The Truth Shall Set You Free

If you do not tell the truth about yourself,
you cannot tell it about other people.--Virginia Woolf

I mention this because I am terribly blocked. I have thought for several days what I would write this week. I have 4 pages of beginnings that go nowhere and aren't interesting. I'm stuck. Because, at the risk of sounding like the most negative person ever (not to mention sounding like a horrible mother), I want to rage about last week. So I'm going to. Get over it. Get on with my life.

The week started on Saturday which by just about anybody's calendar is not the beginning of any week, but if I am going to snit about it, I'm starting at the very beginning. My son, who is already on his second round of antibiotics for an ear infection, wakes up with a fever of 103. What? Why? He's on antibiotics. Much hand wringing ensues as I mentally play back all the news stories of children who die from mysterious viruses. Must rush him to the Emergency Room! But no, no. Let's not be ridiculous. A fever. Hover over him as his symptoms get worse and vacillate between feeling hysterical and neglectful. In some ways, I am much more uptight with this child. They don't say ignorance is bliss for nothing. Sometimes a little experience can be a stress-inducing thing.

See, with my daughter, I didn't have a clue. If she was sick, I brought her in. Right away. Which led to oh-isn't-she-a-precious-first-time-mom condescension (which is really a whole other story) from the medical staff as they explained to me that while she was sick it hadn't really developed into anything so there was nothing they could do so I would have to just treat her symptoms, wait to see if it developed into anything and perhaps bring her back later. So next time, I would wait and treat her symptoms until I was pretty sure it had developed into something. And then when I did bring her in, I got the oh-my-god-she-has-a-raging-ear-infection-what-took-you-so-long attitude.

So now I sit on the fence, fretting, trying to time it just right. I settle for taking his temperature every hour and giving him Tylenol every 4 and listening to his shallow breathing on the monitor except for the night he sleeps with us and then I listen to his breathing in my ear while his feet are lodged in my husband's stomach. Sleeping with your child seems sweet but it is so not. It is all just limbs and feet. In your face. In your stomach. In the middle of your back. For little people, they certainly take up more than their fair share of space. Somehow we think we will get more sleep this way but obviously that's just some fantasy.

I decide that if he isn't better by Monday, I will call the doctor. He isn't so I do. By this time with his combination of symptoms I figure he must have the flu so what's the point of bringing him in? I run through in my head what I think they will say to me. 103 isn't that high for a toddler (never mind the 105 the thermometer read when I took a reading in the ear he was laying on. Logic tells me that this is not accurate but panic ensues anyway). If the Tylenol is bringing his fever down, then that's all you can do. Push fluids. But I call anyway and ask to leave a message for the doctor. The receptionist asks what it is regarding and I tell her fever. "Don't you want to bring him in? I think you should bring him in." Apparently, the whole taking kids to the doctor rules have changed and nobody bothered to tell me, which actually makes me feel better. So we take him in, he has the flu. He gets more medicine (which just makes everything that comes out his body reek. Wow.) that is supposed to knock a day or two off the whole flu episode.

Now a day or two doesn't seem like a lot but when you are the only adult in the house, it is. Yes, Tuesday morning, my husband leaves for Kentucky leaving me with quite possibly the crabbiest toddler ever to exist anywhere at any time in the whole history of toddler-hood. I have to say I mostly have my self to blame because he seems to have the apparently inherent I-don't-know-what-I-want-but-I-know-that-I'm-not-getting-it attitude I have been known to exhibit on occasion. Karma's a bitch, let me tell you. He'd want me to pick him, put him down, and pick him up again all in the span of 20 seconds. Then he'd cry because apparently I was doing it wrong and the whole thing would start all over. By Wednesday (yes, one day after my husband left), I am so exhausted I spend a good part of the day just lying on the floor letting him crawl all over me, which makes him happy at least part of the time.

By Friday morning, I am running on fumes. Very little sleep, no yoga, no time to myself (I'm an introvert, it's necessary otherwise I cease to function in any way that resembles human. Just ask my daughter. I think she just stayed as far away from me as possible all week. That makes me feel like Mother of the Year material, let me tell you) and I haven't been out of the house except to take my daughter to school since Monday. The only thing that makes me feel slightly better is that all of my husband's flights are major exercises in patience. Which he fails. They have to turn around out of Minneapolis and get on another plane because of a fire alarm in the bathroom. Leaving Kentucky, they have mechanical trouble and leave way late causing him to miss his flight home. For his troubles, he and his co-workers are given $5 food vouchers that expire the next day. They go to Friday's for a beer and an appetizer and end up spending an extra $15. He is so pissed. It's the funniest thing I've heard all week.

Sometimes a little schaudenfreud is a deserved thing.

The Finding Game

I never knew I had such a talent for finding things until I got married and had children. I would like to say this is some sort of inherent talent genetically acquired from my great-grandmother on my mother’s side, but I know this is not true. I remember distinctly standing in front of the closet, cupboard, bookcase yelling to my mom, “Where is it?” She would walk over with an exasperated sigh, move a couple of things and hand me the very thing I was looking for. And I have heard the expression, “if it was a snake, it would have bit you” more times than I care to count.

