Tag Archives: kids

Other People’s Boogers

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Y’all know I am a fool about these kids in Carlos’ preK class. There are a couple that I am super foolish about and my heart is pinching up this week because Friday is the last day of school. I’ll probably never see these kids again. Their preK class is pulled together from schools all over the district, so they won’t all be moving to a different room on the same hallway next year.

We have been through a lot this year, so we took a selfie this week at the Moving Up ceremony.

My friends

My friends

The little girl with the award for Outstanding Bus Conduct is the Egyptian angel that I wrote about in The Least of These. For the first two months of school, she didn’t speak. Then one morning while we were building a tower with blocks, she held up a block and whispered, “red.” Look at how she sparkles.

The little girl in the red shirt, she’s my special baby. She gets more lap time than anyone else. She tucks her head under my chin and I tell her that her hair smells like coconuts and it’s my favorite smell in the whole world. She left some boogers on my shirt on Superhero Day but we found a solution. I’m going to miss that little girl. Every day I fight the voice in my head that tells me I’m a worthless piece of shit, but this girl sees something in me.

Mr Man posing in the back there? He’s a handful. One of the smartest kids in the class–been writing his name in a neat line since before Halloween. We play a game every morning where I sit next to Carlos in one of the tiny chairs and Mr. Man comes up behind me to tap me on the shoulder. I look one way and then the other–with him bobbing and ducking–and then I ask one of the other kids if someone is behind me. They giggle and say his name, but I pretend I can’t see him. He knows I love him. And I hope I will see him again one day.

The boy on the end there? He’s the quietest kid in the class–Silent E. He’s left the most boogers on my shirt lately. He loves his mama. One time when I was playing at his table, he touched my arm gently and pointed to his feet. “My mama got me new shoes.” I made a big fuss over them. Then a few weeks later, he whispered with his chin tucked down to his neck, “My mama car broke.” I was about to say, “Did she get it fixed?” but then I thought about how much that costs and said, “Oh, that’s a big problem, huh?” instead. He nodded and we left it at that.

Two weeks ago, Silent E was sobbing before school because he missed his mama. The teacher held him and rocked him. I held him for a while and his favorite sweatshirt that he wears every day smelled like old cigarettes.

A few mornings later, his friend came up to me and tattled that Silent E had been running in the classroom. I turned to him to remind him that it was a walking feet place and he shrunk away from me. His whole body got narrower. No matter how many times I said, “You’re not in trouble, honey!” he cowered in the corner of the reading area. He wasn’t playing, no faking. The idea twisted into my heart–Silent E already sees the world as a fearful place.

And wouldn’t you know it–once the teacher talked Silent E into joining the class on the rug, Mr Man threw something hard and it bounced up and hit Silent E right in the head. While the teacher dealt with Mr Man, I took Silent E in my lap and held him close. I floated my fingers back and forth from his brow to his cheek, up and down, to the same rhythm that we were rocking. He quieted some but was still hurting. When it was time to leave, I kissed him on the head. I went home and changed my boogery shirt.

I love this kid, and I don’t know what kind of world he lives in. But every day when it’s time for me to go, he gets in line for a hug. He’s little, so I pick him up in the air and whisper in his ear, “I love you. Go have a great day.” Same thing I say to Carlos, who mostly ignores me.

On Graduation Day, I waved to all the kids and took pictures, just in case their parents couldn’t be there. I called Silent E’s name from the bleachers and he waved back. After the ceremony (which Carlos sat out on the sidelines with G and me), we went back to the class for awards and snacks. Silent E lay in a tight little ball on the floor behind the teacher’s desk. I caught her eye and pointed to him. “Mama couldn’t come” she mouthed.

I sat down on the carpet with him. “I was so proud of you today! Which song was your favorite?” He didn’t answer. “Hey, I took some pictures of you–look.” He leaned over my phone and swiped through the photos. “How about I email these to your teacher and she can send them to your mom? Or maybe she can print them out and you can take them home?” He nodded silently. Then he got a long hug and left some boogers on my sleeve.

This morning he was wearing a new shirt. He pointed to a tiny cut on his leg. I asked what happened and Mr Man said, “He fell on the playground yesterday.” Silent E asked for two hugs today.

