HomeFull Moons and Safety Glass
Full Moons and Safety Glass
Balancing money, time, self, and family
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Let Me Count the Ways
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Three weeks ago we went camping.
I still haven’t recovered. I still have a bag of “take camping” toys in the garage that need to be cleaned up and reintegrated with the rest of the toys. I still haven’t found my favorite travel mug. I am still finding sand in my running shoes. And…I am still doing laundry. I can unequivocally state that laundry, above all other things, is the true bane of my existence. More than bad drivers. More than rude service people. More than junk mail. More than unexpected dog crap on a sidewalk. More than the abusive amount of meetings I deal with at work…well…wait…maybe not more than that. OK, I can unequivocally state that laundry is the bane of my existence at home. Don’t get me wrong, I am not adverse to typically household chores. I don’t mind vacuuming, or cleaning out closets, or pulling weeds, or grocery shopping, or taking out the garbage. What tortures me about laundry is the sheer futility of it. The laundry is never really done. Unless you are doing laundry naked, you are creating more laundry even as you pre-treat your “last” load. Laundry is not something that I can pass off to Paul. Careful use of Shout is not his forte. With a 2 and 4 year old this could easily become a very expensive and stain-setting situation. In an average week, I do approximately eight loads of laundry, including towels and sheets. I rarely have the energy to tackle it during the week. When I do, it usually results in me forgetting that clothes is still sitting in either the washer or dryer, requiring me to rewash the forgotten load because of mustiness or an extreme wrinkle situation (my disdain for laundry extends to a deep hatred of ironing). This leaves me with no option but to start laundry on Friday night and finish it sometime before crawling off to bed on Sunday night. As a result, any time spent traveling away on the weekends creates a laundry backlog that rivals that of the US Postal Service on the 21st of December. Add to this the filthy contamination that occurs with camping gear and it becomes clear why, after three weeks, I am still digging out of a giant pile of laundry. Backlog upon backlog upon backlog. If I close my eyes, I can hear the sounds of the dryer gently humming. Brass snaps slapping the inside of the machine. Mocking me. Taunting me. Daring me to…be…finished…with…t hat…last…load.
Lately (since January, that is), I have really focused on trying to do more for myself. In January, I had lived in Sacramento for nearly 10 years and was feeling fairly unconnected to the area. So, I started out on a journey of creating new experiences and revisiting old experiences--that is, doing things that I used to really like to do but had somehow stopped doing. All of this in an attempt to feel more connected to where I live and refocus on the things that make me happy.
The result has been great. I don’t always get it right, but I definitely feel like a more present parent and partner. I also started to feel like my old self again. And, more importantly, I now feel more confident that, going forward, I’m going to be more aware and conscious of keeping this going in the future. It was with this in mind that I started to wonder where I would be in 10 or 20 years. Maybe its because my parents are both retired. Maybe its because I have a fantasy about doing really interesting consulting work. Maybe its because my oldest is about to enroll in preschool, and well…preschool is practically college, you know. So, I started to think about mothers who I knew who had charted their own course while keeping their family a priority. And, well…I came up with…um…nothing. It was kind of like trying to think of a couple that has been married for 25 years and are still giddy in love. So then I started to think about moms I don’t know, but know of. Hmmmm…Katie Couric? Hillary Rodham Clinton? Angelina Jolie? Marge Simpson? To say the least, I felt handicapped in this exercise. And then I found myself surfing the net—or more appropriately—surfing the mindless pop culture gossip sites that I frequent when I am feeling mindless. It was in between clicks, I found out that Madonna is on tour again. I was the exact demographic for Madonna in the 80s. I even saw her in concert when I was in the 8th grade. In fact, I still have the concert program. I plan to sell it on eBay someday. It's still in very good condition. As I was clicking through the pages about her concert kickoff I was thinking that Madonna really does seem to have it all. She has reinvented herself more times than I can count. That must keep her job interesting. Never mind the fact that she has built a massive Madonna brand that she can cash in on for the rest of her life. She lives in the country in England (I would love to have a home in the English countryside). She’s married to someone who appears to be decent human being. Her kids seem normal (except for those eyebrows on poor Lourdes). And, she is in phenomenal shape. The only problem with Madonna is that she now looks like a very talented, impeccably put together drag queen. This would be totally fine if she was a drag queen. But...well...she isn’t. I guess no one can do it all.
This past weekend, we headed off for a long weekend of camping at the coast. Four couples, four kids, some sunshine, some fog, plenty of sand, geocaching, long walks, campfires, kite flying, and too much food and drink.