So it is with slight amusement (and much frustration!) that I watch my daughter stand in the exact same place for ten minutes, staring at the same thing and say, “I can’t find it.” Heaven forbid that she should, I don’t know, move her eyes, or gasp! Actually move something. I just roll my eyes and tell her to look harder because I know this game. At least she has a valid excuse; she is just six years old and has plenty of time to hone her talent. My husband, on the other hand, is another story.

There is something rather pathetic about a 30 year old man resembling a six year old as he stares into a closet and says, “I can’t find it.” Let me say for the record that my husband is a wonderful person and smart, dependable and very capable. However, when asked during a pre-marriage inventory what he would like to never hear from me again his answer was, “Can you find…” The man has a phobia about looking for things, I swear. In his single days, when he couldn’t find something (after some really intense staring at the spot where he thought the particular item should be) he would go buy another one. I think this is why we now have 7 rakes which is funny because I’ve never seen him use one. Probably couldn’t find it.

Part of his problem is that he doesn’t look in the obvious places. If something doesn’t come across his path through the course of his day to day activities, he’s convinced it’s lost. He’ll say, “I’ve lost my favorite pajama pants.” I’ll open the bottom dresser drawer and there they are! Right on top. But it is the wrong dresser drawer so he would never think to look there even though he put them there in the first place. And that’s how I’ve become the Doctor of Detection, the Professional of Pinpointing, the Leader of Location, the, uh, well, finder of stuff.

It doesn’t matter if I didn’t use it last, that it’s not mine or that I’ve never even seen it, both my daughter and husband think that I will know where it is. It’s as if they think I have some sort of mental inventory of everything that has ever been or ever will be in this house and that this information is available for instant retrieval. I guess I could feel some sort of pride that my family thinks that I am so smart and talented but I know all they are really trying to do is get out of looking for stuff. I mean really, I have a mother. I know the drill!

In the meantime, while I help my daughter and husband to hone their “finding” skills, I’m taking the baby around the house and showing him where everything is. Maybe if I train him young enough, he can be the finder of stuff and I will be off the hook. At any rate, somebody has to be on my team!

I Probably Think This Song Is About Me

Let me just start by saying I think the obsession this country has with physical perfection is obscene. I don’t think striving for a perfect face, body or smile is a worthy endeavor. Too many people trade in what is interesting and unique for some bland standard of beauty. They think they look better but mostly they look less than human. Joan Rivers, anyone? In a million years, when life forms from a distant galaxy explore our lifeless planet they are going to think the planet was inhabited by an inferior model of androids because all that’s going to be left is implants and porcelain teeth.

I’m not opposed to all efforts to improve physical appearance. I am not a barbarian! I do believe in coloring one’s hair particularly when one’s tresses can be considered The Black Hole of hair, meaning that it is no color at all. Yes, this is possible. I believe make-up should be acceptable for all people regardless of gender, especially those with children. No one should be forced to live with under eye circles. And I think a nice smile is always a plus and people should take really good care of their teeth. Beyond that, I personally feel the possibility of a result that is worse than what I started with is too great. I’d rather live with the imperfection I know than the “perfection” I don’t know.

At any rate, I don’t generally have good luck with beauty procedures. About two years ago, a hair stylist talked me into waxing my eyebrows. I rather like my eyebrows and the fact that they are full a la’ Brooke Shields, but hey, we all have stray hairs. The stylist said she would just clean up the stray hairs thereby improving their natural shape. Who doesn’t think that sounds good? I agreed and then was subjected to the worst pain of my life! The fact that she put her finger on my brow the millisecond she ripped off the wax as if she were putting the skin back on is testament to just how tortuous this procedure is. She shows me my puffy, red, slightly crooked eyebrows and says, “That’s better.” As if this suffering wasn’t enough, the next day I broke out in some weird, lumpy allergic reaction that made me look like the Elephant Woman. Vanity is not worth that kind of pain and bad result.

So how I found myself in the dentist’s chair yesterday is somewhat perplexing. My dentist has been suggesting to me for the last 6 or 7 years that he could put a porcelain veneer on my front tooth to match it to the other one in both color and alignment. It was damaged about 20 years ago and has a very light, very small brownish discoloration. Aside from the stain that is not a stain, I don’t really care if my teeth are perfectly even. I don’t think this detracts from my smile one bit which is a very nice smile to begin with, if I do say so myself. I put it off. It’s fine, I’d tell him, thanks anyway.

Then one day my six year-old daughter says to me, “Mom, you have one white tooth and one brown tooth.” Why do children exaggerate so? And is it absolutely necessary for them to be so blunt? At my next dentist appointment when my dentist suggested the veneer, I said, “Fine, let’s do it.” I asked all the right questions. Will it look natural? How long will it take? What is the procedure? The answers were all ones I could live with so I booked the appointments.

