Making Choices

When you have health, you have choice.

You can choose to get your life in order, or not.  You can choose to clean your house, or not.  You can choose to visit friends and loved ones, or not.  You can choose to exercise, or not.  You can do that project, or write that book, or take that trip.  Or not.

As soon as your health slips, your choices start slipping away, too, like water running through your fingers, or going down the drain.

I remember one Saturday several years ago when I put off cleaning my house until late afternoon.  When I finally got around to mopping the kitchen floor, after 4:00, and reached up with the damp rag to get something that had dripped onto the refrigerator, ninety-five percent of my choice options for the next three months popped right out of my life.

My shoulder had popped out of its socket.

I have had seven babies.  I have had a root canal.  I have had spinal taps.  I have had scarlet fever and burns and horrible tension headaches.  But I have never had worse pain than that of a dislocated shoulder.

It's not just the pain, either.  When your right arm is suddenly useless, you feel like a disembodied spirit.  You can't do anything.  Walk, lie down, pick something up off the counter, make a phone call.  It feels like parts of your body are behind your back, where you can't reach them. 

I made my way into the bedroom where my husband was trying to catch up on sleep after his night job (which followed his Monday-Friday day job) and woke him up to my nightmare.  Disoriented and exhausted, he did his best to cope with what I was throwing at him.

We had to get to the hospital, fast.  We had to leave four small children at home in someone's care and get to the hospital, fast.  He called a kind neighbor, who dropped everything to come.  He drove me, shuddering with pain and frustration, to the ER.

Once there, we waited.  I had dislocated my shoulder once before, when a patch of carpet had slipped out from under my feet while descending the stairs, and my right arm clutching the banister had been torn from my flying body.  I knew from this that, once my shoulder was restored to its socket, this horrific pain would lessen to the point where I could cope with it.

After what seemed like an hour, a hospital staff member pulled up a stool to ask me miniscule questions from a tri-page questionnaire.  What did I think was the trouble?  I had dislocated my shoulder.  How long had I had this trouble?  Since right before we left for the hospital.  Had I been ill lately?  Had I taken any aspirin in the last ten days? When was my last period? 

"I was mopping the floor and I raised my arm to wipe the fridge and my shoulder popped out.  I just need it reset, please."  I had said this before.  I had been saying it since I had arrived.  It was clear and plain to me what the problem was.  And it didn't have anything to do with my period or the line-up of the planets.

"We have to complete this questionnaire before we can treat you," I was told.

"I'll be happy to answer all of your questions after my shoulder is reset," I countered.

That isn't the way they do it on TV.  On TV, when someone gets hurt and is rushed to the emergency room, all the hospital staff step up urgently trying to help the person.  I gritted my teeth harder and tried to endure as the list of questions went on and on.

"Have you had any diarrhea in the past week?"

Really?!  I stared at this balding, ordinary man who was sitting there with his clipboard between me and the rest of my life, and my eyes filled with tears.  I looked at my husband, to show him the tears in my eyes, and gave up.  I could not answer these inane questions anymore.  I was in too much pain.  I had told them what was wrong, and if they wouldn't help me, they wouldn't help me. 

I felt like a maimed person from ancient days, groveling for mercy at the foot of a Roman soldier.

"Can't somebody reset her shoulder?" my husband asked.

"We need to take X-rays first."

"Then take them."

I don't remember what happened next.  I had shut down.  I wasn't going to answer any more questions.  Eventually, I was bumpily transferred to a stretcher and wheeled down to X-ray.  Finally, someone came in and reset my arm.  The relief was instant and enormous.  Sure, my shoulder still hurt, but I didn't feel like a broken insect anymore.

Because the dislocation had recurred, I was in for surgery to make sure it wouldn't happen again.  And again.  That sounded good to me.

I came home, thanked the neighbor, and looked at my house.  The mopping, dusting, scrubbing, vacuuming, and clothes-folding I had put off were still there, waiting for me.  For me and my unusable right arm.

My four very small children still needed their Mama.

