It is amazing how life can go from an idyllic mother’s day
setting to the devil’s garden in a matter of hours. The highlight of my mother’s day actually
took place on the Thursday before. Without
any prompting from me, my kids rode their bikes to Main Street (with their own
money no less) and each picked out their own present for me! This is a first and that act alone made me
sure that I had produced thoughtful, loving, children. I am such a good mother!
On Sunday, I awoke without my kids – which makes me sad
because it is the one day of the year when they make a point of being sweet, refrain
from squabbling, bring me breakfast in bed, make cards, all of that gooey
Hallmark mother’s day glam that we live for.
They stayed with their grandparents the previous night– which was good
in that it allowed me to sleep in, journey to Home Depot for some fertilizer,
and go for a bike ride with my husband (hmm, sounds a little like father’s day
to me). Anyway, when I did see my kids
later that day, my reception was less than I imagined it to be– but tolerable
given they had lost their stamina for demonstrating devotion by
mid-afternoon. I made dinner for the
family and my in-laws (still sounds like father’s day) and the kids produced
their gifts. My daughter chose a beautiful necklace that says “mom” – which she
had her eye on for some time she informed me.
And my son got me a… small beaded bird.
“What is this?” I inquire with the utmost of sweetness in my voice. “Well, I don’t know,” he replies. At this moment he reminds me so much of his
father. “But the lady told me that some
woman in Guatemala made it and it enabled her to start a business and make some
money, so I thought it was a good thing.”
And indeed he is right. I don’t
quite know what to do with the bird, but I love the thought he had while
choosing it. I’m not quite so enamored
with the rose scented incense that he settled on, but you can’t be picky on
these occasions. I love my kids.
Less than 48 hours later, I am sitting in my office in
tears. I rue the day I ever decided to
have children and am contemplating booking a one-way flight to Italy. I am a
terrible mother! I’m having one of those
days. It started innocently enough, but
rapidly disintegrated. My son is like a
sulking snail in the morning; he moves so slowly he makes me want to scream,
and he is so tired he can’t even mutter a few syllables. He
even leaves slime from his breakfast on the counter. I prod him along continually like an agitated
cow herder until we finally exit the house 10 minutes late, resulting in
traffic and further delays. When I
return to get my daughter, (and prepare for her departure) we are also running behind
and so the dominoes fall. I plead with
her to take her allergy medicine because she has been lethargic, and complains
of itchy eyes and a sore throat. She
refuses, debating the validity of taking a pill to help her symptoms. “Fine, suffer then” I say, exasperated. I switch over to another health related topic
- sunscreen. “It is going to be warm today, please wear
the 55 sunscreen on your face.” “Make
Me” she replies. Really? Make me?
It is so unimaginative, but it works. The ultimate trigger in the tween’s
vocabulary. I envision myself tying her
up, putting masking tape over her mouth, and smothering her skin in zinc oxide. Instead, I offer my most disapproving glare
and walk to the car. She invoked the
same phrase last week about wearing her helmet.
I told her she could walk to school, or wear her helmet and ride her
bike, and I left the room. About 5
minutes later I saw her leave on her bike, helmet protecting that stubborn
little noggin of hers. I’m flexible
about some rules, but brain safety and skin cancer are not among them. These are hard limits for me. (wink-wink - my
goal is to use some quote from Fifty Shades in every blog until the end of the
year)
Later that day, I have an appointment with my son’s guidance
counselor, which we have both known about for at least two weeks. The goal of the meeting is for us to discuss
his overly complicated schedule for 9th grade and make sure he is
taking all the right classes for credit.
The overly complicated part comes from the need to work around his
commitment to the alpine race team.
After 30 minutes, we emerge with what I foolishly believe to be a tough
but manageable schedule. We get into the
car and he yells, “I can’t believe how badly you messed up my whole schedule; other
kids are doing XYZ.”
“We just talked for 30 minutes about your schedule and you
didn’t utter one word of dissent.” I explode back.
“I know, I was trying to catch your eye, didn't you see me?” he asks.
Needless to say this escalates into a shouting match of me vs.
him laced with expletives that I swore I would never use in front of my
children, let alone at them. I am
fumigating by the time I get home and tell him to call his friends and his
coaches to figure this out because after all, this is HIS schedule, and HIS
skiing that we are talking about.
I try to calm down and decide to walk the dog. The only constant in my life, she always
wants to walk – but on this day when nothing can go as planned or without a
fight, she stops on the trail and won’t budge any further after only 10 minutes
of walking. My best friend, my calming
influence, has also decided to pick a silent fight with me today.
I get home and my husband calls. As I attempt to relay the events of the day,
he says, “Stop talking so loudly, you are getting all worked up and I can’t
understand you.” Jesus Christ. I hang-up, I simply can’t face another
altercation. Somewhere in the back of my
mind I acknowledge that I am the common denominator in all of these
equations. I must be giving off some
sort of antagonistic smell or signal (note – complete absence of PMS on this
day). I cease all interaction with my
family other than the basics.
As I put my daughter to bed, she apologizes for her bad
behavior earlier in the day.
As I say goodnight to my son, he admits that his coach thinks
his schedule is perfect – which is the closest thing to an apology I’m going to
get. He proceeds to tell me about a
movie he watched in science about ecosystems.
Something about a cane toad being transported to an island where the
ecosystems were supposed to match, but failed miserably resulting in massive
numbers of cane toads all over the place.
In some cases, they are squished by the dozen on the roadway (and make
an entertaining popping sound in the process). Apparently these toads have quite an appetite for
reproduction, despite their over-population. He can barely contain his laughter as he tells
me about one cane toad trying to hump another cane toad, which had perished on
the side of the road (I point out that perhaps the cane toad has necrophilic tendencies). And I am reminded
once again, that he is just a teenager. His
brain is on emotional overload right now, and his body is a mass of hormonal
fluctuations (we have more in common than he knows) -- the fact that he even
chooses to have a conversation with me is a victory.
I love my kids, I am a good mom.
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