Mother of a Boy

You ever read those italicized notes at the end of an article that describe the writer? There will be some brief mention about what that person does for a living (along with the writing because so few of us can actually live off that) and a little tidbit about her family life: Judy is the mother of an active boy. Every time I read "active boy" I wonder why not just say what it really is: Judy is the mother of a boy. It's superfluous to add "active" really. There is no such thing, therefore no clarifier is needed. Just saying a woman rears a boy should instantly draw feelings of empathy from the reader.

When I learn that an expecting mother is having a boy, I reach out to her in mercy and compassion. "Hold on to your hat," I say. Forget any nice-looking furniture you have, any freshly painted wall, any nice-smelling bathroom. Get ready for all the science projects he'll bring home, like the pet worm my son and his friend tried to sneak in the house last week. Get ready for the fact that while you are trying to cook dinner, he is flushing three toothbrushes down your toilet (yes), hosing his sister against her will outside, or, having found a blue ink pad in your art supplies, he is using it to stamp geometric patterns on your flagstone path in the yard, your minivan, and the neighbors’ brick edging that trims the path to their home. And by the way, it took me days to figure out that it was permanent ink— I had my son scrub it off with a toothbrush and detergent. I should have made him use one of the toothbrushes I had snaked out of the toilet from the first incident I mentioned.

Yes, to say that one is the mother of a boy is description enough. One day at church, there was a woman sobbing outside the doors to the building. She was being comforted by a friend. Concerned, I walked over and asked if they needed help. “It’s ok,” said one woman as she held an arm around the crying one, “She is just raising boys.” No kidding.

We have countless stories about the wild boys among our family and friends. My grandmother tied her second-born to a tree so she could complete chores in peace. An Indiana friend of mine once came home to her son swinging on a rope like Tarzan from the second floor interior balcony of her home. The other stories I have, especially a host of them about my son’s birth father, aren’t even fit for print. While some of these boys I knew grew up okay, others didn’t. My grandmother on her deathbed still obsessively worried about at least one of her sons. I supposed that happens. The people I worry the most about though are the mothers. We are exhausted from cleaning up the damage.

A friend of mine, whose little boy has similar difficulties to my Tiny Man's, described his recent suspension from school. She asked me how she was supposed to keep going—how much could she really take. The next day I walked up to her office and told her Tiny had just been suspended from after-school care. We laughed. It’s the best we can do. Mothers take all our children’s faults and eccentricities to heart. We grew these creatures. They came from us. They are extensions of ourselves. When we see them do things we wouldn’t do (because we were girls), we become unglued. And we need other mothers to sympathize with us because they understand. When I tell men what my son does, most of them say something like, “I did the same stuff.” My husband appears to be an anomaly in this department, the worst story about him being that he jumped off the top of the refrigerator once in a while, usually with his Dad waiting to catch him and encouraging it. At least Tiny is incredibly sweet and affectionate; it’s what has kept him alive this long. By the way, among the things I did to ground my son for his having misbehaved enough to be suspended, I put him in time-out in his room from after school let out until supper time. He could play alone with his own toys—no friends, no TV, no Wii, no dog, no free-ranging it outside. He made do. I caught him emptying buckets of water out his bedroom window to amuse himself. There is no rest for the weary mother of the boy.

While all mothers deserve medals for the hell their boys put them through, there are those of us who deserve special awards for raising a hyperactive boy.  In a recent ADHD article I read, the doctor described raising a child with this disorder as raising a child times five. So, if you are going to call a spade a spade, here it is. This is what my byline should read: The author is an editor, a blogger, and an artist. In addition to bringing home the bacon and trying to maintain snippets of a creative life, she is married to a handsome, brilliant academic and skydiver who she fears could die any day, leaving her solely responsible for her son with ADHD and his sister, who is often grossly disappointed with her brother’s misconduct.

Peacemaking, Bacteria-Free

One afternoon when winter broke enough to make outdoor play comfortable, I sent my children outside with playmates.  At one point, the neighbor’s six year old boy pushed open my door with complaints about my preschool age son. The boy stood there and vented, his mucky hands waving and mouth completely encrusted with a circle of dried chocolate pudding. I had been watching and listening to the kids play through open windows. His arrival, therefore, was no real surprise, but the amount of dirt encasing his skin astounded me.

After listening to the child’s rant, I decided that no one was in danger of imminent death, gave a warning for the little man to recite to my son, and then announced he was not to leave the house until we washed him up. Angrily, the boy stomped and told me he hated washing—an obvious fact considering his grimy appearance. He passed his dirty hands over surfaces I had just polished or sanitized as I gently pushed him to the kitchen sink.