Why?  I thought.  Not why me?  Why had I made choices so badly?  Why had I put off what needed to be done until I could no longer do it?  Why had I put my children--and myself--in this situation?  That was the first time that I gave this topic a great deal of consideration.  At any time that day, I could have made better choices.  I had counted on having time later.  I had risked failure by wasting time.  I had gambled, and I had lost.

Now, I had to live with the consequences of my choices.  Sure, my husband did what he could to help out--he cooked the meals and helped with the children. The oldest of these was six, so none of them could push a vacuum or mop a floor.  Sure, a neighbor vacuumed my living room for me, once.  My visiting teacher offered to cook but not clean.  I politely informed her I already had that kind of help, thank you.

I remember staring at my stove top in utter frustration at times during the next few weeks, just aching to scrub it.  Or crumbs on my floor, just aching to sweep them.  Once I'd had the surgery, I couldn't move that arm at all.  I couldn't even put on my own deodorant.

 My "why" thoughts reached beyond that one afternoon.  Why had I chosen to be a person who did things at the last minute?  Why hadn't I developed the skills of keeping on top of things?  Sure, if my house had been clean at the time of my injury, I would have still needed help, but I would have needed less help.  I would have been less embarrassed to need help. I would have been less frustrated with myself.   I would have had a lot less thinking and changing to do.

So, over the past few years, I've worked to change these things.  I've tried to learn from this lesson.  I haven't mastered every inch of my life yet, but I've made great strides.  Now, if something unexpected happens, I am much more ready for it.  I have back-up plans to throw into place.  I'm living a life of structure and organization instead of living on the edge of disaster.

I found out I'm not alone.  When I was having some pre-op tests run at the hospital, a nurse discussed this principle with me.  She had tried to get her middle-aged husband to exercise, to no avail.  Well, he had hurt his back shoveling snow, and now he was no help to her at all.  In fact, her workload had doubled, and he would have a slow recovery back to health.  She wished he'd prevented the injury by being in shape. She hoped he'd learn his lesson from this.

Although my own personal lesson has never wandered far from my thoughts since that one Saturday at 4:00 and my goals have always been running along beside me since then, I have been forced to revisit this issue this week as I have sunk deeper and deeper into an illness that has taken days and choices away from me.

I have been forced to make accommodations for it, and I don't like that.

I like my life to run smoothly.  I like to stay on top of things. I like the same things to get done in a pattern each day and each week.

I took today off for a specific reason, and it wasn't to spend it sick.

I don't like my head to be so full of germs that there is no room for coherent thought.  I don't like shutting myself up away from my children, who don't see enough of me as it is, to try to prevent inflicting this misery onto them.

I'm frustrated to be too fuzzy-headed to study for my upcoming exam.

Still goal-oriented, I have been trying to fit into some short-sleeved dresses I wore years ago before it is too cold outside for short sleeves.  I have a lovely jade dress that I am itching to wear, in particular.  When I was young, I turned heads in that jade dress.  I'm not expecting any heads to be turning now, but I am looking forward to how I will feel when I can zip it all the way up without having to hold my breath.  I did get it fastened a couple of weeks ago, so I'm close.

So, this was not a good week, in my mind, to have to slow down--and eventually stop--my efforts at the gym.  I've been compensating by hardly eating.  My body is used to burning 900 calories a day; trying to cut those out of my diet is a challenge.

I've learned to treat my weight as someone might a chronic illness--or difficult relative--they have to manage.  I know what I need to do--and it's a lot--to keep it in check.  Whenever I slip into denial and abandon my program, I pay.  So I try not to do that.

At first, this week, I tried burning about half as many calories as usual, but still keeping up my ab work so my middle would stay firm.  But, as I got more ill each day, and each thing I tried to do, however gently, exhausted me more, I had to eventually stop altogether.

My priority is to be well.  First, wellness.  Then, whatever else.

