In Honor of Mother's Day

It is that time of the year again.  The one blessed day of the year that we take a moment to gaze in wonder upon all of the "Mom" figures in our lives who have helped to shape us into the wonderful, competent, amazing people we are... or at least kept us from dying in oh-so-many horrible ways. Thanks to pressure from card companies and restaurants, Mother's Day has become an overblown event that threatens to rival the new crop of independent music festivals springing up everywhere.

Buy your tickets now!

Honestly, my favorite things about Mother's Day are the heartfelt hugs, the handmade crafts and jewelry, and the few moments when my boys try to pretend that they love and care about each other.  Oh, and any times when there is complete silence and I'm by myself.  Because, really, do you want to spend all day with your kids attached to you?  No.  It's Mother's Day.  A simple brunch, some flowers from the garden, and a card are plenty of celebration.  Then I want to pretend that these monkeys don't exist.  Come on, you know I mean that in the nicest way.

I was reflecting on all of the things that make me a mom (besides the horrible jeans anyway) and I started ticking off some of my inherent "mother" traits that I never thought I'd show to the world.  Here's a list of some of my Mom confessions: 

• I delight in embarrassing my kids in front of their friends.  You should try it.  Pull up to school singing Fun's "Carry On" at the top of your lungs and see what color they turn!
• I say the weirdest things and they sound sane to me at the time.  "Don't you dare stick your head in there!  And if I hear you roll your eyes at me again, there will be buckets of heck to pay!"  
• I will (grudgingly) give up my favorite foods if my kids give me their patented sad-puppy-eyes and I won't even stab them with a fork to retrieve said food.
• On the other hand, I mindlessly eat the cold, picked-at remainders of their meal when they don't want any more.
• We bought a bigger car for the sole purpose of driving carpools with even more kids.
• I expect to find dirty clothes everywhere in my house... and then I usually find items in places I never would have expected.
• My oldest used to suffer from reflux and seemed to vomit every time we'd try to go out to eat.  I could tell when he was about to throw up at a restaurant and I would just shove a receptacle in front of him with one hand and keep eating my own meal with the other hand without losing a beat.
• My idea of fun is to watch kids run around a field playing their favorite sports. (Although, I have to admit it is more fun talking with friends and sipping special mommy juice while watching the sports.)
• I will watch the same movie over and over and over again if it's the one my kids are currently obsessed with.  Notice, I didn't say I enjoyed it.
• I make up strange word combinations to try not to swear.  My boys loved it when I stubbed my toe and yelled "Fudgy poop!  Holy sh...ugar.  Gosh darn!"  Sometimes they try to help me out:  "You know, you can just say 'Son of a biscuit' instead!"
• Some of my most cherished artwork was made with acrylic paint and a tiny handprint.
• Poems about kids growing up make me cry - every time I read them.

I hope that you have a mother to cherish and shower with attention, or that you are a mom who will receive much love and affection.  Just remember, after the initial celebration, let mom relax with a good book and a tasty drink, and some solitude.

Black Hole Backpack

We were in our usual state of frantic, barely-controlled, early morning chaos the other day when my older son decided he needed more note paper in his binder.  He removed said binder from the rotund mesh of nylon and canvas that grudgingly holds all of his schoolwork, and then - could not replace it once it was filled.  He's jamming away and yelling, "I'm gonna be late!" while trying to work his binder into a space that could barely even hold an empty Pee-chee folder.  I did what any mom would do who just wants peace and quiet once the boys leave, and came over to help.  Papers were protruding in every direction imaginable.  They were crumpled, accordion-style, underneath the binder's usual resting spot, and they peeked out timidly from between other dog-eared folders in his backpack.  Something must be done.

I started pulling out papers right and left.  He's yelling in the background, "Just forget it!  I don't know if I need those papers or not!".  But more and more kept coming out of his pack, a tidal wave of math equations and spelling lists that had long been bottled up, like vomit after a 21st birthday celebration (ok, that's a bit much, granted). In any case, there were more than I could handle at that time, and I was able to replace the binder in his stuffed bag just as the bike posse rolled into our court to get my son.

After I sat there, stunned, for a few minutes, I started thinking what I could do to remedy the situation.  I'm stumped.  I buy plastic folders so that he can easily slide papers into a flat receptacle, binder dividers to organize everything, and hanging files for his desk drawers so that he can remove older papers and put them together with others in the proper subject matter.  But it doesn't matter.  He is not concerned with organization and swears he has a system that works for him.  I, on the other hand, get stressed just looking into the black hole that is his backpack.  How's it possible for one individual to lose so much in such a small space?  Thankfully he has a separate lunch bag and we have yet to find the month-old banana that my friends have unearthed in their own boys' packs.

I was still thinking about this as I went to his baseball game.  As scorekeeper I always keep a mechanical pencil in my purse because the nub of a chewed-down No 2 Ticonderoga that accompanies the field scorebook just doesn't cut it.  I was getting myself set up, trying to find my pencil in time to write the opposing team's lineup and still eat my In-N-Out burger before play started.  The clock was ticking and I became more and more frantic as I searched fruitlessly through all of the hundreds of receipts littering my purse.  Multiple checkbooks were in my way.  Sunglasses, hand sanitizer, lotion, eyedrops, and about 20 different lipsticks were all present, but not my trusty pencil.  I suddenly realized: I had the black hole purse that must have spawned the black hole backpack.  How had this happened???  I'm usually pretty organized. And then it hit me.  I can blame my mom.