“Trust me--your mother will appreciate this,” I stated flatly. Minutes later, clean and with new impatience, he marched out of my home—reluctant to return with more tattling due to the threat of being sanitized by his playmate’s mother.

Tales like this remind me of classic childhood—the consistency of child behavior across generations. Dirty boys with comedic complaints about playmates, spells of arguing and making up, and new games of pretend created. Afternoons rolling in the yard, hair carrying smithereens of crushed leaves, arms smeared with soil--these moments, are really, as some would say, golden, even when tinged with dirt.

Tiny Force of Destruction

My husband lay exhausted in bed this morning. His day had not even begun.

 “You know that blog you wrote on routine?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Tiny Man destroys my morning routine. He comes downstairs and tells me, ‘I need. I want. Can I have…?’ and then my eggs are cold and I am late for work.”

Yes, Tiny Man destroys a lot of things, routine being the very least among them, but somehow we continue to love and adore him. This past week, my little son managed to do the following things:

He cut all the wooden beads off his lamp.
He pulled several strings out of his rug, thus losing the privilege of having a rug in his room.
He squeezed out half a bottle of toothpaste to “clean” his gladiator helmet.
He hid the toothpaste.
He ate the toothpaste.
He ate my very nice and pricey anti-aging Mary Kay lotion.
He dumped my jewelry box over, un-pairing earrings and losing earrings in the process.

What he does not destroy, he creates. Some of what he creates is not discovered until the aftermath, such as the liquid soap he painted on the toilet seat. This went unnoticed until my husband planted his rear on said toilet seat. (I am sure that in Tiny’s mind, he was cleaning the seat. So, what do you do?) Out of concern for the dog, he has tried to wash her—with powdered detergent. My understanding is that she actually sat still for this. He has painted abstract pictures with peanut butter on the kitchen window. We have the remains of toothpaste expressionism on the bathroom mirror upstairs.

This was all in the past few days. You may ask, “So, what is Catiche doing when all this is going on?”

Here is my list:

Tutoring my daughter 

Trying to potty in peace
Trying to cook
Trying to scrape playdoh, pumpkin pulp, or whatever the kids have had off the walls and floor
Folding laundry
Washing the afternoon dishes

I wish I could say I was on the phone exchanging juicy gossip, lying on the couch with Belgian chocolates in hand, or even surfing the web. I am not. My childless neighbor tried to give me suggestions one day, bless her heart. She is a woman for whom I have much respect and admiration, but one has to note that she was one of three girls. Girls are different animals. She asserts that her mother only allowed them fifteen minutes of cartoons before pushing her and her siblings outdoors to play. When they were inside, the girls folded laundry, swept the floor, et cetera. This all sounds very lovely. Obviously, her mother was not raising the bear cup that we have here.

Yesterday, my daughter sat down to homework and I began to mix spices for dinner, so I rolled the little man out the backdoor to frolic outside. I have a full view of the yard from two substantial windows in the kitchen. Within moments, my daughter called out that her brother had a hammer. When I looked up, Tiny had his hands full and the dog was running from him. I also noted that he had brought out the broom, a forbidden item because he wields it as a weapon (thereby eliminating sweeping as an entertainment option).

“Son, hand it over! I know what you’ve got!” I stood on the deck with my arms on my hips and watched my son try to hide behind the shed. The dog, poor old girl that she is, slinked in relief toward me, and then bolted to the now-open back door. There was no movement from behind the shed.

“One!” I said. My son stepped out and looked at me.

“Two!” This time, he ran behind the shed, retrieved his booty, and relinquished it.

A hammer, two screwdrivers, and a can of WD-40. Don’t tell me to put this stuff up high. We already do. We have all seen my son scale the kitchen cabinets using drawer pulls for leverage. He has also been caught standing on top of the bathroom sink reaching for the toothpaste that we keep on top of the mirrored cabinet.

I considered my neighbor’s advice, refuted it, and plopped Tiny down in front of PBS for 45 minutes so I could fold three loads of laundry in peace. When it was done, we did an exercise video together (which was hysterically funny to do with my son—and really the best part of my day). In the meantime, my daughter finished her homework, poured herself tea, and drank it without a little certain someone stealing the cup or spilling it for her. We were all happy again.

