Mother as starfish

Today I felt like a starfish on the rack. Pulled in all directions from each limb to the point at which bloody rips started to show.

I changed a little one’s PJs near midnight last night and then took him down to the basement to sleep. We laughed over silly things until I averred that seriously, bedtime was long ago.

I felt a gentle tug on my foot at 4 am. The other one had woken up and wanted me. “Please go back to bed, honey. It’s 4 am.” Later, we had to drag him from his cocoon to get to camp on time.

There were so many tears and so much drama before 9 am. Everyone up but unrested, tired and acting it. I thought to myself, “And I imagined ‘boys’ meant I sidestepped this emotionality,” before nodding back into the present and realizing it didn’t mean that at all. It simply means emotionality shows itself differently, and while it often drives me crazy, it’s no more or less valid and should be both reined in and nurtured.

Back home, I intervened in our dying dishwasher’s cleaning cycle to manually release the detergent tab. I walked Percy, urging him ever-forward on a longer path because I had to snap a picture of our neighborhood church’s sign. It makes me happy and proud and hopeful.

There was so much laundry and so many dishes and the unread email list vastly outnumbered the reads. There were messages to return, a birthday cake recipe to print, a lunch to shower and ready for, a meeting to attend. I was alerted by Facebook's notification flag so many times I went dark, fleeing from all social media except for the blissfully quiet Instagram which is just a whole bunch of pretty on scroll.

And the fruit flies. Oh, the fruit flies. It is peak season for their annual migration into our fruit-filled kitchen. I hate their gnattiness and while I pride myself on being a hell of a fruit fly assassin, their numbers are too great this year, and I’m swarmed.

My meeting ran three minutes late, and I found Oliver outside on the camp steps –mere feet from where I was and where the camp heads should have told him I sat- looking heartbroken and terrified: was I ever going to arrive? His lip was trembling, and I ran to him, scooped him up and asked what I could do. Flummoxed, which made it all worse, he said he didn’t know. Cupcakes? Fro-yo? The bookstore? “I just don’t know, Mama.” Oh, my heart.

I took him to Fancy Cakes and purchased a fancy cupcake which he devoured gleefully. He eyed the case again, and guilt-ridden and wild with love, I bought a second cupcake. 75% of the way through, “Mama, I don’t feel so good.” Dumb mom.

Home to read stories and drink fizzy water, and the laundry. So much of it. Pokemon and tears over a poor Energy Card decision. I think, can’t you just listen to me read to you or play with blocks? Why aren’t kids just kids anymore? Or was it always this way.

Back out to pick Jack up at his big-kid camp at a local university. Come to find Days of Our Lives was on the cafeteria TV and he saw a sex scene. He’s not yet nine. I was upset but stayed calm and asked, “Well, honey, do you have any questions? Do you feel OK?” I emailed the director asking her –telling her- to make sure the damn TV is OFF or at least on age-appropriate programming. I tell her, “My son has never seen this before, but now he has.” Via Days of Our fucking Lives. #NOTreallife

More overtired tears shed over the ban on dessert after dinner because the cupcakes and the fresh jelly donut I bought yesterday just for Jack and wrapped carefully and packed in his lunch box just so. “You are SO unfair, Mom!” is thrown in my face, and I think to myself, “fuck this spoiled attitude!” while also thinking, “What a tired little boy he is. I’m glad I’m here for him.” while also thinking, “Hell, it’d be nice to not be here right now.”

I ask for the Energy Cards back because “y’all cannot talk to me or each other in the manner that you are” and then get major attitude from one about bath time while the other, always thrilled to get naked, undresses but then just wants us to observe his bottom.

I think they get clean, I brush their teeth, tuck one in, listen as the one who refused to finish dinner (which of course I’ve put away) tells me that he is now starving and wants it back. The dog, cat, washing machine, phone. They are ALL talking. And look at me, still in a dress and swingy necklace from lunch. Who am I kidding? Was that even today?

The little one says he might “fwhoa up and can I please have a Tums?” “What a good idea, darling, and how about some fizzy water too.”

The big one says, “Mom, can we do the puzzle together because I love to do things with you,” and I say, “Sure honey, you are always so good at finding the confusing pieces.”

And I’m so glad I’m here although I often want to be there, and isn’t that just the thing about parenthood.

Looks like a hug

Finally, they are in bed. I think for good. My starfish arms have freed and are retracting themselves, some good cheese, a watermelon and spicy watercress salad and a bourbon shrub eased the rest. Tom called, “I’m going to be late.” And I said, “Baby, that is A-OK.”

Eggshells, eggplant, a concert

Great news for all my gardening readers: eggshells again save the day. Not only are they great in compost but also they have saved my Mexican Midget heirloom tomato from blossom-end rot. That Mexican Midget seems an awfully un-PC name is a different story but for now, if you too have watched with dismay many a beautiful heirloom tom blacken from the flower end up, go stick some crushes eggshells in the dirt around the plant stem. I was not scientific or neat about this at all; I literally crumpled eggshells with my fingers, used a dinner spoon to scoop up divets around the base and shoved the shells in. 

