Feng shui for parents

Recently, I was flipping through a popular women’s magazine in bed. (I had snuck away when no one was looking, knowing that I had approximately two-and-a-half minutes before someone noticed I was gone and came looking.) So, I was searching for something I could read quickly. I came across an article about decorating your bedroom for ultimate romance. The author advised that couples shouldn’t have pictures of their children in the bedroom, or anything child-related for that matter.

Since I was lying in bed, I took a moment to look around our bedroom. A pair of sweaty black soccer socks had been slung across the footboard, and a stack of board books was shoved into one corner. A tiny green barrette sat atop the bedside table next to a discarded sippy cup. As I shifted to get a better view, my foot hit a lump under the covers, which upon inspection revealed a matted yellow stuffed duck trapped between the sheet and comforter. On the wall, hung a plaster cast of a child’s tiny handprint, a summer library craft project. Clearly, ultimate romance was passing us by (at least as it was defined by this author).

 Six-and-a-half-years ago, J and I traveled to the beautiful island of Maui to celebrate the beginning of our marriage. We swam in the ocean, snorkeled, traveled the Road to Hana, ate at expensive restaurants, fell asleep while warm tropical air wafted through open windows, and slept in as late as we wanted.

It’s my assertion that honeymoons are wasted on newlyweds. Back then, we had hours to sit and listen to one another’s thoughts. There was still an air of mystery surrounding marriage, and I hadn’t yet begun to swipe J’s flannel pajama pants and sweatshirts for sleepwear. We were consumed by being young and in love, and sleeping in wasn’t a luxury because we could do it every weekend if we chose.

I think honeymoons should be taken five to ten years into a marriage, when neither of you actually ever gets to finish a complete thought before being interrupted by someone who needs help wiping. (The last uninterrupted conversation we had revolved around whether or not to call the duct-cleaning guy to snake the dryer duct. We’re romantic like that.)

By the time a couple has produced a couple of children, time for each other is at a premium. I like to think of it as drive-by romance. A quick swat on the rear while we fill milk cups at dinner. A shared laugh over something one of the kids said.

The reality is, the years with our children will be short. They will soon move out and live their own lives. There will be a time when it will just be the two of us again, and we can lay on the beach in Maui (although that bikini is never going to be quite the same). Children have a way of filling up every corner of a house, every spare moment, and every nook and cranny of a parent’s heart. Instead of banishing all things children from our bedroom, I think I’ll embrace this chapter of our lives. There will come a time all too soon when I will be lying in bed reading a magazine with no one to interrupt. I think I’ll keep a few board books to stack in the corner just in case.

Motherhood

Two of my friends from my junior high/high school/college/post-college-wandering years are expecting their first babies. There's something unsettling about watching people who were part of your childhood have children of their own. First, I think we would all agree that there were things that we did/said/wore/thought/dated that we would rather our own children not try in the future, but that's another post for another time (kind of like how the government won't unclassify documents until all who were involved are dead).

I still think of us as girls, buying the latest Celine Dion CD and listening to the same song on repeat 70 times in a row at full volume. (This is how you know that your parents love you because if they didn't, you never would have lived through this phase of your life.) We cheered together (Literally, we were cheerleaders. Let the stereotyping begin.), laughed so hard we almost peed ourselves, sometimes fought, lived together, traveled together, drank wine, commiserated over broken hearts, navigated the triumphs and tribulations of breaking into our careers, drank more wine, witnessed each others' marriages, changed careers, moved away, and now are starting our own families.

When I was pregnant with R, someone sent me an e-mail that was an adaptation of a piece that was first printed in Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul. It was written by Dale Hanson Bourke, and I liked it so much at that time that I saved it in the MISC folder on my computer. I came across it a few months ago when I was looking through the 6,000 documents in that folder for something completely unrelated. I'm posting it to this blog, mostly so that I can get my MISC folder down to 5, 999 documents, but also because these two women are going to be AHH-mazing mothers. Here's to you C.B. and A.R. and to all moms and moms-to-be!



My friend and I are sitting at lunch when she casually mentions that she and her husband are thinking of "starting a family."  What she means is that her
biological clock has begun its countdown, and she is considering the prospect of motherhood.

"We're taking a survey," she says, half jokingly. "Do you think I should have a baby?"

"It will change your life," I say carefully.

"I know," she says. "No more sleeping in on Saturdays, no more spontaneous vacations..."

But that is not what I mean at all.

I look at my friend, trying to decide what to tell her.  I want her to know what she will never learn in childbirth classes.  I want to tell her that the physical wounds of childbirth heal, but that becoming a mother will leave her with an emotional wound so raw that she will be forever vulnerable.

I consider warning her that she will never read a newspaper again without asking "What if that had been my child?"  That every plane crash, every fire will haunt her.  That when she sees pictures of starving children, she will look at the mothers and wonder if anything could be worse than watching your child die.

I look at her carefully manicured nails and stylish suit and think she should know that no matter how sophisticated she is, becoming a mother will immediately reduce her to the primitive level.  That a slightly urgent call of "Mom!" will cause her to drop her best crystal without a moment's hesitation.