My son destroys a lot. Genetically, his kinetics and highly mischievous behavior seem to have flowed directly from my own uncles, one of whom was so bad my grandmother tied him to a tree so she could conduct housework without worry. She was happy and the neighborhood was safe. I have assurance from seeing my uncles that Tiny will grow out of his wildness, but a little doubt plagues me. We still have years ahead of us; he is only four. I have already announced that if he does not choose college, that he will be enlisted into the military at my earliest convenience--that’s if they’ll take him of course. I don’t know if they accept weapons of mass destruction as gifts from civilian mothers. We’ll see.

Mommyhood and Madness

Today, I overslept by ten minutes. I had hit snooze on the Blackberry—or so I thought. Turns out I dismissed the alarm entirely. Stumbling down the stairs to check on children was my first obstacle of the day. My husband had already risen before them and was supervising their morning routine. I should have stayed upstairs with my coffee and readied myself first.


“Little people!” I called. “Breakfast!”

“I don’t want breakfast. I want to eat breakfast at school,” said the oldest.

“Cereal!” shouted the little guy.

“Mommy, can I have almond milk?” asked the oldest.

“Mommy, I want cereal. This kind!” stated the little one again, waving an empty box at me.

“Mommy, can I have medicine for my throat?”

“Mommy, there is no peanut butter.”

“Mommy, did you pack my lunch?”

“Mommy, can I have almond milk now?”

“Mommy, I don’t want the vitamin with the hippo on it.”

“Mommy—“

“That’s it!” I cried out, overwhelmed by the barrage of mommy demands, “I am changing my name! What should I change it to?”

“Avatar!” answered my boy.

After sorting through what was available for breakfast (we have cruised through groceries this week), and with my husband snickering at me in the kitchen, we somehow managed to pull it together, and get to the bus stop on time. But at the bus stop, I noticed my daughter was wearing crotch-length shorts. No, I was not the one that bought these for her.

“Baby girl! Those shorts are against dress code!”

“They won’t care!” she said in reference to the school faculty.

“Really? Well, when I have to interrupt my work to get you from school and bring you home to change, I will care very much, and be extremely unhappy about whatever citation you get for breaking rules.”

“Mo-om!” she sighed.

“Let’s go,” I said. Marching us home, we missed the bus, but the point was made clear long before she is old enough to try to sneak out of the house in a belly-bearing shirt. Minutes later, shorts changed for a longer version, we drove to school, negotiated the uncertainty of the drop-off car lane, and then I headed to my son’s preschool. I had been smug oh-too-soon about making the two schools on time despite the set-back of a wardrobe change and the morning mommy dance in the kitchen. As soon as I pulled up, my little son made the announcement I fear the most:

“Mommy, I’m hungry.” (I thought my name was Avatar now.)

“What!? What happened to your breakfast?”

“I did not like the toast. I fed it to the dog. I’m hungry.”

This is not a child that can forego a meal. When hungry, he becomes hyperactive and disruptive. I walked him into his school cafeteria for the public school breakfast, provided instructions to both child and cafeteria worker to skip milk today (it does not help him absorb iron), and hugged and kissed my tiny man.

“I’m tired,” he said. Oh, no. This is a danger sign. This means a virus is heading our way. So as I sit here, supposedly editing 34,000 words for a client many states away, I keep wondering when the phone will ring with the fact that Tiny Man barfed or developed fever. I planned a day stacked with work and have an overwhelming feeling that the list will remain uncrossed today.

So, in the meantime, I’ll plug away. In only a few hours, the non-stop call of “Mommy” will rise again. Oh, wait, just call me Avatar.

He Ain't Heavy...

At the checkout counter, a sticker read “For your convenience, leave heavy goods in cart.” I stood with 34 pounds of dead-weight child asleep across my chest and shoulder, and groped with one free hand for the contents of my cart. A man in front of me just stared, but did not offer any relief from either task at hand.


“Huh!” I said pointing, “Leave heavy goods in cart.” I had wondered if I could lay my son down on the wire gridded floor of the grocery cart to make this shopping errand easier, but that just seemed cruel, so I let my back strain beneath the pressure of his sleeping body. He is four. Days like this won’t last that much longer. The clerk was patient as I rifled one-handed through my purse for the requisite grocery savings card and debit card, and then sent a helper to load my trunk in the parking lot.

We had places to be, things to do, obligations to meet. But the sweetest part of my day was taking just a second to breathe the breath of my son as his little face nestled into my neck, and feel all the trust and security that he had in my touch and ability to carry him. Today was his first day of preschool. Next year, he will be in kindergarten, and far too tall for me to easily carry or cradle anymore. This evening and early this morning, he bundled himself between my knees and tucked his head under my chin, and then he giggled. This is my last child, my last baby, and the last link I have to young motherhood. I think I can bear his burden.