Last week the kids and I tagged along with Eric while he was out of town at a County Attorney’s conference. In our family this is what passes for a vacation. In fact, the girls have never been on a “vacation” that didn’t involve Eric being gone during the day for training and the attendance of the state Attorney General.
Anyway, while out to dinner one night with Eric’s assistant, a woman in her 20’s who is expecting her first child in the spring, Eric and I tried to pass along the thimble full of knowledge that these five years of parenting have taught us.
In our defense, when we issued the invitation we warned her that it was too late for her, that she was already pregnant, had announced it to the world, and maybe she would like to stay home instead of eat out with us. After all, she was bound to see things at dinner with our two girls (who had been stuck in a hotel room for four days) that would make her rethink her decision to bring a child into her life. She laughed (fool!) and bravely ventured out with us, her only comfort the lie that every scared pregnant woman tells herself when faced with other people’s children, “Well, my kids won’t be like that.”
Yeah, mine either.
At dinner Eric told her something that, at the time, just seemed funny, but now, with a couple of days to mull it over, has become life changing to me. Eric told her that living with children was like living with a house full of drunk people: they run into things, fall over for no obvious reason, there is vomit and other bodily fluids to clean up, one minute they are laughing hysterically at nothing, the next minute they are sobbing over an imagined slight, then, another moment later they are going on and on about how much they love you.
And my god, he is right: that is what it is like to live with children! In fact, as if to punctuate his theory, Claudia ended the evening in the restaurant lobby having such diarrhea that it spilled through her pants and down Eric’s shirt (something I swear that hasn’t happened since she was an infant more than two years ago.) Who, other than drunks and children, defecate on themselves (and others) in public?
And here’s the thing, my kids are pretty good kids… but they’re still kids. They don’t start fires or shout obscenities. They almost never break things and they, more often than not, remember to say please and thank you. But, that said, even on good days they still act a lot like drunken adults. And while this isn’t the kind of knowledge that is going to change the rest of the world it has made things a little better for me. Somehow I feel less guilty that I do not blissfully love every minute of my life.
Because, honestly, there is a lot of the day that just sucks. I look at all of the people in our lives that are having trouble conceiving and I feel like I am so lucky to have been able to have two healthy children (and counting) without much trouble that I should be thankful for every moment, but it doesn’t work that way. In fact, for me even a near death experience didn’t give me that “every moment is precious” feeling for very long. But now I think: What other frat housemother loves every minute of it?
Yes, I adore my kids, but I do not adore the things that fill our day. Even if, after five years, wiping bottoms and dealing with breakdowns doesn’t faze me, they still aren’t my favorite part of the day, and I guess that’s okay because I maybe these actions are just unlovable. Maybe it’s okay to take my good fortune for granted. No infertile couple out there is going to get pregnant just because I pretended that I love every minute of this. Eric’s assistant isn’t going to buy that it’s a barrel of laughs every moment, even if I lied and told her it was.
And one day my kids will have their own kids and they will probably find parenthood a walk in the park. I can just imagine them turning to one another and marveling at just what a whiner I was. They will get no unrealistic expectations for themselves from me. Here we are just taking each day as it comes and doing the best we can.
And I guess that’s okay because, also like a bunch of drunk people, the girls are unlikely to remember much of the daily goings on here.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Lost
Wednesday morning, on his way to school, a seventeen-year-old local boy was killed in a collision with a school bus.
When I was seventeen, I met and then moved in with the man that would, eight years later, become my husband. I remember feeling at the time that I was such an adult.
Of course, it is clear to me now that I was just a child, but it wasn’t until I looked at the face of that lost boy staring back at me from our local newspaper that I realized just what babies our children still are at seventeen.
Obviously, a big difference between the “me at seventeen” and the “me now” is that I have children of my own: two girls, who are running around me as I write this, and a boy that I am still carrying, but that will one day be driving himself to school, probably in this very same town. Looking at the picture I understand just what has been lost and how thin the thread that tethers our children to the Earth and to us is.