I arrive yesterday prepared to get a porcelain veneer on my front tooth. Nice superficial cover of the brown spot on my tooth. Then he pulls the old bait and switch. “Let’s do a crown instead,” he says. Now it is way before noon on a Monday morning and really, I don’t start to function until sometime on Tuesday so I quickly try to wrap my foggy brain around what he is saying. It will look better with a crown; it goes all the way around and is much more durable, you’ll have a temporary tooth instead of a rough one until the permanent one comes back, which all sounded pretty good. He made it sound really easy and I’m sure for him, it is. In my addled state, I must have consented and they begin to work.

Now call me naïve, but I had no idea what a crown entailed. Everything happened so fast that I didn’t have time ask questions and the next thing you know I have a dark yellow nub where my not-really-stained tooth used to be. My tooth was gone! No more! No turning back! I looked like I just came out of the backwoods of Kentucky. “Don’t worry,” the dentist said. “You get a temporary tooth.” I brightened. Okay, as long as no one has to see me like this. Well, it takes them like 90 seconds to make a temporary tooth. Imagine the quality of that masterpiece! It feels like a chunk of plaster and is about as flimsy. It’s not even close to the right color and is too long. And it tastes funny.

The worst part is I have a party to go to where I only see these people once a year. The party would have been 4 days after the veneer was put on my tooth but now, the party is 4 days before my permanent tooth is to be installed. My husband tells me that it’s not that bad (he’s really sweet because it is that bad) and that in the end, I will be glad. I’m cursing myself for not just living with my healthy, slightly discolored tooth. All I can think is, Paula, you’re so vain.

At least part of me will be around in a million years…

Just Don’t Call Me Fluffy

It has long bothered me that it took me five years to really feel like a mother. Five years! You would think as a single mother of a newborn, I would instantly feel like a mother, but, alas, that was not the case. The weird thing was, I didn’t even realize I felt this way until one day, it hit me full on in the face: Oh my God. I am someone’s mother! Since then, I have wondered why, with all the sleepless nights, diaper changes, baths, messy meals and wet kisses it took me so long.

Then, the other day, in the shower, I had an epiphany (all the really good epiphanies occur in the shower): Young children and pets are the same.

It’s true. Now I am not saying that my daughter is a pet (not anymore, anyway) but caring for children and pets is really, pretty much the same—at least for the first few years. Up until a child is old enough to go out into the world and get into her own trouble (for some, this is sooner than others, I know. I was lucky), parenting has been pretty simple and similar to having a pet.

Let’s compare:

1. Children and pets will disrupt your sleep for years.
Babies are babies and when they are newly unattached from their mothers, they will cry. A lot. Child, cat, dog, I don’t care. They all cry. When the crying stage has passed, each will wake you in the middle of the night for a myriad of reasons. Children need a drink of water, have peed the bed or have bad dreams. Dogs need to go outside. Right now. Unless you want to clean the carpet in the morning. Cats are bored (nocturnal, you know) and want to play. If you have two cats, they think your head is the perfect place to wrestle each other. At any rate, each one of them wants to be in your bed more than any place else and will hog your pillow, your covers and often your entire bed. When you have finally fallen back to sleep, they will all wake you up at the crack of dawn because they are hungry. Even on Saturday.

2. You have to do everything for them.
You feed them, bathe them, and clean up after them. In return, they drool, throw up, pee and shed all over everything in the house. Especially your favorite things. But you can’t be mad because, hey, you signed on for this and well, they are really cute and cuddly and when they look up at you with those big eyes, you just melt.

3. Neither one can tell you what’s wrong.
You only know that something is wrong after they have thrown up on your new couch or left a trail of diarrhea down the hallway. Occasionally, they might be merely lethargic and not interested in their toys or favorite foods. Either way, you will have to guess what might be wrong. Stomachache? Earache? Sore throat? Dehydrated? You will do everything you can think of to make her feel better and when you finally take her to the doctor (vet), he will make you feel like a bad mother (pet owner) because you didn’t come in sooner. Of course, if you go too soon, you are a hysterical mother (pet owner) so there is no winning in this situation.

4. You discipline them a lot.
Whether dealing with a child or pet, a good percentage of your time with them consists of telling them not to do things. Don’t touch! No, no! Get out of there! Get down! Sometimes, they will throw tantrums (kick and scream, rip up your favorite pillow, whatever), but mostly, they listen to you because they want to please you.

5. They really, really like you.
As far as they are all concerned, you are the center of the universe and the best mother (pet owner) that ever lived! You are their favorite person to hug, kiss, lick, whatever. Wherever you are is where they want to be. Right next to you. As close as possible. To your face. Where they look up at you with big eyes and you, once again, melt.

Eventually, children get lives of their own and caring for them is a lot less like caring for Fido or Fluffy. You look at your child one day and realize, wow, she is a fully formed human being with her own logic (and illogic!) and opinions. She’s become pretty independent and doesn’t need you to care for her the way you used to. She can bathe and dress herself now and even get her own breakfast. And mostly, you’re glad, until you realize that now you have to deal with the uncharted territory of playground drama, socialization and impending adolescence!

And really, if that doesn’t make you feel like someone’s mother, nothing will.