I still have a couple of children in that stage of childhood where they subconsciously punish their mother for being sick.  I have learned over the past two-and-a-half decades of being a mother that the worst thing you can say to a child in that stage is, "Hey, I really don't feel well tonight--can you give me a break?"  They'll break your eardrums and your heart, attack your sanity, and hurl your patience right through the window.  And leave you cleaning up the glass.

They can't help it.

It takes a certain amount of maturity for a person to think, "Oh, Mother's not feeling well--I wonder what I can do to help her?"  A three-year-old cannot do it.  A five-year-old cannot do it.  And, as it turns out through my scientific experiment this week, an eight-year-old cannot do it.

What you have to say is, "You miss Mama being well, don't you?"  Eye contact is essential here, and as much sympathy for them as you can muster.  You may even need to apologize.  "I'm sorry you have a mama who isn't feeling her best."

They need reassurance.  Think about it.  Children are like animals in cages.  They are totally at our mercy.  If their caretakers can't take care of them anymore, well--the ramifications are frightening.

You have to say, "I'm sure I will feel better soon--do you want to help me get better?"  Give them something specific they can do so they feel some control over the situation.  "I'm sure I'll feel much better if you will watch this show quietly."  I'm serious.  Wouldn't you?

Just know that you are bound to fail to live up to their expectations.  They will watch five minutes of Curious George and expect you to be ready to take them to the park.

It's going to take patience on both of your parts.

I'm on the mend now, obviously, or I wouldn't be able to write this.  I'm actually looking forward to the slow climb back up to normalcy.  I'm glad for the things that are in place in my life to keep it from slipping dangerously out of whack when something goes wrong.  I bet when I can look around again as my true self, it won't be too hard to get it right back on track.  I've got to count on that, to keep away thoughts of despair.

And I'll keep trying to think about making the best choices, when things are good, to keep things good, while I can.  Because I never want to be staring at a mess--figuratively or literally--with no right arm again.

Kindergarten Wisdom

I'm an expert baby bather.  I love to take a new little baby and a tiny, soft washcloth, and clean every crevice of ear and neck and make a baby sweet-smelling again.  All, of course, while cooing and smiling back and forth with the baby.

Babies need everything done for them.  That can be exhausting, and there are few breaks from that constant care-taking, but, even when super tired or harried, I've always enjoyed those moments of taking that care of someone so precious, and being needed that much.

I've enjoyed it so much that, truth be told, I have still been bathing my baby, until recently.

No, I don't cradle his whole body in my forearms as I lay him on his towel and coo in his face.  But I have still been washing his face and ears to make sure they really get clean, and soaping up those darling, though often bruised-from-playing-limbs.  There's a practical side to this--it takes less time to get him through the tub, and it uses much less of the body wash.

But, recently, I made myself explain to him that he should start with his face--before there is soap on the washcloth, and showed him how to spread the washcloth over the palm of his hand and add just enough soap for the other parts.  My heart prickled a little as I did this, because it meant I would never again bathe one of my children, but I kept my voice calm and business-like.

I'm sure I could have kept bathing him for another year or so, but there comes a time when a mom has to stop, well, mothering.  One thing at a time.

I remember when I read in a parenting book that the job of mothers is to teach their children to be their own mothers.  This statement shocked me at the time.  I had only toddlers then, and they needed so, so much from me.  And I needed them to need me, too, a little.

But it's true.  A mother who doesn't teach her children to stand on her or his own feet ultimately fails.

So, one thing at a time, we teach, and we let go.

On the next bath night, I asked my small son if he wanted help with his bath.  There are practical reasons for letting him bathe himself, too--taking less of my time being chief among them.  But I think I was secretly hoping he would say he needed me.

Or at least wanted me.

Instead, he came down the hall toward me and the bathroom saying confidently, "No, I can do it myself."  And he did.  I turned around and went back into my bedroom, and let him.

He joyously sang a song from a movie that the family had been watching.  His brother in a nearby room joyously sang a different song from that movie.  It was a good moment.

During the next bath, I happened to be in the same room for a few minutes while he busied himself washing his own chubby, banged-up limbs, and he started a precious stream-of-consciousness monologue for me.

