Toddler to Teen

I think I need an 8 year old.

Toddlers want to help All. The. Time. Every morning Andrew "unloads" the dishwasher. Of course he goes straight for the knives, buddies up to the pizza cutter, and sneezes on the Tupperware. His help is adorable, slower than cooling magma, and kind of gross. God forbid I forget to run the washer the night before. He does NOT understand why I do not want him to deliver slimy dishes to the cabinets. Of course he will also sit in a poop diaper, so I'm guessing cleanliness is not his #1 priority.

Big Sister considers household drudgery beneath her, certainly not worth leaving the comfort of her bed and Netflix. When forced to assist, she looks around the kitchen as if uninformed as to where we keep the drinking glasses. You would never guess she used to beg to clean the toilets.

Other chores? Sheer joy for a little one. I got Andrew a miniature Swiffer for free at a yard sale. It will be his "big" Christmas present. If I gave Big Sis a Swiffer, I think she'd call CPS. Her Christmas list includes cropped tops, oversized sweaters and expensive makeup sets with names like Sex and Pervy. On this ambitious list, items 1-16 totaled more than the cost of my wedding dress.

I told her how our family used to do the 3 present rule-- after all that's how many gifts Baby Jesus got. She scoffed and pitied her former ignorant, compliant little self.

Truly, an 8 year old would be perfect.

He might not be as eager as a toddler to do chores, but quality control would be less of an issue, and I could get some good work out of him before the teen years.

At least that's what I think. Check back in with me in 6 years and we'll see if Andrew's enthusiasm for helping has waned. I hope not, because Mom and Dad aren't getting any younger.

In the mean-time, I wonder how long it will take Big Sis to clue in that she can train Andrew to deliver a chilled La Croix and Cheez-its right to her bed, a germy smile on his face.

Flashback: Siblings, One Ordinary Morning

 

 

I see them standing in the ironwood tree next to the carport, feet resting on the thick, twisted branches as they face each other. No sports or errands crowd their agenda this spring morning, when their only job is to be kids. Our yard doesn’t have the huge climbing trees of my childhood, but a flowering cherry and Japanese dogwood in the front and this one on the side are good for a short climb, and apparently, snacking and talking. I can’t see what food they took up there. Scooby Doo fruit snacks, I’m guessing.  

 

Are they discussing school next year, and that fact that Tim and I can’t seem to get our act together to commit to public verses private for Jack? They’re probably grateful they have each other to bemoan the fact that Tim and I can’t make a decision to save our lives.  Most likely their chat is about neighborhood  or school gossip, or Jack is telling Margaret something about his Lego video game, which she may or may not be following.

I remember when he kept the two of us in his room for  hours, coaching us on all of the weird character names from one of his games. We used mnemonic devices to remember, so we’d be ready when he quizzed us.

He always quizzed us.

Margaret and I can still recite the characters’ names: “Haikaru with hair of blue!” with an enthusiastic shout, even though it’s been years, and we had no real clue what he was talking about. Why have we always so willingly and enthusiastically fed into Jack’s interests, whether trains, legos, or word play?

Is it because eldest children set the agenda for a family?

I certainly remember wanting my older brother to include me in his world, to throw me a bone of attention, even though I wasn’t at all interested in fishing, burping,  sports, or setting things on fire. I was just interested in him.

Margaret wears an aqua tank top and shorts, a satiny blue ribbon holding back her long brown pony tail. Jack’s soft heather green t-shirt is way too big, but fortunately is long enough to cover the top of the athletic shorts he’s taken to pulling down past his butt. All his pertinent business is covered by the shirt, but it’s weird to know that if you lifted it up, his boxer shorts would show. Is this teenager-dom, come one year early? I’ve decided to let it go, except for teasing him about it occasionally. He spends most of his time tucked and belted into his uniform khakis anyway.

Both kids have a sprinkle of freckles  starting to show on their button noses. By October they’ll be faded until next year. I can’t take any credit for the provenance of those noses or the striking eyes, which lean toward amber for Margaret, and the deepest brown for Jack. Mine are blue, and my nose and face are something I had to grow into. I love how anyone who sees Jack and Margaret immediately knows they are brother and sister.

From their vantage point they can see down the long driveway, and any neighbor kids who come out of their houses will be able to spot them too. This tree perch could be a way to drum up a game of soccer in someone’s front yard, or refrigerator tag in our driveway, the wheeled trashcans serving as bases. Jack and Margaret are not phone callers or door knockers. They do not foist themselves on anyone, but wait to be approached. 