I didn’t know this family very well, in fact it is only through bumping into them around town with Eric, who had business with the family, that I knew them at all. But there is something about being so close to something so awful that has made it hard to even breathe for the last five days. In this small town the sirens of rescue vehicles are rarely heard at all, and when they are the sound carries from one end of the streets to the other. Everyone here knows immediately when something awful has happened.
All day Wednesday, after the cries of the sirens had died down, I looked at the clear blue sky and thought, “This is the day that someone lost their child. I am at the library with my children just like any other day and the world has stopped for someone else in this very town.”
While the loss of even one child is too many, this town has seen more and the losses of those children pile up in my head and in my heart. They change how I move through the world.
Every time I drive down Highway 69, just south of our little town, I feel compelled to look at the marker on the side of the road where a teenage girl lost her life this spring in a car accident.
I do the same when ever I pass the spot on I-35 where, not even two years ago, Megan and I happened by the burned out wreckage of what had been the car of a local 21-year-old and her 4-month-old baby, the empty infant car seat resting on the side of the road. Both were killed in the accident as well as the driver of the other car.
These spots are like talismans to me, like wood I am compelled to knock on to feel some psychic control over my own children’s safety. I look at the spots, I imagine the horror the families felt, and I pray that it doesn’t happen to us.
For better or worse the world will go on, like it always does. As awful as this all is, the human mind continues forward. This Wednesday the town will dress our children up and celebrate Halloween with just a week between this loss and us. Eric and I will continue to plan excitedly for the boy that will soon join our family and hold the girls close.
But today is Sunday, and two hours ago Marty Davis’ family buried their only child and these blessings of ours seem almost too much to hold.
To read a newspaper account of the accident go to:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18952393&BRD=1907&PAG=461&dept_id=133418&rfi=6
When I was seventeen, I met and then moved in with the man that would, eight years later, become my husband. I remember feeling at the time that I was such an adult.
Of course, it is clear to me now that I was just a child, but it wasn’t until I looked at the face of that lost boy staring back at me from our local newspaper that I realized just what babies our children still are at seventeen.
Obviously, a big difference between the “me at seventeen” and the “me now” is that I have children of my own: two girls, who are running around me as I write this, and a boy that I am still carrying, but that will one day be driving himself to school, probably in this very same town. Looking at the picture I understand just what has been lost and how thin the thread that tethers our children to the Earth and to us is.
I didn’t know this family very well, in fact it is only through bumping into them around town with Eric, who had business with the family, that I knew them at all. But there is something about being so close to something so awful that has made it hard to even breathe for the last five days. In this small town the sirens of rescue vehicles are rarely heard at all, and when they are the sound carries from one end of the streets to the other. Everyone here knows immediately when something awful has happened.
All day Wednesday, after the cries of the sirens had died down, I looked at the clear blue sky and thought, “This is the day that someone lost their child. I am at the library with my children just like any other day and the world has stopped for someone else in this very town.”
While the loss of even one child is too many, this town has seen more and the losses of those children pile up in my head and in my heart. They change how I move through the world.
Every time I drive down Highway 69, just south of our little town, I feel compelled to look at the marker on the side of the road where a teenage girl lost her life this spring in a car accident.
I do the same when ever I pass the spot on I-35 where, not even two years ago, Megan and I happened by the burned out wreckage of what had been the car of a local 21-year-old and her 4-month-old baby, the empty infant car seat resting on the side of the road. Both were killed in the accident as well as the driver of the other car.
These spots are like talismans to me, like wood I am compelled to knock on to feel some psychic control over my own children’s safety. I look at the spots, I imagine the horror the families felt, and I pray that it doesn’t happen to us.
For better or worse the world will go on, like it always does. As awful as this all is, the human mind continues forward. This Wednesday the town will dress our children up and celebrate Halloween with just a week between this loss and us. Eric and I will continue to plan excitedly for the boy that will soon join our family and hold the girls close.
But today is Sunday, and two hours ago Marty Davis’ family buried their only child and these blessings of ours seem almost too much to hold.