When I was in high school, I used to take BART to and from high school so that I could attend a private school which was 30 minutes drive-time away from home (and about 2 1/2 hours using mass transit).  In the mornings I would accompany my mom, who had survived the morning commute from suburbs to San Francisco for many years.  She had her routine, like all early-morning commuters: she had to be on the same train car every day, so she could be near the other regulars who traveled like lemmings back and forth each day.  One morning we were running a little behind.  The train was pulling up to the platform as we were downstairs adding money to our BART tickets.  We started sprinting up the escalator, rushing to get down the platform to our usual car.  I hopped off the escalator, started running after my mom, and proceeded to slip and fall, doing a great James Brown impression in the process.  She didn't even turn around.  Just kept on running.  A few men in suits helped me up and I ran for the car she had entered.  My nylons were snagged and blood was running from the cut on my knee.  As I was huffing and puffing to draw breath, she reached into her bulging purse to pull out a full-sized can of Bactine!  I kid you not.  And a band aid.   I was hoping she'd have a spare pair of tights in there, but no luck (I'd have to risk getting a detention for being out of dress code once I removed my own).  I'm not even sure what else could have come out of her purse, a la Mary Poppins, but the possibilities were endless.

As a mom now myself, I realize that my purse is the place for all of my children's stuff.  It houses toys, snacks, extra books, iPods, kleenex, clothing, and anything else that is not too sticky that they can hand off to me.  I guess I can go a bit easier on the boy.  Let me just pull that filing system out of my purse and we'll get started.

Mom Jobs

Being a mom, and more specifically, a "mother of boys" (MOB), I have certain duties to fulfill.  I have the typical "mom jobs".  I am happy to report that my husband takes on many of the household chores without complaint and is not nearly as slovenly as some males.  He also does a great deal of the grocery shopping and the cooking - yes, I know how lucky I am!  But there are still plenty of things that need to be done to maintain the working order of our abode that seem to fall on my shoulders.

I am fully aware that I am not the first woman to complain about cooking, cleaning, laundry, childcare, and the rest.  I'm sure that some cave woman could be heard yelling, "Damn it Grog, you dripped mammoth blood all over the floor!  And why are you drawing on the walls again? I just ruined a perfectly good hide wiping off the last thing you smeared on there!"  Or something like that; you get the picture.  Often our 'work' is not recognized or appreciated despite hours of manual labor.  I wonder if the boys in my house think that dust and dirt magically disappears, clean dishes regenerate in the cabinets, and maybe the dogs lay down on the floor and scoot around until it shines.

My older son stumbled out of his room today at 11:35 am, complaining that the vacuum woke him up.  So sorry my liege!  He then wrinkled his face and asked, "What is that smell?".  Uh, maybe cleanliness is the word you're looking for???  I have to use cleaners with added scents to cover the nasty boy-funk smell that lingers when the windows have been shut for too long.  I don't really know what a pomegranate-acai-hibiscus-spring rain would smell like, but it has to be better than the dirty boxers-rugby-burrito combination we get around here.  The last time Zack had to stay home from school due to sickness he watched me cleaning the house and asked, "Who's coming over later?" to which I calmly yelled, "Nobody!  I'm cleaning because it's Monday and this is what I do!"  They have no idea because they think I sit around all day in my jammies watching shows and eating ice cream.  That's only on some days, alright?

Honestly, I'd love for any visitors to show up only on Mondays around 1 pm because the house would be clean for those two hours or so before the rugrats return and mess it all up again.  We used to have a maid service clean the house every two weeks and it would be heaven to come in and know that everything was clean and fresh at the same time.  When we realized we needed to save some money, there went the cleaners, but I was confident that I could do an even better job.  The problem with doing it myself is that not everything gets cleaned at the same time, and I tend to put off some of the more disgusting areas like the boys' bathroom.  Unfortunately we only have 2 bathrooms, which means that the boys' bathroom is also the everyone-else bathroom and I never know how bad it has become until after a guest leaves and I go in there and shout "Are you kidding me?  How do you get toothpaste and boogers all over a mirror that is 4 feet wide?".  My husband diplomatically said, "You've been doing a great job at keeping the place clean, and - not that we need it! - but how would you feel about hiring a maid service again?"  (He phrases it like this because we've been married almost 16 years and he realizes that I might throw the Lysol at his head if he were to make it sound like he's not appreciative.)  I'm not opposed to it, but I like saving money too.

That's the thing - nobody I know gets paid to do this stuff in their own house.  You just do it because you're the mom and it's part of the unspoken job description.  Now that my boys are getting older, they help out some, but I have to put up with the complaining and the half-assed final product.  If I can't get paid, some recognition would be nice. Instead of "You moved the stuff in my room and now I'll never be able to get Toxic Reapa to look the same again!" or "You ruined my experiment with the Silly Putty on the carpet!" how about "Thanks for everything you do around here.  We'd be lost without you"?  That might be too much to ask.