And then there was me. I was the crazy lady yelling at her kids. Sigh. Let me back up. This trip was my idea. I conceptualized it, sent out an email invite to friends, reserved the campsites, coordinated all of the prep and packing, etc., etc. I love camping, especially at the coast. Especially when we can poach part of our friend’s tent trailer and sleep on a mattress instead of the ground. Now, stop wrinkling your nose. I used to backpack 5 miles into the hills for “roughing it” camping. That was all BK (before kids). Now, it is more important to be well-rested and comfortable. Well-rested so that, apparently, I can reserve my energy to spend the entire next day shaking my head, talking to myself, and…well…yelling at my kids. Don’t get me wrong. The trip was great. Everyone had fun. We decompressed and relaxed. We laughed. We played on the beach. However, my kids have suddenly learned to erode every layer of patience that I have been building up for all of my 35 years. It was in-cred-i-ble the number of situations the two of them could find to fight over or get under my skin about. There were fights over sharing, over who could walk the dog, over who got to sit in the red kid’s chair (it was exactly like the other red chair—I did this on purpose, I’m no rookie), over wanting a hot dog not chili, over wanting to wear crocs not sneakers, over wanting to take a shower with Dad not Mom, over not wanting to take a nap, over and over and over and over. Ugh. Paul and I were totally defeated. We sounded like disengaged, cranky parents. No, wait...we were disengaged cranky parents. Thank goodness our friend Shannan was there. She was awesome at redirecting the kids and getting them to tow the line. More than once, she intervened to break up a squabble. She did this long after I was numb to the fighting and whining. So numb I did nothing--not even yell. Now, her three-year-old was doing his best to drive her over the edge, but with my girls…she was wonderful. So, maybe it’s true..it does take a village to raise a child. Or at least a campsite with good friends and their comfortable tent trailer.
Tim O’Brien wrote a compelling and evocative book depicting the intense experience of marine soldiers fighting in the jungles of Vietnam called The Things They Carried. The book tells the stories of these men by describing the items that they, well…carried. The items range from the sentimental to the gruesome. But, in the end, the picture it paints is both emotional and telling about how the impact of their daily environment had a profound impact on them.
I must need sleep, because the other day, I thought about this book (a book I haven’t read in almost 15 years) while watching my two-year-old walk around the house. Recently, she has taken to carrying an inordinate amount of stuff around with her. This morning, for example, before being lifted out of her crib she insisted on taking with her ALL of the following:
Of course, she has tiny little hands and so she can’t actually carry all of that. And, of course, because she is two if I try to oh…help her…in about 2.1 seconds flying at my head will be:
Now Carmen is different than Ava was at the same age. Carmen carries all of this crap around, but she is indiscriminate from carrying incident to carrying incident about what she carries around. It changes each time, but what doesn’t change is the fact that she carries way too much around. She is constantly dropping it all over the place while moving from room to room. Or, more inconveniently, when we are moving from the front door to the car in the morning when I am trying to scoot them out of the house and get to day care. Sigh. Ava, my four-year-old used to get inexplicably obsessed with carrying particular things around. Usually, long skinny things (no obvious jokes, please). For example, for weeks she insisted on carrying around a small plastic purple spoon. After a while, the spoon was replaced by a small purple plastic flag. Several weeks went by and she replaced the flag with…I’m serious here…a small pretend pancake flipper. Whoa be to us if we misplaced any of these things when they were in their peak. Boy, would the howling start. You probably heard her…Where’s my fllllllllippppppppper?? The flipper situation got so out of hand that our day care provider had to “lose” it. One thing the girls did have in common, was during their respective binkie years, each of them would have a binkie in their mouth and then would hold another two in their hands. So, as I watch Carmen carry her stuff around, I reflect on Ava’s carrying habits and I think about what it all means. Security? Comfort? Control? Predictability? Jeez…who knows? Just don’t look in my purse and analyze the contents.
I am lucky enough to have had the opportunity to travel all over the world. Once, I tried to tally it up and I think I’ve been on five continents and at least twenty countries. I suffer repeatedly from bouts of wanderlust that completely flummox my sweet mid-western born and bred husband. The poor guy didn’t even have a passport when I first met him (he was 35).