Eggplant. I do love eggplant but sometimes tire of baba ghanoush and involtini. Last night, inspired by nothing more than the desire for something different, I heated my trusty Lodge and added some grapeseed oil, minced garlic and ginger, hot chiles, fish sauce, ponzu, Thai chili sauce, brown sugar an the gorgeous melanzane T picked up at the farmers market for me on Sunday. 

The skillet was so hot that the eggplant cooked quickly and were lacquered in the reduced sauce. It looked like ebony caramel. I served it over sushi rice and dressed it with chives. Bellissima!

I desperately needed to do something with the summer squash and fill languishing in the fridge, so tossed them with freshly shelled peas in a hot saute pan and afterwards added feta and mint. Tom loathes dill so loathed this dish, but I found it pretty and pleasing.

I woke up tired this morning, probably because I heard Jack tiptoeing downstairs at 5am. I chose to think it was Nutmeg but knew better. I found my dear son eating a can of room temp black beans ("I made them myself, Mom!") and working on the computer. Uh, no. To bed, sir! 

Busy day, my energy really waned around 4, but I rallied and for good reason: T and I are at Wolf Trap, a lovely outdoor concert venue, waiting to hear John Fogerty play.  

What's nicer than a gourmet picnic al fresco, on a beautiful night in the middle of the week, with the spouse you don't see enough of in grown-up contexts?

Cheers to eggshells, eggplant, trying new things, CCR and making time! 

In defense of Mondays. Momdays too.

Y'all might remember that for my 2014 birthday, Tom and the boys gave me a fabulous chaise lounge for the back yard. I love it so much, and it was made even more luxurious this year by the gift of a lumbar pillow for Mother's Day. 

Right now, I'm spread out on it, legs in the sunshine, head conveniently in line with a dogwood branch that's blocking the rays aimed directly at my eyes. I'm writing. Or at least, I mean to be writing. I'm distracted, happily, by the various concerts being performed around me.

The birds are chirping and chattering and singing and bullying. A blue jay the size of a chicken is in the bird feeder, while a scarlet cardinal sits below and catches all the jay drops from his greedy beak. Robins, sparrows and so many other types of birds I can't identify swoop around, waiting for a moment of entry.

 When the jay takes leave -why does he?- the smaller birds hurry in to eat before the playground bully comes barreling back. All the while they sing their musical tunes. Surely they are enjoying this day as much as I am. And the "Supreme Mix" bird seed I splurge on to keep them coming. 

A squirrel is sneaking carefully down the sugar maple's trunk. One eye is fixed on me, and I'm pretty sure the other is focused on the jay. He finally makes his way to the ground and casually camouflages himself by a planter to eat seeds the cardinal's not found. 

It's Wild Kingdom over there. With music.

The kids had a wonderful day at camp and are now having a ball with a beloved babysitter, K, who is now more family than anything. She's making them pasta and drawing with color pastels and building Pokedexes out of old Amazon boxes. And I am out here, guilt free, on a beautiful Monday afternoon.

It took a while to get to the guilt-free part. To the "yes, it's quite OK to have a little afternoon help even after a day of camp" part. It took the advice of counselors, the support of friends, the hearty encouragement of my husband. It took an acceptance of the energy and needs my spirited boys truly have as well as the needs and limitations I have as an at-home mom who recharges in quiet solitude. The latter are no less important than the former. Believing that took a while too.

Many dread Mondays. Workers have job-reentry anxiety, children may wish for the relaxed, no-homework weekends to linger a day more. But since my kids were old enough to be in school, I have come to love and rely on Monday. Momday.

Many are busy. I always exercise and often run more than a few errands. But they are productive, I listen to NPR without interruption, I eat an unhurried lunch, and I settle. I relish not being on. K has come on Mondays for years now, a tradition that helps the rejuvenation I've just started gathering back to stick and stay. So after I pick the kids up and hand out snacks and look at art and hear all about their full days, I pass the torch to K for a bit. I am lucky to be able to do this, and I am even luckier that she and the kids are as delighted as I am to take the baton from me.

Sometimes, when she's tucked them in, and I've tucked them in, we'll sit on the deck and have a glass of wine and talk. K is only ten years younger than me and so it's easy to be friends despite the maternal'ish love I feel for her too. She's a teacher, a really good one, and I have learned from her and the way she relates to and guides children. 

As the evening starts to consider heading home for the night, we hug, I'll thank her and we'll say goodbye until next week. I'll turn to my fridge and my pots and my stove, I'll think about when Tom might arrive home and what he might enjoy eating. I'll appreciate the Momday I just enjoyed and all that made its quiet serenity that much more special.