To read a newspaper account of the accident go to:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18952393&BRD=1907&PAG=461&dept_id=133418&rfi=6
You can be happy and vomiting at the same time, who knew?
I feel a little like I have fallen off of the face of the earth these last few months. Here’s our update.
Eric and I are thrilled to be expecting out third little bundle of joy in January (a boy, they tell us) but it has been a hard road for me this time. With Emily I had no morning sickness, with Claudia just about 12 weeks worth, and with this one it had been a virtual 27-week, non-stop vomit fest!
So much so, in fact, that I lost enough weight from the beginning that even now that the problem has subsided a little I am still not back to my starting weight, let alone carrying any “pregnancy pounds.” Not that I am complaining about that! I haven’t ever been six weeks pregnant and still in my regular jeans, let alone at 27 weeks.
I did however get a prescription for anti-nausea medication and a stern warning from my doctor that if I didn’t knock off all the vomiting, he would have no choice but to put me in the hospital. You’d think if I could stop because of a stern warning I would have stopped weeks ago just form the sheer lack of fun I was having.
So, for those of you that didn’t know anything about this… and that would be most of you, I’m sorry to have taken so much time to announce it. We are thrilled beyond words and can’t wait for the arrival of our newest little baby no name!
Feel free to e-mail name ideas to us at katesimonson@yahoo.com or add them to the comments here on this page. Eric and I are notoriously bad at coming up with baby names in a timely manner and this baby is no exception.
Eric and I are thrilled to be expecting out third little bundle of joy in January (a boy, they tell us) but it has been a hard road for me this time. With Emily I had no morning sickness, with Claudia just about 12 weeks worth, and with this one it had been a virtual 27-week, non-stop vomit fest!
So much so, in fact, that I lost enough weight from the beginning that even now that the problem has subsided a little I am still not back to my starting weight, let alone carrying any “pregnancy pounds.” Not that I am complaining about that! I haven’t ever been six weeks pregnant and still in my regular jeans, let alone at 27 weeks.
I did however get a prescription for anti-nausea medication and a stern warning from my doctor that if I didn’t knock off all the vomiting, he would have no choice but to put me in the hospital. You’d think if I could stop because of a stern warning I would have stopped weeks ago just form the sheer lack of fun I was having.
So, for those of you that didn’t know anything about this… and that would be most of you, I’m sorry to have taken so much time to announce it. We are thrilled beyond words and can’t wait for the arrival of our newest little baby no name!
Feel free to e-mail name ideas to us at katesimonson@yahoo.com or add them to the comments here on this page. Eric and I are notoriously bad at coming up with baby names in a timely manner and this baby is no exception.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
I lost
Well, if "This I Believe" is a contest, I am a loser. This weekend I received word that they won't be broadcasting my essay on NPR. I must say that I handled it very maturely, I only cried for a little while.
Really though, I am fine with it. It is my first rejection... the first, I am sure, of many.
For those of you who want to preserve it in your journals you can search for it at www.thisibelieve.org
Really though, I am fine with it. It is my first rejection... the first, I am sure, of many.
For those of you who want to preserve it in your journals you can search for it at www.thisibelieve.org
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
This I Believe: It is a contest
So, after more editing, I swallowed hard and send my "This I Believe" essay off to NPR. Apparently, I feel like I am ready for some rejection on a national scale.
When you send in you essay they send you back an email saying that it was received successfully. The funny thing is, in the letter they tell you that it isn't a contest and that every essay they receive is wonderful and worthwhile and will be included on their searchable database... only after it isn't chosen to be recorded for broadcast. In fact, they tell you that you can tell when the review process is over by searching for your essay on their website. If you find it there, and you haven't hear from their office yet, you are wonderful in the "not good enough to be picked for recording" way.
Lucky you.
Starting eight weeks from Sunday, or probably sooner, I will be searching obsessively for, and wholeheartedly expecting to find, my essay there, because I am special... in just that way.