I learned that his favorite colors are green, gold, yellow, silver, red, black, bronze, and blue.  (Olympic year, much?)  But red is his "favorite favorite color," because of Gryffindor. 

He then informed me that dimes are a centimeter and nickles are an inch.  I'd never noticed.  Had you?

We then discussed whether or not "my" is a word.  His teacher had told him a few days ago that all words have either an a, e, i, o, or u in them, and that any combination of words without one of those letters was not a real word.

He had apparently lapped up this new "rule" and given it a special place at the table of his memory, because he neatly served it up two days later and informed the teacher that the "my" on the spelling list was not a word.  This child lives for rules.  He still breaks into tears if he forgets to wear his pajamas for two nights before putting them in his hamper.

He chirped out the "sometimes y" rule he had since learned.

He reported having made eight friends, and named them in the order they were acquired.  And he said, "Every day of my life just gets better and better."

I found out he knows it's his seventeenth day of school, and remembers what he learned on each day.  He's taking this Kindergarten stuff very, very seriously.

Which will serve him well if he keeps it up.  While standing on his own feet.

Life Is Just Like that Sometimes

So, I've been hoping that something hilarious would happen to blog about.  Usually, I get some kind of funny inspiration every few days so that I can keep this blog alive.

But, nothing's happening.  Everyone around me has been dry, dry, dry.

Or, maybe that's me, since I am studying for an exam.  It could be that I am the one who is dull, since my mind is wading up to its hips in terms like "operant conditioning" and "cognitive behavioral therapy."  Boring has become my business.

You would think that at least my children would say funny things.

Well, there was the little boy who told me that when he is grown up enough to read the newspaper, he's going to read it in this order: funnies, sports, market news (by which he means food ads), weather report, then LDS news.  That's sort of cute and funny, but not exactly hilarious.

There was the child who cut his bangs, thinking no one would notice.  When Dad caught him, he said I had trimmed them.  When I caught him, later that same day, he stood stunned in the kitchen for a few minutes, then admitted he had done it.  At least he didn't tell me Dad had done it.  Or another lie.

There was the child whose big sister called me to report that she was being bossy to the little kids and that, when corrected, had flown at her.  When I got home to talk to this child, she said somebody had to help her little brothers while the teenaged baby-sitter just lay on her bed listening to her radio.  "She's not a good enough baby-sitter, so you appointed yourself?" I asked.

"She MADE me help him with his homework.  She told me to MAKE SURE it got done."  There was some weeping involved at this point.  When I asked big sister about it, all of that turned out not to be true.

Actually, I guess I don't think that my kids becoming good liars is very amusing, so I still don't really have any material to use for my blog.

Let's see.  There were the three names my husband brought home from work: Riunite, Tiawanna, and Spechel.  I wrote a silly names post before, which was widely read, but I doubt three more names is going to hit the jackpot, no matter how "spechel" they are.

There were some stupid people I ran into at the gym.  I try not to make fun of stupid people, because there but for the grace of God go I, but this pair was remarkably dim.

Okay, I know.  Once I start a story, I have to finish it, right?  

Okay.  I was in the bathroom when someone yanked on the door handle.  It was locked, of course.  Well, that person kept yanking and yanking on the handle on and on and on.

It's a good thing I was washing my hands already and not trying to perform.

"Don't they usually leave this open!?" someone shouted in frustration.

I opened the door.

Two guys stood there.  Two guys.  Not one of them thought to say to his buddy, "Hey--maybe someone's in there."  I looked each of them in the eye.  There was a marked absence of light in each set of eyes, so I didn't say anything.  If a woman coming out of the bathroom didn't teach them why the door was locked, there's nothing I could say that would.

There's a woman at the gym who might not be stupid, but her laugh is.  She's friends with the perfect ten that I get dressed with each morning.  That is, the perfect ten gets dressed out in the open.  I put my clothes on while still in the shower.  I wouldn't want her to get self-conscious or anything.  Then, we fix our hair and makeup side by side while I stifle myself from singing that old thirties' song, "Keep young and beautiful, if you want to be loved!"