Now, I don’t really speak another language. My high school and college Spanish has gotten me through some non-toursity parts of Mexico and Costa Rica. Actually, it has gotten me through parts of Italy, as well (bad Spanish is apparently close enough to bad Italian). In spite of this deficiency, I am fairly adept at getting around. Even in countries where the language and alphabet is not easily discernible or recognizable. Even on the brink of a crisis. Once, I left my purse with some credit cards and several hundred dollars in travelers check on a local bus in some tiny town in Spain. I didn’t lose my mind, I didn’t freak out, and I could barely understand the thick, regional accents of the locals trying to help me out. Eventually, I got my purse back and all of its contents. Another time, I arrived in Prague after traveling for nearly 10 hours by train. I was tired. I was hungry. There was some massive Catholic festival going on, and my room (that I had a confirmation for) had been given away. According to the tourist office, there wasn’t a room in the city. I managed to find a place to sleep. So, why is it that sometimes I find it nearly impossible to communicate with my two-year-old? She has a fantastic vocabulary and her sentence structure is pretty sophisticated for someone so young. But sometimes…either…I can’t understand her because of her funny-little-two-year-old-mispronunciations OR she really isn’t saying anything that makes sense. When it is bad, it’s really bad. “Mommmmeeee, I vant ikimy, no coats keez. You no helper, Mommmmeeeeee.” Huh? I swear, if I didn't know better, I'd think she did it on purpose just to mess with me. It becomes a desperate situation when she starts throwing in some tears and/or a temper tantrum. I want to help, but I have literally no idea what the hell she is saying. And, so, as a desperate mother, I take desperate measures. I ask my four-year-old to translate. Remarkably, this works about 80% of the time. "Mommmmeeee, I vant ikimey, no coats keez. You no helper, Mommmmeeeeee” is explained to me as “Carmen wants ice cream cream, not cottage cheese. She doesn’t want you to help her”. It is a skill that is truly amazing. And, like I said, 80% accurate. Sometimes, my four-year-old will rattle off a translation that doesn’t make sense. Then, I am stuck trying to translate both versions and figure out between the two if I have any idea what is going on. “You find my booty sop and godie big with saps. I want my godie big with saps. Saps! Saps! Saps!” Go head, you try it. Good luck.
I am a Capricorn. I understand Capricorns. According to Wikipedia, we are self-reliant, ambitious, strong, responsible, reliable, career oriented. We are self-critical. We are goats.
Sounds boring. Sounds predictable. It could be worse, I suppose. Actually, it is. My Chinese astrological sign is a rat. These birth date traits, real or implied, weave their way conveniently and inconveniently throughout my life. Now, I’m not a superstitious person. I only read my fortune cookie messages with “in bed” attached. I don’t keep garlic around to ward off vampires, I open plenty of umbrellas indoors, I ignore black cats. Actually, I ignore all cats. Maybe it’s the rat thing. Here’s the thing, though. I know a lot of Capricorns and we all share a lot of the aforementioned characteristics. What I don’t know are a lot of Leos. In fact, I haven’t really known any Leos. Except my youngest, Carmen. She just celebrated her second birthday. Smack in the middle of Leo’s dominion. As my second child, she has suffered the unfortunate bi-product of having all of her personality traits, interests, and idiosyncrasies unintentionally compared to her sister. Her sister, who is such a classic Gemini, it isn’t even funny (charming, whimsical, out-going, verbal, talkative, social, entertaining). It was hard enough for me to wrap my brain around the new Gemini in my life. Then, we went and threw a Leo into the mix. Carmen is definitely her own person. She is headstrong, dramatic, demanding, independent, an innate observer. Now, I know a lot of these seem like typical two-year behaviors, but having had the benefit of raising a two-year old before AND having known Carmen since the day she was born, I can say with some degree of authority (see, my Capricorn roots are showing) these are characteristics that she owns and relishes. Some might say, throws in my face. Now, I get all of that. But what I can’t get over is how dang girlie she is. The princess crap, the jewelry, the dresses, the ponytails. Did I mention the jewelry? I have never seen anything like it. The kid walks around the house with her “jewels”. This consists of a nasty old ziplock bag (that doesn't zip anymore) full of costume jewelry from Walmart and Claire’s. Whenever she can, she wears as many necklaces and bracelets as possible. And, by the way, a pox on you, if you try and get her to edit her jewelry choices when leaving the house (“no, Mommy, MY jewels!”). It’s cute, for sure. A little flashy. But, confusing to me nonetheless. Confusing, that is, until I looked up her astrological sign. “Leo Likes” (quoth Wikipeida) “spotlight, speculative ventures, luxurious living, drama, adornment, fashion”. I am not making this up. What can I say, the kid likes flare. When I read it, her preoccupation with all things shiney suddenly made sense. It also suddenly made sense, that when I asked her what kind of party she wanted, she exclaimed without hesitation, “I want a jungle party. With a lion cake.” And a jungle party with a lion cake is just what she got. Along with a whole new supply of necklaces, crowns, rings, boas, and bracelets. |