I feel I should warn her that no matter how many years she has invested in her career, she will be professionally derailed by motherhood. She might successfully arrange for child care, but one day she will be waiting to go into an important business meeting, and she will think about her baby's sweet smell.  She will have to use every ounce of discipline to keep from running home, just to make sure he is all right.

I want my friend to know that everyday routine decisions will no longer be routine.  That a visit to McDonald's and a five year old boy's desire to go to the men's room rather than the women's room will become a major dilemma.  That right there, in the midst of clattering trays and screaming children, issues of independence and gender identity will be weighed against the prospect that danger may be lurking in the rest room.

I want her to know that however decisive she may be at the office, she will second-guess herself constantly as a mother.  Looking at my attractive friend, I want to assure her that eventually she will shed the pounds of pregnancy, but will never feel the same about herself.  That her life, now so important, will be of less value to her once she has a child.  That she would give it up in a moment to save her offspring, but will also begin to hope for more years, not so much to accomplish her own dreams, but to watch her child accomplish his.

I want her to know that a cesarean scar or stretch marks will become badges of honor.

My friend's relationship with her husband will change, but not in the ways she thinks.  I wish she could understand how much more you can love a man who is always careful to powder the baby or who never hesitates to play with his son.  I think she should know that she will fall in love with her husband again for reasons she would never have imagined.

I wish my modern friend could sense the bond she will feel with other women throughout history who have tried desperately to stop war and prejudice and drunk driving.

I want to describe to my friend the exhilaration of seeing your son learn to hit a baseball.  I want to capture for her the laugh of a baby who is touching the soft fur of a dog for the first time.  I want her to taste the joy that is so real that it hurts.

My friend's quizzical look makes me realize that tears have formed in my eyes.

"You'll never regret it," I say finally.

In a People House

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Last week at preschool R made a homemade version of the popular Chia Pet planter out of an old pair of panty hose, some dirt, and grass seed. He decorated it with googly craft eyes and red pipe cleaners for antennae. Voila, caterpillar! While this project was very cute and inventive, it also left an inch of dirt in the bottom of his backpack and resulted in a film of potting soil mixed with grass seed on our kitchen table. Not one to squelch creative genius, I dutifully found an old plastic tray, watered the panty hose and set it on the plant stand to sprout.

The Super Bowl was just finishing, and I was getting the house in order for the upcoming week. I opened the back patio door to try and shake some of the dirt out of R’s backpack. My husband was tucking him in, as we had let him stay up to see the end of the game. As I turned to come back into the house, I felt a WHOOSH and flutter near my hair and a bird flew past me into the dining room.

At this point in the story, I feel obligated to point out that while I love animals, I really love them more when they stay outside of my house. I should also reveal that I have a phobia of birds, one that stems from an unfortunate incident when I was seven involving a neighbor girl and her pet parakeet. She insisted on showing me how she could give him a “drink” of water, but instead succeeded in drowning him. (Apparently, you can lead a parakeet to water, but you can’t make him drink.)

So anyway, I stood there in the doorway in shock because the bird, now panicked himself, was doing circles around the ceiling. I quickly sprang into action, and by action, I mean that I grabbed an old sheet that the kids had been using to make tents and held it over the doorway separating the kitchen from the living room. I also shouted for my husband. Confused, he emerged from R’s room and asked me what I was doing. Standing on my tippy toes, holding sheet to doorway, I not so calmly explained the predicament and my desire to keep the bird confined to the kitchen rather than let it have free-range of the house. “What would I like for him to do?” he asked.

When I got married, I saw pest and rodent removal as a huge perk in this union. (Mice terrify me almost as much as birds, due to an even more unfortunate choice of apartment rentals following college. And aren’t birds really just rodents with wings?) Never again would I have to deal with beady-eyed, pointy-snouted creatures that get stuck in glue traps or have the gall to poke their heads out from beneath random pieces of furniture. So of course, I expected my husband to take care of this situation (after all, I signed the puke clause in this contract.) He bravely grabbed the kitchen broom and marched toward his destiny.

Twenty minutes later, we were both exhausted and frustrated, but the bird actually looked like he might be settling in for the night. He chose three favorite landing spots throughout the room and took flight each time he was prodded with the broom, landing in a virtual Bermuda Triangle. Try as we might, we couldn’t get him to head toward the exit. All the while, our four-year-old gleefully watched from a crack in his bedroom door, despite being told to shut said door and get back in bed. (I’m guessing he may have picked up a few choice words and phrases to share on the preschool playground this week.)

We didn’t want to hurt the bird (I’m a pacifist), but we were getting desperate. J left the room and returned with a green and yellow insect net that came with R’s bug catching kit. I hid behind the sheet, not wanting to witness whatever might come next. I heard a THWACK and a cheer, which was followed by a groan. The bird had briefly flown outside, only to turn around and resume the game he was playing with the stupid humans. Finally, we opened the door leading to the garage, and he found his way out.

We were left to survey the carnage. There were feathers and bird poop everywhere. I spent the next hour cleaning and sanitizing the counters and floor. When I went out to the garage to shut the door before I went to bed, the bird was sitting on top of the folding door, watching me with his smug, beady little eyes.

I see a trip to the screen door department at Home Depot in our very near future.