I tossed him into the air and caught him close, held him tight.

I don’t know where he will land. I don’t know where either of us will be in the fall, but Silent E taught me that other people’s boogers can be a real gift. A sign of trust, of love given with open arms.

Superhero

Superhero

Superhero Day

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Today was Superhero/Disney dress up day at Carlos’ school. There he sat in his “big boy car seat” in a Batman shirt…but we had a problem. The buckle was stuck. Stuckity stuck stuck stuck. I had pushed and prodded and cussed under my breath but it wouldn’t budge. I started to panic–thinking I would have to drive him to the fire house and have them cut him out of the dang thing.

Then, over my shoulder, I hear a friendly voice say, “Hey!” There stood Troy, father of one of Carlos’ classmates from last year and all-around cool guy. Who happens to work out many hours a day and has giant arms. I asked him to take a shot at getting the buckle unstuck and a couple of tries later, Carlos was free. Troy had swooped in and saved the day.

Troy’s superpower?  Strong thumbs and persistence. And kindness.

The classroom was boiling with excited kids–three Batmen, two Spidermen, a Super Mario whose sixth birthday was today, two sparkly princesses. And my sweet friend, Jayla, by herself in the back of the room with her thumb in her mouth and a heartbroken expression on her face. When I waved to her, she shuffled over to me, still sucking on her thumb. I’d never seen her do that before.

“What’s up, buttercup?” She mumbled something that I couldn’t hear. “Here, let’s go over here where it’s quiet so I can hear you….” I sat down at a table in the back of the room and she climbed onto my lap.

“I didn’t dress up.” I was about to tell her how pretty she looked in her flowered shirt and jeans, but it didn’t feel right. Instead, I wrapped my arms around her and she melted into me. Her face tucked under my chin. My body started that mom-rocking thing that bodies just do when a little one needs comfort. We sat there together, her getting all my attention in the middle of the crowd of excited superheros and princesses. We rocked and rocked and rocked. She snuffled and I clucked to her and patted her hair. I did my best to save the day.

My superpower? An expansive lap and a body that can bend itself into a mama shape when that’s the only thing that will do. And kindness.

Miss Carri saw us sitting there and came over to check on Jayla. She patted and clucked too then her face blossomed with an idea. She went over to the dress up center and pulled a Rapunzel dress out of the cabinet. Et voila…Jayla had a princess costume to wear.

Miss Carri’s superpower? A quick mind and giving heart. And kindness.

Once again, I found myself sitting in the parking lot for a few minutes to process the morning before I started on the day. I sat with the kindness that I had given and the kindness I had received. I let myself feel sad for the kids who don’t have a costume to wear on dress up day. I felt gratitude for the teachers who work so hard to make things even out as much as they can. But it can’t ever be 100% wonderful for every kid, all the time. I sat with that for a little while.

Just before I cranked the car, my phone dinged with a text. April, my friend and coworker, said, “Hey! I read your blog about the school parking lot. Do you think Carlos’ school could use those superhero capes we had for the NICU reunion?”

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Seriously? A bag of capes so that no one is left out on superhero day?

April’s superpower? Reading minds. And kindness.

Most of us are never going to have laser vision or freeze breath or Spidey Sense. Shoot, we aren’t even going to have a Batmobile or an invisible plane.

But every one of us has a superpower–kindness. Seeing each other when we are in need and stepping up to say, “Well….I can fix THAT.”

I Tiptoe Into Your Room at Night

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November 8, 2014

November 8, 2014

I tiptoe into your room every night, and it’s never to whisper, “For the last time, untangle your underwear from your pants legs before you put them in the laundry basket.”

Just before midnight, I stand beside your bed and not once have I come there to say, “Did you put something down the toilet again? Because it is clogging up and I sweartogod if I have to replace another toilet it is coming out of your college fund.”

In the soft glow of your night light, my finger reaches out to trace the perfect curve of your cheek and I don’t ask, “Why are you so sticky?”

I tuck the covers around you without saying, “You’re not even supposed to have Go-gurts in your room. We don’t want ants.”

I push the dark curls off your forehead and it’s never crossed my mind to take this opportunity to say, “Cough into your elbow!”

