Monday, May 6, 2013

The Magic Number

I read a story this morning about a very unscientific study that deemed three kids the most stressful number to have. Two is doable because the parents are not outnumbered (assuming there are two parents) and four and above seem to work because parents just start saying, "Fuck it. You kids are on your own."

But three? You're toast.

I know a lot of folks with three kids, my sister and brother-in-law among them, and it does seem really, really hard. Their toils, plus hefty student loan debt, have solidified Greg's and my hunch to lock our own family growth down at a solid two kiddos. Two kiddos and a red dog.

But as I got further into this "study," I noticed some flaws — and not just the study's flaws, of which I'm assuming there are many, but those of the mothers. I'm not player-hating here, ladies, but put down the mod podge and listen up. The reason, they attested, that the third time was most definitely not the charm is that you're doing too much. The kids are over-scheduled, they said; whatever free time is left is squandered scrapbooking and making this.

I read the story while June was watching her morning Sesame Street, and as I popped another microwaved mini pancake into my face-hole, I smugly thought, "That ain't me!" Truly, though, no one has ever accused me of doing too much.

And when I talk about the do-too-unnecessarily-much-ers out there, I'm not talking about my sister, who has two school-age children and a newborn and is valiantly clawing her way through these trying early months of a baby's life to resume what was once a dependable routine. That sounds seriously stressful. Real talk. But I'm talking about the well-meaning gals (and guys) who are just overdoing it. Too many crafts, too many lessons, too many projects, too many playdates. Aside: when the frig did we start calling it a playdate anyway? Therein, I believe, lies part of our problem. When I was growing up you "went over" to a friend's house. "Dates" imply there will be a prepared meal and some sort of wooing and entertainment involved. Too much damn work. "Going over" to a friends meant a sleeve of Oreos and un-PC cartoons for hours. Parental supervision was almost guaranteed not to be a factor.

In fact, I remember my mom saying that she liked it when we had friends over because we remained within her purview but were leaving her the frig alone — the stated objective. Also, she didn't have to get in the car and drive anywhere. Granted, right now my child is a toddler, still requires supervision, and doesn't have a choice who her friends are, so I get to invite my friends and their kids over on adults' terms only. But I hear about school-age playdates during which the parents who are virtual strangers linger, interfere, redirect, entertain. So you're telling me when June is 7 and wants a friend to come over, I have to have her mom, too? A mom I barely know who might be opposed to drinking and/or celebrity gawking and therefore with whom I have NOTHING to talk about? I have to clean the house and provide organic snacks and compliment little Brayden's faux-hawk all the while making small talk with this tee-totaling monster of woman? Ugh. Sounds exhausting.  Forget it.

I want to be a good mom. I think I am a good mom, but I vacillate between wanting to be the sort of mom that crafts with their child and the sort of mom that hands her child a crayon and some Post-Its and says, "Here. Color. Mommy's going to go lie down."

Perhaps the "I'm pregnant and exhausted" disclaimer should be invoked right about now, since just about the only thing I'm game for these days is the "pretend Junie is going to bed" ruse in which she lies on the couch and fake snores for a while. One better, this morning she discovered the hammock outside and was content to swing in its nylon hug while I sat adjacent in the adirondack chair. I nearly wept with joy at the development. Then our dog dropped his ball at my feet hoping for some fetch and I told him to fuck off.

In my very, very limited experience in parenting, I've discovered that what works for us is "less is most definitely more." This choice was not created in a vacuum, considering my husband's imagination- and wilderness-rich childhood, and the conscious laissez-faire approach my own folks took with us. I remember my mom telling me about how my brother Matt's only toy for about two years was a cigar box with, like, a twist tie and a nail file inside. That's it. Depression-era fun for all! But seriously, that seems to be the ticket with June, too, yet I know all kids don't function that way.

Pinterest, in all its Fantasy Land glory, can be a real bitch for moms. Those who "follow" me know I don't play the mommy game on that site. I'm strictly in it for the food and fashion. But those who know me for real know how much I adore my child and that I would do anything for her.... within reason.  When I saw the "pin" of a toddler sliding down a plastic PlaySkool outdoor slide covered in food-dyed shaving cream with the caption "100 Things From The Dollar Tree You Can Use In Play," I wanted to throttle my laptop. Pinterest is to pragmatist moms what the Bryan Adams "Summer of '69" video was to my late grandfather: an obscene display of waste and misdirected resources to no viable end. Shaving cream on a slide?? What, are you dying to be scrubbing that shit out of your upholstery for the next month? What's wrong with just a slide? A concussion is enough of an imminent possibility without an accelerant, but now you want to lube the thing up with a product that explicitly states both "Not for use for children under 12" and "Keep out of eye area" on its package?*

No wonder you're stressed, moms.