When you send in you essay they send you back an email saying that it was received successfully. The funny thing is, in the letter they tell you that it isn't a contest and that every essay they receive is wonderful and worthwhile and will be included on their searchable database... only after it isn't chosen to be recorded for broadcast. In fact, they tell you that you can tell when the review process is over by searching for your essay on their website. If you find it there, and you haven't hear from their office yet, you are wonderful in the "not good enough to be picked for recording" way.
Lucky you.
Starting eight weeks from Sunday, or probably sooner, I will be searching obsessively for, and wholeheartedly expecting to find, my essay there, because I am special... in just that way.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Update
Summer is almost over. Thank god, or whomever.
I am not a summer person. It is too hot and there is far too much outside activity expected from me. I love the fall and the spring when the temperature outside is in the reasonable range and you can wear sweaters and there are all sorts of reasons to sit too close to interesting people with whom you really should not be sharing personal space.
As for the highlights of the summer: I got an Honorable Mention in a fiction writer’s contest. It was, in fact, the first writing contest I have entered since elementary school and so it was a big thrill to me to get any recognition. At some point, after the little booklet with all the winner’s stories was printed, they had a public reading in Ames. I couldn’t decide if I should go or not, mostly because once the booklet was published I reread my entry and realized just what shit it was and was sure that everyone else had realized it too, or worse, that they would figure it out as I was standing on a stage reading it aloud.
In the end I went, but refused to let anyone I know go with me. I walked into the venue all alone and looked out at the tables filled with proud family members and friends and felt a little silly, but I really couldn’t bear the though that my humiliation might be forever written in the memories of people I would have to see again, no matter how nice it might have been to have them bask in my possible accomplishment.
I carry all sorts low self-esteem baggage around with me where ever I go. My own fears of not being good enough and any off-hand comment that was ever made about me that somehow made it’s way to my ears, swirl around in my head taking up room that I really need for other things, like remembering to pay the cable bill on time.
For instance, once, a million years ago, someone I cared about very much said that I was worse than a three-year-old that we knew at the time, that I talked too much and that I was in the way a lot. I wished at the time that I could just carry around a disclaimer of some sort. Something like:
I know that I am annoying and I talk too much, but it’s just that you are so smart and wonderful I like you so much. What looks to you like too much talking on my part is really me screaming inside, “Please like me! I need you to see that I am worth something!” I am just trying to sell myself to you, clearly not in quality, but perhaps in quantity. I really do wish I were smarter or more interesting, but this is all I have. Oh, and you’re going to say awful things about me later could you just do it quietly and far away so that I can’t overhear, because otherwise I will just wear it around like some terrible backwards pair of rose colored glasses years after you have gone.
Anyway, I did go to the reading and I did read and it went well. The audience laughed in all the right places and people said lovely, supportive things to me after the show. In fact, no one singled me out as a hack and a fake. A sweet woman (and a published writer!) even asked me to join her writer’s group.
Since then, I was hired to write a weekly freelance article for our little local newspaper, which is going well. People actually stop me on the street to tell me they like it and so far the people that hate it either haven’t crossed paths with me or else are much less vocal. Either way, I’m happy. Plus, there is a paycheck involved. That means that I have a paid job as a writer! I could, theoretically, tell people that I write. Can you imagine such a thing?
Still, the voices linger… so I guess I could, theoretically, also tell people that I am crazy.
As for the highlights of the summer: I got an Honorable Mention in a fiction writer’s contest. It was, in fact, the first writing contest I have entered since elementary school and so it was a big thrill to me to get any recognition. At some point, after the little booklet with all the winner’s stories was printed, they had a public reading in Ames. I couldn’t decide if I should go or not, mostly because once the booklet was published I reread my entry and realized just what shit it was and was sure that everyone else had realized it too, or worse, that they would figure it out as I was standing on a stage reading it aloud.
In the end I went, but refused to let anyone I know go with me. I walked into the venue all alone and looked out at the tables filled with proud family members and friends and felt a little silly, but I really couldn’t bear the though that my humiliation might be forever written in the memories of people I would have to see again, no matter how nice it might have been to have them bask in my possible accomplishment.