Anyway, this girl with the stupid laugh has sometimes been in the locker room with her perfect ten friend, perched up on the counter talking about everything under the sun that is shallow and mean-spirited.  Okay, I know I need an example to back that up.  Easy: how she was going to sue a salon that gave her a free sample because it she got a pimple afterward.

Anyway, when this girl isn't talking, she's giggling.  In.  Cess.  Ant.  Ly.  If she's in the building, you know it.  You can hear her woody woodpecker giggle from anywhere in that cavernous warehouse of a gym. 

So, as I said.  I really haven't got anything much to write about tonight.  I'm just digging up the dregs at the bottom of the well of my life that is usually full of interesting things.  As you can see, there's really nothing much there.  Which reminds me of when I have had to show my children that the ice cream carton is truly empty.

You know, sometimes my best friend and I have loads of interesting things to say to each other after a weekend--or even an evening--apart.  And sometimes, we just say totally mundane things to each other because that's all we've got.  Life is just like that, I guess. But we still talk just as much because we're friends and we check in with each other like that.

So, please bear with me while I get through this.  I may or may not have much to say.

Unless you want to hear about stratified sampling or disengagement theory.

Homework Gone Gaga

Today, I received several emails from my children's teachers.

One was a whole page long, telling me what homework assignment she is giving the class.  Okay.  Hopefully, she told her students, too.  Because if I'm supposed to read, digest, understand, and teach my child that (times seven teachers in her school), I need to retire now.

One email was telling me that my five-year-old, with two whole weeks of formal school under his belt, ". . .is not regularly turning in his homework assignments."  Would I please make sure to go through his homework each night and make sure he is doing all the homework and turning it in?

The third was telling me that my little girl's homework-on-the-computer requirements are tripling.  I've already told this teacher that my little girl doesn't own a computer.  Do I have a computer?  Sure, and I was in my thirties when I acquired it.  And--I need it for my own work and homework.  After my full-time job, I write.  And I am studying for my own test.  Suddenly, I cannot study because all of my children are doing their homework on my computer.

I find that children have their own computers to be a huge assumption on the teachers' part.

So, the last email went on to say, "I am going to put their math homework up on [some website].  Will you please go over it with them and check and recheck their work?  And always make them show you their work?"

Sure.  Just as soon as she helps me with my daughter's laundry and dinner.

I may be alone in this, but this is how I look at it.  Children already spend six hours a day at school.  That's almost as much as a full-time job.  And they're not adults.  I really don't believe small children should have homework beyond school hours.  The work of a child is to play.  When is a child in full-time school with homework going to play?  And, if children have homework, I believe it should be something they can do by themselves.

Personally, I don't need seventeen teachers assigning me homework to do.  I've gone as far in school as I intend to, and I think I'm old enough to assign myself my own homework.  I am now working on 54th grade, I guess.

Also, I send my children to school for six hours each day.  That six hours is the teachers' opportunity to teach my children whatever they need to teach them.  I certainly don't have six hours a day with my children.  In the two or three hours a day that I have with my children, I already have to make sure they get fed, have baths, have clothes to wear, have time to practice, have time to play, and learn the things that I want to teach them.  If teachers give my children homework, they are infringing on my time with my children.  The least they can do is teach them how to do it and not expect me to.

Plus, as an adult in my own right and the mother in this household, I just might have something of my own to do. (After my full-time job.)

Not that I shouldn't help from time to time--I don't mind that.  But I don't need pages and pages of busywork every night to track. My children feel overwhelmed by the amount of homework they get.  Unfortunately, they don't feel any more overwhelmed than I do.

I never wanted to home-school my children.  And I don't have time for it.  I'm not their teacher, I'm their mother.  Our roles are different.  That's not to say I don't teach my children, but the things I want to teach my children may not be the same things they want to teach my children.  Let's not get confused.

What If. . . .

I asked my husband a question when he got home from work last night.

He loves my "what if?" questions.  (Not!)