So much of the crap you find on crafty mommy blogs is destructive posturing for both self-esteem and hardwood floors. Clearing out the Dollar Tree of their foreign-made, chemically laden, not-for-child-use products to give kids about five minutes of payoff for quintuple that in prep and clean-up time sounds like a nightmare to me, and it should to you, too. Say no to the shaving cream, moms. SAY NO. Plus, aren't they saying now what us thirty-somethings have known since childhood? That boredom is good for kids?

I don't ever recall my mom being stressed out and keen on keeping us occupied when we were growing up, beyond the inevitable blow-ups of having four kids who were acting like a pain in her ass from time to time. We played sports and stuff through school but didn't have anything scheduled beyond that. We would do a fun project with her, like build a gingerbread house or bake bread, but that didn't happen often — and that was only with me since Meg wanted nothing to do with her for the bulk of her formative years. My mom didn't express any inadequacies relative to other moms because she didn't care — and if some other mom wanted to corral a bunch of us tweens in and out of the Northbrook Court Claire's Boutique for a fun girls' outing? Great, better that fool than her. Just don't ask her to drive.

But she was attentive and affectionate and kind and funny. She gave us nothing but time and love and joy and more time, just not finger paints. And I didn't miss 'em.

A couple of months ago, my cousin Beth hosted a cookie decorating party for June and her other toddler brood. June talked about it for weeks — it was an absolute delightful joy from beginning to end. Given how much fun my girl had, I decided I was going to try and recreate it one cold, gray, slow winter's afternoon. It was a disaster. She was frustrated, I was disappointed, and the cookies blew. Plus, I used one cookie cutter ... in the shape of a circle. It was Super Mommy Amateur Hour. I half-expected my cousin to appear dressed as the Sandman, shooing me out of the room with her push broom. Plus, all this was before we got our dishwasher so we made an unholy mess. But I considered it to be a shaving-cream-on-the-slide "big" project that the sleep-deprived trolls of Pinterestland told me was an instant memory-maker for a fastidious toddler such as mine. Bull. It was like she knew it wasn't my bag. If she could articulate as such, she would have licked the last bit of streaky electric blue frosting off her fingers and said, "Mom, nice try, really. But this ain't yo' style. Can we play 'monkey on a motorcycle' instead?" (That is a "game" in which she crawls behind me on a chair and we lean to and fro making noises like we're taking sharp turns on a crotch rocket.)

But this is what she wants, what she remembers. I guarantee our cookie debacle has been wiped clean from her mind's dry erase board and rescrawled with any number of stupid songs I make up, walks to the beach with Greg, stories told by her grandparents, piles of rocks counted on our driveway, kisses, cuddles, books. To the aggressive Pinterest mom, I would be an abject failure. To my happy, delighted little girl, I'm doing aiiiight. And I'll try to keep this low-balling expectations thing up for as long as I can.

The jury's out as to what pressure I'll succumb down the line as June ages, or after this baby is born. But the silver lining to all this loan debt is the simple inability to compete with the trend, even if the desire was there. I can afford 99 cent bubbles, but monkey on a motorcycle is free.

And damn fun.


*That shaving cream craft pin on Pinterest links to a blog called "Growing a Jeweled Rose"... barf.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

The Real Word (sic), Highwood

Sooooooo ... hi there. How've you been? What's new? Gosh, I haven't seen you in... TWO FREAKING YEARS?

That, ladies and germs, is laziness. Nay, toddlerdom. Ok, laziness, too. Much has changed since that last dispatch (which was an also-ran from a column I had written months before — cop-out city), but I'm thinking most of you reading this are either blood relatives or check Facebook now and again, so you know the gist of the Trotter happenings.

In short: a move to the Chicago suburbs, two writing jobs for Greg, part-time employment with some hilarious priests plus a decent freelance career for me, the world's most awesome spring, followed by the world's shittiest spring, a little travel here, a few visitors there, a graying red dog, the growth and development of a most spectacular little girl, and now another wonderful (so far so good) pregnancy.

June's chatty now, and I mean real chatty. She likes to cuddle up next to me on the couch and say, "Mama, let's talk about animals." So we do. She tells me about monkeys, how they live in the jungle and eat bananas, and sometimes get in bathtubs and ride bicycles. Then we move on to cows, how they live in the fields and wear bells. And next is always lions, also living in the jungle and eating bananas. I dare not correct her. Now's not the time for Darwin.