I carry all sorts low self-esteem baggage around with me where ever I go. My own fears of not being good enough and any off-hand comment that was ever made about me that somehow made it’s way to my ears, swirl around in my head taking up room that I really need for other things, like remembering to pay the cable bill on time.
For instance, once, a million years ago, someone I cared about very much said that I was worse than a three-year-old that we knew at the time, that I talked too much and that I was in the way a lot. I wished at the time that I could just carry around a disclaimer of some sort. Something like:
I know that I am annoying and I talk too much, but it’s just that you are so smart and wonderful I like you so much. What looks to you like too much talking on my part is really me screaming inside, “Please like me! I need you to see that I am worth something!” I am just trying to sell myself to you, clearly not in quality, but perhaps in quantity. I really do wish I were smarter or more interesting, but this is all I have. Oh, and you’re going to say awful things about me later could you just do it quietly and far away so that I can’t overhear, because otherwise I will just wear it around like some terrible backwards pair of rose colored glasses years after you have gone.
Anyway, I did go to the reading and I did read and it went well. The audience laughed in all the right places and people said lovely, supportive things to me after the show. In fact, no one singled me out as a hack and a fake. A sweet woman (and a published writer!) even asked me to join her writer’s group.
Since then, I was hired to write a weekly freelance article for our little local newspaper, which is going well. People actually stop me on the street to tell me they like it and so far the people that hate it either haven’t crossed paths with me or else are much less vocal. Either way, I’m happy. Plus, there is a paycheck involved. That means that I have a paid job as a writer! I could, theoretically, tell people that I write. Can you imagine such a thing?
Still, the voices linger… so I guess I could, theoretically, also tell people that I am crazy.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
This I Believe
I am a big fan of National Public Radio's series This I Believe in which people from all walks of life submit three-minute essays about the values that steer them through life.
I have attempted to write an essay three times in the two years since the series began, and all three were dismal failures. Finally, I have written one that, while not great, may at least be a start.
So, anyway, here is the rough draft of my latest attempt.
This I Believe
When I was pregnant with my first child, my father gave me two guidelines for naming the baby. “First,” he said, “Let the name be gender specific. Second,” and this one he gleaned from experience, “Please, God, spell it the traditional way.” He is Mike, Michl actually, spelled M-I-C-H-L and this had been a source of some frustration for him his entire life. While I appreciated his advice (let me tell you, pregnant women can’t get enough advice) in the end I broke both rules.
It is not by birth, or adoption, that I consider this man to be my father, it is rather, by sheer good luck on my part.
My first father was killed in an accident at work when I was three. Since my mother had never remarried my fifteen-year-old brother and I were left orphans when she died suddenly of a brain aneurysm when I was seventeen.
Generally, when children are orphaned a family member comes forward to take them in. This didn’t happen in our case. I am sure that everyone had good reasons for not taking us in but I can tell you this: abandonment, even for very good reasons, feels awful. When the state said that they were going to place us in foster care if there were no other takers a former boyfriend of my mother’s stepped forward saying, “ If no one else wants them, I would be honored to take them.”
In a moment where the pain of being unwanted felt like suffocation, a man whose only tie to us was having dated our mother, said he would be honored to take us.
And he did. And he has, for the past sixteen years been everything a dad could be in good times and bad. He was the cheerleader for me even while I made unpopular decisions about my cancer treatment, he walked me down the aisle when I go t married, and he drove 350 miles to be there to see his first granddaughter, Emily Michl Simonson, be born.
This has lead to the truth that I live my life by: I believe that no matter how hard or fast I fall, someone will be there to catch me. That even when the obvious candidates have stepped away from the race, the settling dust will uncover someone who would feel not just obligated, but honored to lend a hand, or a family, or a name.
And so, that is why, despite my father’s best advice, he and his first-born granddaughter share the thing that has brought him much grief. Perhaps in this passing on of the name we can change that. The name is for me, and I hope will one day for Emily, a reminder of a saved past and a promise for the future. It is a gift given and one so gratefully received.