They are sociable but on the introverted side. If no one calls, they remain content to stay at home, together. I understand the desire to make certain they are wanted, because I am like this too, but it stands in contrast to the more assertive kids whom I’ve encountered over the years. “Mrs. Donaldson, can Jack come out and play?” says a child at our kitchen door. “Well, he’s doing his homework right now,” I respond, gently inching the door closed. The child remains, faced pressed against the glass, just a few feet from our kitchen table. “It doesn’t look like he’s doing homework. It looks like he’s eating a snack.” We all crack up.

Like so many sibling conversations Jack and Margaret have had, today’s stays between them. Sometimes, even though their personalities are different, it seems as if they share a brain. A single word or a look and they erupt into hysterical laughter. They don’t have to worry about figuring out social cues or sugar coating things for each other, so connected are they by genes and culture and experience and security. Margaret knows she can be super blunt with Jack and he’ll take it, whether she's telling him he has too much gel in his hair or is wearing the wrong shirt. In fact, he usually welcomes it, considering her counsel to be wise, even though she’s barely 10 years old. Jack, on the other hand, has learned to couch any advice to her in more gentle terms, so as not to put her on the attack. He always starts with, “Well, Margaret…” and although he finally found his “R’s” years ago with the help of speech therapy, he still says his sister’s name in a distinctive way.

Sometimes they talk about the girls who have crushes on Jack. It’s fun to speculate about. I love that Margaret is already getting that easy exposure to boys through Jack that my sister and I did with our big brother, John. To us, boys were not some mysterious, foreign species. We knew they were more or less like us, just with smellier feet.  

Already, Margaret is used to the pile of shoes the boys kick off when they dash into the house, heading down to video games or the basement. She has a comfortable rapport with her brother and his friends. Jack is her favorite, but it can’t be a bad thing having other boys around too, in and out all day with the slam of the kitchen door. And it goes both ways: Jack has been learning about how to understand women and their emotions ever since the day Margaret shook up his quiet life ten years ago.

Traditions

When I write about traditions or favorite family activities, I do so with some trepidation, because I know that hearing about other people's lives can make me feel inadequate, and I wonder if it has the same effect on you. It's like when you're feeling pretty good about your life and then you go to a soccer cookout at someone's house. Suddenly your own house looks like shit. And then you start thinking about your life choices. Why couldn't you have chosen a career path with more earning potential? Then maybe you too would have a "Jack and Jill" bath with oil rubbed bronze fixtures.  English major? What the hell were you thinking? And your husband is glad you don't keep a sledgehammer in the house because at 10 on a Saturday night you might feel envious and motivated enough to start opening up some walls. Not that that's ever happened to me.

And then there are the Facebook posts, with all the love! and creativity! and by the end of  a holiday like Valentine's Day you're ready to slit your throat or that of your significant other. If you read one of my very first posts , about the dreaded Valentine's Day, you'll be glad that there was no Facebook when I started blogging. It might have pushed me right over the edge.

I'm glad I was raised in the 70's and 80's before social media, because I feel like the stakes have been raised so high to have amazing traditions and experiences and homes it just puts a HUGE burden on moms to make that magic happen. I know my own mom would not have fared too well in the age of  Pinterest, even though she was artistic and talented. She didn't care much about Halloween costumes ("go find a sheet-- you can be a ghost again"), she barely remembered to take pictures, and of course there was the time she gave me a PINEAPPLE to take to my teacher as a Christmas gift.

I can say with certainty The Elf on a Shelf would not have been welcome in our house,  because Mom seemed pretty relieved when the whole Santa facade crumbled. But the thing is, if you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you'll know my mom was an incredible mother. Incredible. Some of our favorite traditions included seeing who could be the first person to stick his finger in a brand new jar of Peter Pan Peanut butter. Or regularly barricading ourselves in my brother's room and having tennis ball fights. These things took no money or planning, but they are what we remember more than 30 years later.

When I became a mom 14 years ago, I  had only Family Fun magazine to make me feel like I wasn't measuring up in the creative mom department. Now there are so many more ways for new moms to feel lame. Gender reveal parties! Birth announcements so amazing they make my wedding invitations look like crap! Infant photo shoots where the naked baby is put in a basket or placed on a shelf! So cute I could just die. They bear no resemblance to the pathetic  pictures of Jack being propped up on the tan shag photo platform at Sears by a haggard photographer with a smoker's cough.

I do like to share ideas and traditions on this blog. And I doubt anyone would look upon our current familial situation with envy. But I've noticed there are many ways to make ourselves feel bad, one of which could even be, "Look at what they did with their kids and it still all fell apart. I can't even (fill in the blank), so where does that leave me ?" Or am I the only one who has Negative Nelly self-talk, when I see mylife in light of others?

So, if I happen to share a sweet tradition later this week that Tim did with the kids, do you promise to go easy on yourself? I know I will.

Life through Rose Colored Goggles

I was in Target yesterday when I walked by the pool section...and kept right on walking. It dawned on me that this is the first summer in almost a dozen when my summer's pleasure hasn't been all wrapped up in...swim goggles.