And every night, every single night of your life, I stand there in the dark and whisper, “I love you sooooo much.”

Every day I tell you that too. But at night, I tiptoe into your room to remind myself what a miracle you are. And how lucky I am to be your mother.

But honestly, what is that smell?

Jumping Monkeys

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In a parenting group, a very funny mother posted this commentary about the ridiculous nature of parenting groups (yes, IRONY. But we’re totally different, super cool and laid back):

Ten little monkeys jumping on the bed,
One fell off and bumped his head.
Mama asked the mom group and the mom group said:
Have you tried essential oils? I hear hyperactivity is a vaccine injury. I’m calling CPS.

RIGHT?

After I had my laugh, I rubbed some Vitamin-E on that scar Carlos has on his cheek from the time he slid in his own pee dribbles while getting off the toilet and cut his face on the rim of the trashcan. I felt like the World’s Horriblest Mother after that accident. Yet somehow, the cut gave him a dimple. Who else could turn a pee slip into a beauty mark? That boy is MAGIC.

Trauma induced dimple. (Yes, I know that is not the proper way to secure a helmet. It was corrected before he started juggling machetes.)

Trauma induced dimple. (Yes, I know that is not the proper way to secure a helmet. It was corrected before he started juggling machetes.)

Anywho, now that you’ve been blessed with a photo of The Cutest Little Boy In the ENTIRE WORLD, let me get back to nutjobs who think their kids are the specialist snowflakes of all the special snowflakes.

When I was still pregnant with Vivi, my stepdaughter Victoria sorted through her books and picked a few to pass along to the baby. One of the books was a bright yellow copy of “Ten Little Monkeys” with fingerpuppets for the monkey heads. “I loved that song!” I cried. She and I started reading it together.

Ten little monkeys jumping on the bed, one fell off and bumped his head.

Called up the doctor and the doctor said,

“No more monkeys jumping on the bed!”

 

I blurted, “That’s not how it goes.” Victoria showed me the page. I even flipped a few pages ahead–they were all like that. I figured it was some knock-off Montessori book or something G had picked up in an airport in a foreign land, because every kid born in my generation knows how that rhyme REALLY goes:

Ten little monkeys jumping on the bed, one fell over and broke his head.

Mama called the doctor and the doctor said,

“THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR JUMPING ON THE BED.”

Walk it off, monkey. Gravity always wins. Here, bite this stick while we flush it out with Bactine then you can get back to carousing.

Trampoline with no safety cage, no padding. And the ground is littered with dirt.

Trampoline with no safety cage, no padding. And the ground is littered with dirt.

Now that I’ve been parenting actual children for almost a decade, I think the shift in the nursery rhyme reflects the shift in how we parent our kids. The current trend is to shield them from harm–by order of the Department of Health, no more monkeys will be allowed to jump on the bed.

Back in MY day, we were raised with less bubble wrap and more natural consequences–that’s what you get for…fill in the blank. Even the doctor knew it was your own damn fault if you broke your head falling off the bed after your mama had told you 100 times not to be doing that in the first place.

I had every intention of being the kind of mother who can lord it over the others in on-line mothering groups. While I was still percolating my first baby I was already reading hand-me-down copies of Mothering magazine about the proper way to grow, preserve, pulverize and compost my own organic food for my child. I tied myself up in a ring sling and smeared medical grade lanolin on my nipples and it wasn’t even Valentines Day. My kids would be raised with every bit of Mother Henning I could muster. They would suffer no trauma, not even a mild inconvenience.

Then some actual parenting hit and I find myself letting my kids teach themselves more and more of those lessons that only make it into our brains the hard way.

So what about you? Were you taught no more monkeys jumping on the bed or that’s what you get for jumping on the bed? Or did your mom rub some essential oils on your head and file a lawsuit against the mattress manufacturer?

Hang on tight buddy. That ground is hard.

Hang on tight buddy. That ground is hard.