We're both intrigued with the idea that one different decision can lead to an alternate path that would make your whole life different.  The difference is that sometimes I want to imagine walking down those other paths.  And he doesn't.

What if I'd said that on our first date?

What would you have done if I'd insisted on not immunizing the children?

Who would you marry if I died?

What would we have named quadruplets?

He HATES these kinds of questions.  Some people just have no imagination.

So, last night's question was, "What if you had a clear choice between a life of travel or being married to me?"

And my beloved said: "I don't know."

He did!  That's the first thing he said.  I knew he didn't mean that.  (I think he likes to punish me for my what-if questions.)

He quickly recovered, though, and talked about how much he likes to travel, and would like to travel with me more someday.  (Yeah, wouldn't we all?  But we're largely homebound right now.)  He talked about how, after a while, all the motel rooms seem the same--you have your bed, your TV, and your bathroom.  And how it's fun to see new places and say that you've been somewhere famous, but that, in the end, it's not terribly fulfilling.

He talked about his great interest in one location and how he really has no interest in going to some places.  He mentioned that there will always be more places than a person can see, so anyone would have to let some things go.  And how, after a while, a person can come to feel like, "Yeah, I've done a lot of that already--maybe I'd like to do something else with my life now."

I watched him, feeling somewhat amused as he talked.  It occurred to me that he has already made this choice.

And I won.

He used to work in a job where he traveled constantly, staying in a new place every single night.  He liked the variety and the chance to see new places, but he traded it for becoming a family man.

So, in the end, it didn't matter what he said.  It mattered what he did.

I used to feel guilty sometimes, realizing he traded a quiet life of his travel job and his three cats for the chaos that our life together entails.  Of course, he probably brought some of that chaos with him, but I supplied plenty.

In less than five years, he had taken on a marriage and two step-children, three mortgages, two babies, two moves, and a wife in graduate school.

He used to say that life was a lot like trying to get a drink out of a fire hose.  And he was right.

We're past most of the chaos now, kind of in the eye of the storm before taking on several teenagers at once.  We've fallen into some easy rhythms.  He knows I'll keep up the laundry as regularly as Old Faithful.  I count on him to cook dinner and do the shopping. (Not in that order.)  He makes sure the house payment gets paid.  I make sure the utilities get paid.  He gets the kids to school and I do the homework with them after.  We've both noticed life is easier with a reliable partner.

In the end, it doesn't matter what fantasies we've had.  It matters what we do.

Monday Mornings

I start on Sunday night.  First, I pack my jewelry.  Then, my clothes.  I try not to forget to put a towel into my gym bag.  And my makeup.

Everything else is already in there.  So, in a way, I've started long before Sunday.  Long before the weekend even arrived.

I should be ready for it at any time.

If I have a night of insomnia, it is likely to be Sunday night.  Even though I've forgotten all the things I dealt with during the week, worries start creeping back overnight.  When I wake, I tell myself to forget again.  Don't think about that!  I tell myself.  And then, Don't think!  At all.

I don't exercise on Sunday.  I work out pretty hard the other days, so I let my body rest that day.  I think that's part of why I don't sleep as well--I'm not as exhausted.

It doesn't matter whether I have screamers on my caseload or not.  The transition from home life to work life is hard to make.

I take a pill to help me.  But, on Sunday nights, I often still struggle.

In the morning, everything should go like clockwork.  I've already packed my gym bag, purse, and project bag.  I slip an orange, two hard-boiled eggs (done ahead) and a glass of milk into my lunch bag.  Also, my lunch, an apple, and possibly other snacks--more fruits or a vegetable leftover, or nuts.

This does not take me long.

I'm not sure, actually what takes me so long.  I try to get out of the house a half-hour after my alarm goes off, but it rarely happens.

This Monday morning, I was rinsed, dressed, packed, prepared, clipped back, and weighed.  I was ready to go.  I stood in the dark kitchen with my hands on the straps of my bags, and I had an epiphany.

Leaving my house on Monday mornings is the hardest thing I do.