Join me on a walk down memory lane:

--The screaming and wailing when pool water seeps into sub-par goggles and my kids' eyes threaten to shrivel up and fall out as if burned by carbolic acid.

--The pile of rejected goggles deemed so because of poor suction, cheesy "Dora" motifs, or that certain je ne sais quoi understood only by the annoying toddler/kid set.

--The attempts to negotiate so that one kid will give the other the "good" goggles for the entire summer because otherwise he/she (okay, HE!) will not dangle a toe in the pool without them. "Would $5 work for you, honey? Because it would work for me."

--The secret nighttime shopping trips trying to stock up on exact duplicate goggles just in case the "good" goggles disappear.

--The threats: "Under no circumstances may you come home from the pool without these goggles. Do you understand? Shoes? Who cares? Sibiling? Meh. Do NOT lose these goggles!"

--The gripping fear, as August and beach-time looms, and the rubbery band of the "good" goggles starts to slacken, thin, and threaten to break.

--The attempt to broker a new goggle purchase as August winds down. Which, I must say, is like trying to buy a Compass and Protractor set in June. Yes, I have tried both.

But this summer? Nary a mention of goggles, good, bad, or otherwise. I am relieved. I am happy. The world seems full of promise and possibility. The kids frolic in the neighbors' pools without any protective eye wear whatsoever. This observation is something I note inside my gray head, but I dare not mention to them.

Because I haven't a stinkin' clue where the "good" goggles are.

You've Got A Lot of 'Splaining to Do

Tom’s and my all-time favorite show is “The Amazing Race.” Ever since the kids were little, Tom and I have watched it on Sunday nights and given them the play by play on Monday morning. By the end of the season, the kids have all sorts of opinions of who should win and why, but it’s sort of like old timey radio, since they aren’t actually watching with us.

Now that they are 10 and 8, we hoped we could watch as a family. Tom and I dvr-d the premiere to preview it. This show is modest by reality show standards--none of The Bachelor’s making out, bikinis, and “let’s take it to the next level” stuff --but there is cursing. Lots of frickin’ and freaking and crap and ass and even a bitch thrown in here and there. That was enough for us to veto the kids watching last season.

I know I would curse too if Tom and I were trying to race around the world for a million bucks-- we argue when we try to go downtown for dinner. Put me on a bus in India? I don’t even want to think of my reaction, but that doesn’t mean I want my kids to hear foul language.

Then there are the couples they choose. One year there was a controlling husband who seemed borderline abusive to his former Playmate wife. And each year, it seems, there’s a gay couple. Now before you go and call us haters, let me just say please don’t. We just don’t feel like having to do a lot of ‘splaining during our reality show escape. I didn’t feel like explaining the gravity defying, enormous boobs of several contestants last year, but that doesn’t mean I’m anti-implant.

If you’ve noticed with these reality shows, whichever way a couple has been labeled at the beginning comes back time and again throughout the competition. Last year we had a mother/son team in which the son was deaf. They’d show a competition and then cutaway to the mini-interview: “As a deaf person, how did today’s challenge effect you?”

I think it will be the same this year with an interracial couple, a team who has a member with Asperger’s, and the dating born again Christians. This painfully pretty couple, on one of their mini-interviews said, “We are committed to being chaste so we aren’t going to have sex before marriage.” I imagined sitting there with Jake and Molly. “Well, duh. Of COURSE they aren’t having sex, and none of these other people are either.” I mean, how many times this season will their sex life, or lack thereof, be mentioned?

So, even though the language in the first 5 minutes meant that we probably wouldn’t be watching this season as a family, we were wondering if we’d have more gay contestants. We’ve had the lesbian ministers (boring!), the stereotypical middle-aged gay couple who made a strategic mistake by choosing to stay in a quaint little resort celebrating how far ahead they were but ended up last. Last year we had the gay father/son. They were our faves and we hated to see them eliminated.

As they introduced the couples this season, “Inter-racial couple!” “Best Friends Since Childhood, one of whom has Aspergers!” “Married Yoginis” “Dating On and Off for Years—Will he Commit? (NO.), Professional Poker Players!”… we saw one more couple coming down the pike. They were male. They were young. They were hot and well groomed. Could it be? “Brothers!” Tom and I high-fived.

Cutaway to the mini interview: “So how did it feel to come out to each other as Gay Brothers?”

Oh well.

Back in the Saddle Again

I started a new job today after 9 1/2 years at home-- more on that later-- but I thought you would enjoy the kind words I got from the family this morning. Tom wrote me a little note on our kitchen chalkboard. Here it is:
















Molly encouraged me in her own way, which I loved!






Her wish for me is my wish for you in whatever you do today, whether at home or in an office: Work is boring, but I hope it isn't for you.