For more information on the essays that have aired or how you can submit you own go to http://thisibelieve.org/aboutus.html
I have attempted to write an essay three times in the two years since the series began, and all three were dismal failures. Finally, I have written one that, while not great, may at least be a start.
So, anyway, here is the rough draft of my latest attempt.
This I Believe
When I was pregnant with my first child, my father gave me two guidelines for naming the baby. “First,” he said, “Let the name be gender specific. Second,” and this one he gleaned from experience, “Please, God, spell it the traditional way.” He is Mike, Michl actually, spelled M-I-C-H-L and this had been a source of some frustration for him his entire life. While I appreciated his advice (let me tell you, pregnant women can’t get enough advice) in the end I broke both rules.
It is not by birth, or adoption, that I consider this man to be my father, it is rather, by sheer good luck on my part.
My first father was killed in an accident at work when I was three. Since my mother had never remarried my fifteen-year-old brother and I were left orphans when she died suddenly of a brain aneurysm when I was seventeen.
Generally, when children are orphaned a family member comes forward to take them in. This didn’t happen in our case. I am sure that everyone had good reasons for not taking us in but I can tell you this: abandonment, even for very good reasons, feels awful. When the state said that they were going to place us in foster care if there were no other takers a former boyfriend of my mother’s stepped forward saying, “ If no one else wants them, I would be honored to take them.”
In a moment where the pain of being unwanted felt like suffocation, a man whose only tie to us was having dated our mother, said he would be honored to take us.
And he did. And he has, for the past sixteen years been everything a dad could be in good times and bad. He was the cheerleader for me even while I made unpopular decisions about my cancer treatment, he walked me down the aisle when I go t married, and he drove 350 miles to be there to see his first granddaughter, Emily Michl Simonson, be born.
This has lead to the truth that I live my life by: I believe that no matter how hard or fast I fall, someone will be there to catch me. That even when the obvious candidates have stepped away from the race, the settling dust will uncover someone who would feel not just obligated, but honored to lend a hand, or a family, or a name.
And so, that is why, despite my father’s best advice, he and his first-born granddaughter share the thing that has brought him much grief. Perhaps in this passing on of the name we can change that. The name is for me, and I hope will one day for Emily, a reminder of a saved past and a promise for the future. It is a gift given and one so gratefully received.
For more information on the essays that have aired or how you can submit you own go to http://thisibelieve.org/aboutus.html
Sunday, April 15, 2007
New banner
Hold on to your hats, kids!
This weekend I worked on a new banner for this site. This is no small task since the computer I can use to design the banner is an hour away from the one that I use to upload it onto Blogger. To add to the fun, I know almost nothing about html programming.
Nonetheless, I have managed to take off the blah box banner that came on this template and stick up something else. The something else isn't any big deal, but the fact that it is sitting there is. Hopefully, I will be able to throw together something a little better this week although what actually shows up is always a surprise when it comes to Blogger. For instance, the banner was designed in blue, but on Blogger blue is a lot more orange.
This weekend I worked on a new banner for this site. This is no small task since the computer I can use to design the banner is an hour away from the one that I use to upload it onto Blogger. To add to the fun, I know almost nothing about html programming.
Nonetheless, I have managed to take off the blah box banner that came on this template and stick up something else. The something else isn't any big deal, but the fact that it is sitting there is. Hopefully, I will be able to throw together something a little better this week although what actually shows up is always a surprise when it comes to Blogger. For instance, the banner was designed in blue, but on Blogger blue is a lot more orange.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
No snack for you!
I think that the Department of Human Services may be about a block away from my house. Eric is probably filing CINA petitions as I write this. And even if neither of these things is true, the fact remains that I am an awful failure of a mother, or at least Emily’s teacher thinks so.