When the Pieces Fit Together

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G and I spent this weekend as one being, locked in a torrid frenzy of…cleaning house. I ripped off his pants and threw them in the washer with the other seven loads of laundry. Not to be outdone, he shredded my old shirt then used it to wipe streaks off the windows. I screamed his name over and over and over again because he kept taking the whole roll of paper towels. He made me all dizzy and tingly when he used all that bleach in the bathroom and forgot to turn on the exhaust fan. In the dark of the fading afternoon, we squeezed and poked and fumbled until all the bathroom towels fit neatly on one shelf in the closet. With Disney Junior keeping the kids distracted, we crept off to the bedroom to rotate the mattress. And I do mean “rotate the mattress.”

By Sunday night, I was spent. He was out on the deck smoking and staring off across the treetops, like men with organized Tupperware cabinets do. It was magical.

Seriously, is there anything sexier than a man who smells like bleach? I think not.

As awesome as our newly organized bathroom closet is (and y’all…THREE BAGS of trash came out of there) it wasn’t the high point of the Big Clean for me. These two puzzles were:

puzzles

So, can I talk to the people who have small folks in the house? Can you empathize with me when I tell you the delicious joy of finding ALL THE PIECES of these puzzles? For years, I’ve been considering throwing every puzzle piece out in one big sweep, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It seemed so wasteful. I kept hanging on to a piece here and a piece there and one under the bed in Vivi’s room and one in the vase beside the dining room table and GAHHHHHHHH. My kids have played with this farm cube puzzle for eight years. I remember the first time Vivi put the horse together by herself. But it’s been scattered all over the house for a while now.

Even though the clutter was driving me crazy, I held on to the pieces whenever I found one and this weekend, after an unanticipated discovery in the bottom of the old toy box…all the pieces came together. I can’t describe the satisfaction and the joy.

It’s like storytelling–you hang on to random scraps and pieces and think about giving up then one day, it all falls together and makes a picture.  So I guess what I’m telling you is–hold on to the pieces. It will make sense one day. Maybe.

I wiped the smudges off the puzzle cubes and put them neatly in their tray, then slipped the whole thing in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag. Because we are homo sapiens and we learn to use tools. And not two minutes later, Vivi spotted it in the Donate box and cried, “I LOVE THAT PUZZLE!” I reminded her that she hadn’t played with it in years and she said, “That’s because it was missing most of the pieces.”

Dammit. She has a point. So the puzzle has gone back to her room–in the plastic bag–and I will watch for a week to see if it gets touched. If not, it goes along to some other child with a more organized mother.

Carlos got a fantastic puzzle for Christmas–a magnetic array of the 50 U.S. States. He loves it and we’ve been putting it together, together. But on the day after Christmas, we misplaced Wisconsin and I spent THREE DAYS haunted by that damn state.

Finally found it when G and I were thrashing around on the living room rug, all sweaty and sticky from picking up Christmas tree needles. I scared the bejeezus out of him when I yelled, “YesYesYes! Right there! Right there by your thumb! Wisconsin! WISCONSIN!”

The Meanest Thing I’ve Said to My Daughter, So Far

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Sunday night, just before bath time, my last nerve ran out into the street and threw itself under a car. About 45 seconds after that, I made a simple request of my daughter. About a minute after that, I said the meanest thing I’ve said to her….so far.

Image courtesy morguefile.com

Image courtesy morguefile.com

Vivi was supposed to be getting ready for her bath. I looked over and saw a stack of orange peels and other snack detritus on the coffee table in the den. From the couch, I hollered down the hall, “Come get your dishes and put them in the sink!”

She thundered down the hall, running wide open through the den and straight into the kitchen, right past me. Then she wandered back into the den.

“What are you DOING?” I asked.

“Seeing if I could outrun the cat.”

“Dishes.”

She meandered over to the coffee table, picked up a book that had been left open there earlier in the afternoon, and started to read. I gave it a few seconds then said, “DISHES.”

“Oh, right!” She came very very very close to the dishes, but then the cat walked by again and she pounced on him.

“Leave the cat alone and just take the dishes to the sink!” By now, she had the cat draped across her left arm like a dish towel and ignored me when I repeated, “Put the cat down!” With the cat wiggling to get free, she stacked her water cup on top of her plate. Teeter totter sway and wobble…y’all can see where this is going, right? I’m not sure if the cat knocked the cup over or the cup fell over and the water landed on the cat, but all of that happened at once and now we had a bigger mess and water all over everywhere.

