most of the time he wasn't on any kind of painkillers. He seemed like he'd been away somewhere, baffled at his return, in pain at times but barely tethered Earthside, other times. He wanted to hear about his grandchildren; he wanted to hear what I remembered about my own childhood. I told him story after story: the time we went to the Ozarks, caught sunfish which we turned in for prizes at the canteen. The way he swore putting together our old metal swingset, how much fun we had playing on it. Taking our irascible dog Peaches into the horse fields behind the house to run through the grass, flushing birds and terrorizing the occasional jogger. He listened, delighted, either at the memories themselves or at the idea that I had these memories, happy, of him. He'd drift off, listening, a beatific smile on his face.

I was angry, before. Justifiably so, of course -- don't worry, I'm not feeling bad about feeling mad (or any of the other fascinating, complex, old and new feelings) -- but yeah, angry. The first time I saw him sick it was like a punch in the gut. I felt sick inside but no less angry; after all, he very literally brought it on himself -- and, of course, all of us.

Now, though. The energy of that anger seems to have dissipated. It's not so simple as believing he's done the correct penance and now deserves the cure; no. The anger cleared away and now I can see how much he's been suffering for so long -- not just the interior anguish but the physical pain he endured as a result. He's lived through years of excruciating pain and embarrassing side effects, taken terrible care of his physical self. I am astonished that he has survived.

And I'm terribly glad, too.

Some Mama's Baby

I read Katie Allison Granju's book Attachment Parenting a long time ago, even before I married Sean, before we started trying and I started failing at reproduction. Years before I got that positive pregnancy test, this book, and its wise and perceptive author, resonated deeply with me, and informed the way I would think about parenting from then on.

Of course I was delighted to find her reporting insightfully on the under-covered Kingston ash spill, and sent her a nice email; not long after that I friended her on Facebook and started following her blog more closely as she found herself pregnant with a fourth child.

Then something very bad happened: her oldest child, a son, Henry, in the throes of addiction, overdosed, was badly beaten and left for dead. He fought for more than a month in the hospital. You can read about it at Katie's blog (linked above), but what you need to know is how it ends: that mama's baby died today. I can't begin to comprehend her grief, or the vertigo of losing one child while eight months pregnant with another.

I've been telling Sophia, growing like a weed, that I need to pick her up and squeeze her before she gets too big to lift; I've been appreciating the vestiges of her baby-ness as she approaches five years old, kindergarten, days spent away from me, that unavoidable separation. Today I was sitting outside and she crawled up next to me on the chair, whispered in my ear: "Mama, you have to pick me up while you can."

I did.

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.