First, a little background: one day a week Emily goes to three-year-old preschool. Her teacher, Mrs. Sifert, is a woman who is so clearly made to be a preschool teacher that it makes my breath catch at our good fortune to have her for Emily’s first two years of school. That said, I have developed a pathetic need for her to like me. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to hide the fact that I am clearly an impostor mother-want-to-be that has no idea what she is doing when it comes to raising children.
fret about the clothes I send Emily to school in, vacillating between wanting her to look nice enough that it’s clear that she comes from a home with responsible parents, but not so good that it looks like she lives with tyrant parents that won’t let her make such minor decisions for herself.
I am a room parent, and not just a room parent. I am the head room parent. I was in charge of calling the other mothers to plan the room parties. I spend about $25 every time they send home one of those book orders even though our house is bursting at the seams with books. I even sent her a letter at the beginning of the year, which, if you read between the lines, clearly begs her to like my child and me. But, it turns out that any good I may have done up until this point doesn’t matter.
Last Friday, after waiting patiently all year for the privilege of bringing snack, we were told by another mom that her son was on his second go ‘round. A tiny bit outraged, and a whole lot worried that we had been passed over because all the other families had gotten together to talk about how none of them wanted their children eating anything that came from my house, I nonetheless screwed up my courage and went to ask Mrs. Sifert if there was some sort of misunderstanding.
And what did this woman, on whose judgment all my parenting self-esteem is hung, say? “No, there’s no misunderstanding. She was given a date on which she was responsible for snack, she just didn’t bring it.”SHE JUST DIDN’T BRING IT? Was she kidding? She thinks that I looked at the notice, balled it up, threw it in the trash, and just thought, “Screw that. I’m not feeding a bunch of Emily’s friends.” She may as well have just kicked me in the stomach.
I tried to tell her that I would never forget to bring snack but she continued to offer excuses that all boiled down to the single point that I had screwed up. And she said it in a kind of casual way that may have meant that it was really not such a big deal either way, that perhaps they have some sort of contingency plan in place so the kids don’t just sit there starving to death and staring with hatred at the kid whose loser parent was too good to bring them basic sustenance, but that I am sure actually meant that this came as no surprise to them. That they has all written me off long ago and that, in fact, the head-room-parent thing was just meant to be ironic, like when they call the biggest guy in the group Tiny.I knew it!So what now? Emily had no school this week. But next week I will have to go drop off my child again to spend one day a week with a woman that I am convinced sees me for the thirteen-year-old in thirty-three-year-olds clothing that I am. She knows that deep down I have no idea what I am doing. And next year, when Emily is in four-year-old preschool four days a week, I will have to work even harder to pretend that isn’t true.
Let’s just home DHS makes it here in time.
First, a little background: one day a week Emily goes to three-year-old preschool. Her teacher, Mrs. Sifert, is a woman who is so clearly made to be a preschool teacher that it makes my breath catch at our good fortune to have her for Emily’s first two years of school. That said, I have developed a pathetic need for her to like me. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to hide the fact that I am clearly an impostor mother-want-to-be that has no idea what she is doing when it comes to raising children.
fret about the clothes I send Emily to school in, vacillating between wanting her to look nice enough that it’s clear that she comes from a home with responsible parents, but not so good that it looks like she lives with tyrant parents that won’t let her make such minor decisions for herself.
I am a room parent, and not just a room parent. I am the head room parent. I was in charge of calling the other mothers to plan the room parties. I spend about $25 every time they send home one of those book orders even though our house is bursting at the seams with books. I even sent her a letter at the beginning of the year, which, if you read between the lines, clearly begs her to like my child and me. But, it turns out that any good I may have done up until this point doesn’t matter.
Last Friday, after waiting patiently all year for the privilege of bringing snack, we were told by another mom that her son was on his second go ‘round. A tiny bit outraged, and a whole lot worried that we had been passed over because all the other families had gotten together to talk about how none of them wanted their children eating anything that came from my house, I nonetheless screwed up my courage and went to ask Mrs. Sifert if there was some sort of misunderstanding.