We have given some passing thought to potty training, but are waiting a few more weeks until she shows more signs of readiness. She loves the trappings of the potty— the accessories, the how-to books, the mirage of independence — but not the actual usage itself. Right now, she's just in it for the toilet paper.

About a month ago, Matt and Margarita bequeathed their vast collection of potty paraphernalia to us, much to Junie's delight. As we were transporting the haul from my parents' house, she insisted on holding the Sesame Street-themed junior toilet seat in her lap all the way home. When it wasn't on her lap, she was holding it up to her face and peering through the hole saying, "Mama! Yook! Number zero!" Once again, too cute to correct. I commended her command of the numbers and then said to Greg, under my breath, "Where did she learn about zero? It wasn't from me." Then the little face in the toilet seat in the back chirped, "From TV." Take that, American Academy of Pediatrics.

I had incorrectly assumed, by gauging her interest (see above) and intellect, that she would be drunk with potty power by now. Not quite. She can't "hold it," she doesn't articulate when she needs to go No. 1, and she's not great at removing pants on her own. She will clink her glass and stand on a chair at a restaurant to announce the coming of a turd, but the pee warnings are more elusive. We've had a few instances where she's pantsless on the potty, says "All done!" and stands up, and then pisses or craps (or both) on the floor. Diapers haven't become such a hassle yet, and the thought that she may have inherited my pea-sized bladder and that we could be spending most of the next several years corralled in a public bathroom taking toilet turns isn't propelling me out the door to procure a copy of "Elmo's Potty Book" anytime soon.

And people, let's face it, a child out of diapers means a child getting older. And I ain't cool with that.

But a key factor in my reticence to go full-throne-throttle is the intersection of an increased vocabulary, a bear trap of a memory, and the mechanics of bladder and bowel relief. The questions are going to come, I know they are, and the answers will demand the use of "real" words.

Real words for which I'm not ready.

Everything I've ever read and heard when it comes to toddlers and the anatomy is to just let 'er rip. Be honest. Tell them the correct names for body parts. That horrifying fifth-grade sex-ed class living nightmare of "P" words and "V" words and "A" holes is supposed to be a calming, truthful presence in a 2-year-old's life. I'm calling bullshit. Did those doctors talk to any parents doing real parenting when they decided this was in the child's best interest? The generations of folks who happily grew into sexually repressed adulthood using only terms like "pee pee" and "wee wee"? The kids that we all see shouting "PENIS!" at the top of their lungs during recess just because they can and it feels right? I see what doctors are doing -- take away the shame and you take away the fascination, leading to healthier relationships and improved body image. I get it. I do. But I'm thinking about my daughter whose favorite word is currently "humungous" — a word I can see being especially expressive when paired with "vagina" and belted out during a quiet moment at Christmas Eve Mass.

When it comes down to it, when she does ask, I will tell her the truth. I will explain it to her in real terms. I will look her in the eye and say "nipple." I will not laugh. I WILL NOT LAUGH (the more I say it, the more it becomes an affirmation). I'm pregnant and my rapidly changing physique will only invite more awkward questioning. That and her refusal to let me pee alone.

At least one of us is using the toilet.

And this is the easy part, throwing a couple of names around. When the baby appears? And the whole "how did it get in there? / how does it get out?" double-whammy rears its graphic head? What will I do then? Ohhh Greg...

I love my parents so much, I do, but they will be the first to admit they dropped the ball when it came to this sort of stuff. Hell, they never picked the ball up. My dad still winces when he hears the right names for reproductive organs, and bellows "Why can't they just learn about it on the street, like I did?" when the topic of birds, bees and teaching young kids comes up. And my mom? Well, she did sit me down once to have "the talk" ...  only to stand up immediately and scamper out of the room murmuring, "I can't do this. Talk to your sister." I was 19 at the time. True story.

But I can't blame them. Heck, I turned out fine. A little childish when it comes to some topics, a little prone to laughing like Butthead in others, but altogether fine. Is this "real" word thing some grand experiment we'll revisit in 20 years when the psychotherapy community will widely renounce the practice after droves of humorless adults complain that there's really nothing good to laugh at anymore? Will we go back to the "pee pee" days just so kids have something to giddily gasp at? When we lift the "P" word veil, what's left?

Well, there's your deep thought for the afternoon. I have to pee like crazy and June's napping so I've got this time all to myself.

No questions asked.