Not because of work, really.  I like my job, and am grateful to have it.  When I can help a pregnant woman get an outfit to wear to interviews that isn't striped jeans and a polka-dotted shirt--her only clothing that will fit--or something like that that really makes a difference, it's downright fun.

Not because my first stop is the gym.  I long ago acclimated myself away from any thoughts of not going to the gym.  Honestly, even if I haven't slept well, I know that I will not sleep that last hour before work if I know I am missing my workout.  I can feel fat accumulating on my stomach and my muscles taking off on vacation.  And I can't sleep.  Not then.  Ever.

It should be easier to leave.  No one else is up.  No one is asking me to sign their homework or get them a drink of water.  There is no one to talk to.  Just me and the dark.  The easiest time to leave, I should think.

But it's not.

I don't usually hesitate as long as I did this Monday, having my epiphany.  (Epiphanies can take up time, I guess.)

Leaving at that time is totally my choice.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  But I feel the heaviness of my choices resting on me at that particular moment in the week.

What if someone wakes up sick?  Or from a nightmare?  What if someone needs something in the morning that she didn't think about before going to bed?  What if I miss one of the little boys saying something cute?  What if the power goes out, or there is some other kind of emergency?

How tempted I am to just stick around until my family gets up.  Just to make sure they are all right.  I would rather they all leave me and go their ways and leave me at home.  I could find plenty to do around here, just fine.

Chances are, that everything will be fine.  No one will need anything from me that their dad can't handle or they can't call me on the phone about.  Their clothes are all picked out.  Their homework should be done.  No disaster is lurking around the corner with the dawn.

But, I know if I wait, it will be even harder to leave them while they are talking to me, needing their hair done, making a fight with their brother.  I know if I don't get to the gym now, it ain't gonna happen.

I know in the back of my head that supporting my children is a big part of taking care of them.  That I need to stay fit in order to be here for the years and years that they will all still need me.  I know that whatever I do to take care of myself, I am also doing for them.

So, I heave up my bags, and leave.

The week stretches out ahead of me, long and uncertain.  But I have already tackled the hardest part.

The Best Moments in Life

Last night, my mid-twenties son said four precious little words to me: "Mom, you look thin."

I appreciated this at the time, but I thought about it more this morning.

Yesterday was kind of a downer day.  And, after the long weekend--having gotten to bed a little late--I woke up groggy and, you know, just meh.  Sometimes, it can be hard to put your real life (translation: work week) back onto your shoulders and move forward.

I don't know how this happened, though I suspect it to be cosmically connected to the fact that I have the "test of my life" to study for, but there are suddenly dozens of books lying around my house that I haven't read.  

After I blogged about my child's Harry Potter birthday, a good friend challenged me to read the series.  I explained to her that I had a test to study for, but have somehow managed--in three weeks' time--to make my way through the first three books.  Having finished The Prisoner of Azkaban yesterday morning, I was glancing around for a new thing to put me to sleep last night, and my eye fell on one of these mysterious lying-around books.  I gave it a try.

It was one of those books where you know the whole story from the first line.  I groaned and almost closed the book.  But, as my object was to go to sleep, anyway, I tried the second line.  It was better.  I kept reading, and, while I wouldn't have written the book that way, the author is quite charming, and I think she's managed to get me hooked.  At least for now.

It's a light-hearted construct about falling in love that, I suspect, can draw any chick in.  I forced myself to stop reading it this morning so that I could get to the gym, and thought about it while driving.  The girl in the book's true love just happens to walk into her life, and she finds herself having "the conversation" she has "waited for all of" her life.  

I thought about the power of this construct, and how it drew in even a middle-aged, married, mother-of-seven, skeptical woman like myself.  I guess even old women like me, who have to exercise their necks to keep them from looking crepey, long for magical things to happen to them.  

Not that some man is going to walk through the door and change my life, like in the book.  That's already happened to me.  I remember how I felt when my husband started dating me.  I could hardly sleep, just knowing somehow that I would soon be married and having more children again.  That was a magical moment in my life.