And what did this woman, on whose judgment all my parenting self-esteem is hung, say? “No, there’s no misunderstanding. She was given a date on which she was responsible for snack, she just didn’t bring it.”SHE JUST DIDN’T BRING IT? Was she kidding? She thinks that I looked at the notice, balled it up, threw it in the trash, and just thought, “Screw that. I’m not feeding a bunch of Emily’s friends.” She may as well have just kicked me in the stomach.
I tried to tell her that I would never forget to bring snack but she continued to offer excuses that all boiled down to the single point that I had screwed up. And she said it in a kind of casual way that may have meant that it was really not such a big deal either way, that perhaps they have some sort of contingency plan in place so the kids don’t just sit there starving to death and staring with hatred at the kid whose loser parent was too good to bring them basic sustenance, but that I am sure actually meant that this came as no surprise to them. That they has all written me off long ago and that, in fact, the head-room-parent thing was just meant to be ironic, like when they call the biggest guy in the group Tiny.I knew it!So what now? Emily had no school this week. But next week I will have to go drop off my child again to spend one day a week with a woman that I am convinced sees me for the thirteen-year-old in thirty-three-year-olds clothing that I am. She knows that deep down I have no idea what I am doing. And next year, when Emily is in four-year-old preschool four days a week, I will have to work even harder to pretend that isn’t true.
Let’s just home DHS makes it here in time.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
The things we leave behind
February was the anniversary of my mother’s death. This is the last year that I am, in time, closer to her than I am to this life I live now. A year from now I will be 34 and she will have been gone for seventeen years. I will have lived as much of my life without her as I did with her.
Of course I realize that I already am so far from her. Although the president’s name and his war are the same as they were back in 1991, I am a different person now. I have a different name, I have a husband, children, a house. So much has escaped my grasp over the miles these years create-- her laugh, what we were like then, how it felt to have a mother at all.
Perhaps the worst part for me is knowing that even though I am everything to my girls—the wiper of tears, the fixer of broken hearts, the one that shows them the world piece by piece, that if I were gone tomorrow, they would remember almost nothing of me at all. All the same things of me would fade for them. What would I leave them with? What have I been left with?
It has taken these sixteen years to find out what wasn’t lost. The things my mother left behind. I am a kind and loving person and a fierce fighter when I need to be. I believe that people are mostly good and I believe in second chances. I trust that when someone tells me that they love me it is because it is true and that it is because I am worth loving.
I believe that my mother was crazy about me because she told me that she was, and so I make sure that I tell my girls that I am crazy about them because it is the truest thing I know.
I am open-minded and compassionate. I judge people on who they are and what they do in this life rather than what they look like or who they vote for or who they sleep with. These are all things that my mother gave to me. These things are her legacy, they are how she will live on in this life, through me, and though my girls. And they are everything that I have left of her.
And most days, they are enough.
Of course I realize that I already am so far from her. Although the president’s name and his war are the same as they were back in 1991, I am a different person now. I have a different name, I have a husband, children, a house. So much has escaped my grasp over the miles these years create-- her laugh, what we were like then, how it felt to have a mother at all.
Perhaps the worst part for me is knowing that even though I am everything to my girls—the wiper of tears, the fixer of broken hearts, the one that shows them the world piece by piece, that if I were gone tomorrow, they would remember almost nothing of me at all. All the same things of me would fade for them. What would I leave them with? What have I been left with?
It has taken these sixteen years to find out what wasn’t lost. The things my mother left behind. I am a kind and loving person and a fierce fighter when I need to be. I believe that people are mostly good and I believe in second chances. I trust that when someone tells me that they love me it is because it is true and that it is because I am worth loving.
I believe that my mother was crazy about me because she told me that she was, and so I make sure that I tell my girls that I am crazy about them because it is the truest thing I know.
I am open-minded and compassionate. I judge people on who they are and what they do in this life rather than what they look like or who they vote for or who they sleep with. These are all things that my mother gave to me. These things are her legacy, they are how she will live on in this life, through me, and though my girls. And they are everything that I have left of her.
And most days, they are enough.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)