The Good Stuff
I've been in and out of a funk all summer. Nothing major, just the blahs. I get unappreciative sometimes. I never forget how lucky I am, or how easy my life is, but I can get wrapped up, looking over fences at other pastures.
Anyway, I got a phone call from a friend who was crying into her cell phone in the parking lot of her daughter's new preschool. "It goes by so fast! Everyone tells you that, but wow. I'm not ready."
I cried along with her. We stopped pretty quickly, laughing about one thing or another. After we hung up, I stood in my front yard watching my kids in the wading pool and wiped my nose.
So much of this summer, I've been wishing my kids would settle down, stop with the running and flailing and screaming. I am tired. I want a little peace.
This morning, even though I bathed her last night, my baby, my two and a half year old baby (gah!) still smelled faintly of sunblock and bruised grass. She curled her body into the space between my knees and my chin, and sucked her thumb while pulling on my ear. She smiled around her thumb and began to make her little piggy noises "goy-goy-goy-goy" while she sucked. It seems impossible that this sweet child is the one I had to restrain yesterday for attempting to brain her brother with a wiffle ball bat.
My precocious baby, er, toddler, who can run and climb and tell me in no uncertain terms what she wants, and where I can get off, too. How did we get here?
When I started this blog, I was confident - a mother of a baby, a toddler and a preschooler who had IT ALL FIGURED OUT. I knew how to comfort them, I knew what to feed them, I knew that my sleepless nights were going to be a thing of the past, and that it was going to get easier, much easier, as they got older.
You know what I'm about to say, don't you? I'm an idiot.
Nothing in the world that I've done up to this point has prepared me for all the little goodbyes. Suddenly, all the little milestones have been waving their handkerchiefs at me from the caboose of a departing train, and I'm standing in a new town with my tired bag of tricks, wondering if the snake oil is going to sell.
My six year old daughter is wearing me out with her attitude and sassy backtalk. When I was inspecting her toothbrushing job, I noticed she is cutting her back molars. I seized onto this evidence as The Reason that she is so emotional. I patted myself on the back and told myself that I had been through teething three times. Whew! Familiar territory.
A few nights ago, tucking her in, she told me that she misses her school friends. She misses her life that doesn't include me.
I lay down with my head on her pillow, and she talked and talked about the plans she has for when she is 16 and we live on a farm. She ran through all the reasons 'farm folk' need to get up early, and told me all the chores that would have to be done. Then she named all the livestock and described them. Then she started in on the farmhouse, and the yellow curtains and the blue flowers and painted such a vivid picture that long after I left her room it stayed with me.
She's been tailing me around the house, talking as much as her brother. And that's saying something. She craves an audience, she needs my approval, and I've been impatient. I snapped at her after repeatedly asking for her to give me a few minutes of silence, and she stood in front of me with crocodile tears running down her cheeks, mouthing "why are you being so mean to me?"
I don't think a dose of tylenol will fix that.
My son is in his final session of preschool before he makes the leap to kindergarten. He is the most emotional of my children, bouncing from elated to loving to running away from home and back again in the space of an hour. I find myself exasperated, hurling requests at him to "Grow up! Be a big boy! Stop whining!" and I see that his emotions are firmly in control, and he most likely can't do what I ask.
Hugs and snuggles usually still work, though. He doesn't care if I'm still seething while I hold him. He just needs me to fake it.
It seems snake oil isn't a big seller in these parts. That's why I was crying along with my friend. I can no longer say for certain that I know what I'm doing. I'm in unfamiliar territory and the natives are restless. They are also savvy customers, and know baloney when they see it.
Not only that, but time and weather are eroding away the most familiar features of my landscape, and I'm having trouble remembering where the altar of the parenting gods is.
I guess it's time to get friendly with the little people, to listen and observe. Anthropology 101. Before they figure out my lack of real power. Like the tooth fairy, I need them to believe in me. I have to maintain the illusion.
The day they realize that my kisses don't make everything better will be here before I am ready. And it makes me want to cry.
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Comments
I think they're worth it. No matter how hard a day goes, they still look like angels when they're sleeping. And a genuine smile from a child you love is precious beyond words.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Cas
Posted by: cassie-b | July 15, 2005 10:26 AM
Wow...I think your post sums up what I feel on a daily basis with my three. I just wanted to delurk and say beautiful post. My oldest is 9 and luckily he still lets me kiss him goodnight and hug him at school, I know they day is coming when he will shrug me off and it is terrifying. As terrifying as it is to realize that in as many years as have past he will be an adult....where does the time go?
Posted by: CraZmom | July 15, 2005 10:44 AM
I so hear you on this. This year all of my children will be in school. It will be the first time in ten years that I am NOT a SAHM. It is really making me emotional this summer. Of course, my hubby tries but just doesn't get why this is so big for me. Ah well. That's what girl friends are for!
Posted by: Robin | July 15, 2005 10:51 AM
What an awesome, well written entry. So well said.
Posted by: Stephanie C. | July 15, 2005 10:52 AM
I absolutely love this post. So glad you wrote it. I can relate to a lot of your feelings, even though I only have one child and he's 2.
I never knew how painful it would be to witness the fact that with every passing day, he needs me less.