And that’s when I blurted: “Why can’t you just……BE NORMAL….for one minute?”

I meant to say, “Why can’t you focus on this? Why will you not listen to me? Why can you not leave the goddam cat alone? Why can you not remember to clean up after yourself? When will you learn to respect the laws of physics? Especially where cats and water are concerned???”

Instead, I said “Why can’t you be normal?” And I’m still beating myself up for that.

She paused for a moment but didn’t answer me. I hope she was too busy dealing with the mess to register what I had said,

After the mess was sopped up and thrown away and Rufus had escaped to the backyard to recover his dignity, I should have apologized to Vivi for that word. She was already giggling in the tub. “Normal” is the last thing I want her to be. I want her to be clever and kind and free and confident and courageous and content. I want her to be herself, authentically and unapologetically. I also want her to put her own damn orange peels in the kitchen trash can. Not the wastebasket under the desk that only gets emptied every few weeks–the KITCHEN trashcan. And I want her to do that the first time she is asked, while bearing in mind that cats and water and gravity are all fickle fellows. I want her to be a centered individual who knows how to live in the world with other people.

Normal. Ugh. My daughter isn’t normal. But I didn’t need to remind her of that.

I’m beating myself up about this slip of the tongue. Worrying that this one thing will become the inner voice that she hears. Wondering if this was the straw that broke the daughter’s back.

The mom guilt is strong on this one. Was this my big mistake that wipes out every positive thing I’ve ever done for my girl? That’s what I worry about with EVERY mothering decision. I guess that’s….oh what’s the word?

NORMAL.

Oh, Beths–I Get It Now

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Tonight, when I was on my knees shoving a plastic knife up into the roller thingy of my carpet steamer in order to extract wet globs of dog hair…I had a moment. A good moment. A laughy kind of moment.

I thought back to a Sunday morning about fourteen years ago. Sun streamed through the French doors of my bedroom. Moxie and Zoe, the dachshunds, lay in a snoozy little pile on the white carpet. The phone rang–it was my friend, Beth.

She asked, “Hey! What are you doing?”

I glanced at the clock. 11:30 a.m. “Oh, a little of this, a little of that. Cleaning up a little.” I was lying like a rug. Beth had a toddler and another one on the way. I frequently lied to her about how busy I wasn’t. I didn’t want to rub it in.

A pause fell between us, a silence on the line before she screeched, “ARE YOU STILL IN THE BED??”

I snorted then confessed. “Yeah, but I’m not even sleeping any more. Just laying here with a book.” I didn’t tell her that I had been reading for three hours. That I was eating fresh cherries and orange juice that I had driven all the way in to Atlanta to get.

“Oh. My. God. It’s been YEARS since I got to do that.”

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Now Beth’s toddler is driving and on the golf team. Tempus fugit and all, y’all.

And me? The one who was lolling around in bed at lunchtime on a Sunday? I’m living the dream. I left the feverish toddler at home with G so I could go to work. Went to therapy on my lunch hour to clean out my head. Picked a logo for the new project at work. Did some moving, did some shaking. Picked up Vivi from school and took her grocery shopping, where we practiced math in the produce department and made up a song about Froot Loops. Two hundred dollars poorer, we drove through Chic-fil-a to pick up dinner. I fed the kids, talked about girl drama with the teenager, patted the sick boy, fed the dog. Got the kids in bed then cleaned blueberry smoothie barf out of the carpet. Then cleaned the steamer with a plastic knife because I should have vacuumed first. Then did two loads of laundry and addressed 25 birthday party invitations. Now it’s 11:39 and I’m sitting down to write this because I start to nut up if I go too many days without writing.

I get it Beth. I swear I do. Thank you for being patient with me back then. It’s been years for me now, too.

Another Sunday morning and a different Beth….One time, about the same thirteen years ago, I needed to call my brother’s house about something. I waited until 9 a.m. because I didn’t want to be rude. My sister-in-law, Beth, answered.

“Hey! It’s Ashley–I hope it’s not too early to call. I didn’t want to wake up the boys.”

She hooted. “OH RIGHT! Please–they’re both in time out and I’ve already had to use Liquid Stitches! What’s up with you?”

THAT is the life I’m living right now. Both Beths–I totally get you.