Though, a long time ago.  And then, I wondered, is it pathetic for people to still hope for magical moments, when they've already had them?  Maybe not the same ones, but other magical moments?   We all need to have hope for good things to still come to us.  Are there still conversations waiting out there for me that I have been waiting all my life to have happen?

That's when I remembered my son's four words, "Mom, you look thin."  That is definitely something I've been waiting to hear, I realized.  I remember how hard I worked after having my last baby while he was away for two years, because my weight had gotten up almost to a very scary number, and I had promised myself that I would get and stay far away from that number as fast as I could.  I remember hoping that when this son got home and saw me again, he would say something like, "You look like you did when I was a little boy."  Those are the words I conjured up for him to say at that time.  Because, when he was a little boy, I was pretty hot, in a thirty-year-old, single-mom kind of way.  Not that he noticed it then.  Then, he tended to tell cashiers my age and once told me I was so old that I had forgotten how to run.

("I ran all the way around this park today," I told him then.  

"You did?"

"Twice.")

But, unless we somehow become the characters in our stories, not even the writers among us get to hand the people in our lives scripts and have the conversations we've imagined.

Not that conversations we haven't imagined exactly right cannot be the conversations we have waited for all of our lives.  Sure, there are conversations I'm still looking forward to having.  "Mom, you look thin" definitely qualifies.

And that's the magic part, I think.  The magic happens when you are just going about your mundane life, doing the things you have chosen to do because you believe that, someday, they will lead you where to want to go, and then some words are said to you that tell you you are getting there after all.  Because there is no more mundane part of my life than getting up each morning and getting myself to the gym.

But hearing my son say that created for me one of those magic moments when the mundane details of life pay off.  Remembering his words this morning chased all my drowsiness away.  No more meh.  Energized and purposeful, I moved forward and worked hard.

I like to watch for those moments--a meaningful look someone you know intimately throws you to silently share something that he knows amuses you both, a little arm around your neck, something hilarious happening, receiving a well-meant gift from a child who has put his whole heart into making it,--and tell myself that I am right then in the best moment of my life.  Because, who's to say it's not?  Those moments are so few and fleeting by comparison to mundane moments--I like to think I can catch them like emotional snapshots and, by acknowledging them, somehow elevate them into something lasting.

Being pathetic avoidance insurance, I think.

Down or Back? Both Work

It was our baby's first day of kindergarten.  Don't worry.  He still lets me call him my baby.  Now that he has started school, I expect that will change any minute.  But, until then, I will still sing the words, "My baby. . ." in his lullaby.  When he asks me to change, I will.  And I won't even mention my broken heart.  Kids take their moms' broken hearts for granted, and moms need to, too.  Some things just can't be helped.

Of course, we wanted some pictures of him in his new outfit, carrying his new backpack, and all ready to go.  We wanted shots of the excitement on his face.  Not to mention, we wanted shots of his face while it was still chubby and had his little teeth in it.

My husband went for a wet hairbrush to brush our son's hair all the way over to one side, sixties' Brady Bunch style.  He posed with him for some pictures, and then I handed him my camera and held out my hand for the hairbrush.  I brushed our son's bangs back down onto his forehead for my picture with him.  He is so cute with a natural look.

It's not that we think the other person's way is WRONG.  We just don't like it as well as we like our own way.

Sometimes, we don't care if our spouse has things his/her way.  Either one of us can and has capitulated then.  But when we do care, we have had to learn to deal with it.  Without fighting.

There are times when I just don't feel like I can shovel what I want under the surface.  And there are times when I've suggested we take turns when he has looked at me like he cannot imagine it ever being my turn.

This has led to some interesting compromises: two different kinds of stuffing at Thanksgiving, two different kinds of gravy, and at least four different kinds of pie.  The silver lining of this is that it keeps traditions alive from both his family and mine.

And sometimes sleeping in different locations--one where the TV can be on and one where a reading light can be on.

And, did you notice?  Two cameras--the digital and the film kind for the scrapbook.

But at least we're happy, well-rested, and well-fed.  And have lots of pictures.