Posted by: Surcie | July 15, 2005 10:57 AM
THIS IS WHY when my 3 year old comes a knocking on my side of the bed in the middle of the night that I just pull back the covers and let her in, KNOWING that a good night's rest flew out from under the covers the moment she crawled in.
I know it will be all to soon when my usefulness to her begin and end with meforking over the cash and giving her a ride to the mall.
I'm sucking out every drop of closeness while I still can!!
Posted by: AJ | July 15, 2005 12:39 PM
I cried as I read your post because I can understand your feelings all too well.
How is it that each day can seem to be never ending, but you look back and wonder where the time went?
I think I have realized that I crave the love and acceptance from my children as much as they do from me.
Posted by: Roxann | July 15, 2005 12:54 PM
I love your writing, and this is my favorite of all your posts I have read so far. It is so touching and bitterweet. Made me a little weepy.
Posted by: Meghan | July 15, 2005 12:59 PM
I don't know what to say, only that I feel this too. Thank you for sharing this.
Posted by: Elaine | July 15, 2005 2:33 PM
I've learned to be wary of those times when I think I've got it all together, because as soon as I do, my daughter's needs will change and I have to start all over again.
I'm almost getting used to it.
Posted by: Donna | July 15, 2005 3:02 PM
I'm right there with you. Sometimes I think, he can't be 5, he was just born. Usually right after, thank god, only 13 more years til he leaves for college! All the while feeling like I'm making it up as I go along and soon enough they'll be on to me. *Sniff*
Posted by: Amy | July 15, 2005 3:05 PM
wow, well put. I have an 8 year old, confident, ready for anything, doesn't need me more for much, will start 3rd grade in the fall. I have a 5 year old who seems too young to start kindergarten in the fall. He's the emotional one as well. and then a 2year old, who is very good at it!!what can I say? I know how you feel, thanks for reminding me to stop and enjoy them!!
Posted by: bethberk | July 15, 2005 4:56 PM
LOVED this post. And I'm right there with you, with my "baby" approaching FOUR YEARS OLD, and my biggun' nearly 7. Doesn't seem possible you & I met like 6.5 years ago & are at the point we're at NOW. Amazing.
I too am realizing how quickly it's going.... Big C's need for approval & his passion for things showing more & more. His truly HILARIOUS sense of humor & hearing things from his POV. Blows my mind... he's a mini-S. :)
Love you, girl. You are a fabulous mommy & friend.
xo Ging
PS - - I'll call soon! I miss you!
Posted by: Ginger | July 15, 2005 9:38 PM
Wow! These are the same thoughts I have been having so often lately. How can this happen? So often I want them to just grow up, dammit! Then I hear them talking and realize that that cute little thing that they used to say is gone & they pronounce "refrigerator" correctly. And I miss it so much, it hurts. This motherhood thing is a tough gig.
Posted by: buffi | July 16, 2005 11:24 AM
I jusy finished crying and posting a piece about mine leaving home. And this made me remember the day I first left her at preschool. Several mothers were commiserating at the bottom of the school steps when a big beautiful woman of color came out the door, raised her arms heavenward and exclaimed, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank you Jesus, free at last!"
Yes! Get friendly with the little people. Do. I'm so glad I decided to start at the alphabetical bottom of my blogroll and came by here first- this was a real pleasure for me to read. Thank you. And let me offer you this sage piece of wisdom from my grandmother: "Little children, little problems. Big children, big problems."
Posted by: vicki | July 16, 2005 1:56 PM
Parenting is all about stages of life and adjustments to the good and bad of them. We are sending a daughter off to college this fall; it will forever change our family dynamics. I dread it.
Posted by: Margaret | July 17, 2005 1:27 PM
Today I tried real hard to remember what it felt like to hold Pat (4) as a baby. I couldn't. That makes me sad! I told myself I would always remember.
Posted by: Jenni | July 17, 2005 7:55 PM
Your entry hit a nerve in me - as so many of yours have done in the past.
I've written about this very theme so many times, and I'll always return to it. That's probably part of my misplaced idealism that writing about something will somehow slow down the inevitable march of time.
Here's a link to a piece I wrote about our youngest leaving pre-school. I still tear up with I read it.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/London/Carmi_Levy/2005/06/29/1109237.html
Posted by: Carmi | July 17, 2005 8:22 PM
I think this is probably one of my favorite things you've written!
I can totally relate! Two of my kids are in the stage of "kisses won't make it better" and my little one is also in her last year of preschool. It just goes by too fast!
Posted by: Jenn | July 17, 2005 8:32 PM
I don't know how many times my husband and I have reminded each other to cherish these times, because soon enough it won't be them who is craving our attention, but the other way around. And yet still we forget don't we? With the millions of insignificant chores we need to do, and the cravings of five minutes of peace. But when we do get that peace, our children are all grown up and out of the house, won't we miss the herd of wildebeasts running through the kitchen. My oldest too is in his last session of pre-school, and oh how your description of interactions with him sounds like a scene from my own life. And with that said, I think I should go to my littlest man, who although defying sleep for 2 hours now, is desperately calling my name. I think this time I'll go.
Posted by: cgarrett | July 17, 2005 9:23 PM