Help Around the House

"I need a stay-at-home wife," I recently wrote my cousin.

I have worked outside the home for sometime now, but still find it a struggle to manage the professional routine without a stay-at-home mom. There's something about a mom at the house-- one that puts a cool hand on your forehead when you are ill, one that bakes cookies, that volunteers at school, and that mends the torn and worn clothes and stuffed animals. One that knows all the intimate details of a child since his or her birth. One that organizes everything. How does all this get done when Mom goes back to work?

There is a constant chorelist. So this week, I sat my daughter down before bed and thanked her for all she does to help maintain our home and pets.  I told her I would increase her allowance on the condition that each day she complete a list of chores I give her after school-- many chores that normally I would do. The other night, she made the salad for dinner complete with chopping up vegetables, slicing eggs, shredding cheese, and adding spices. She set the table, folded laundered blankets, fed the rabbit, and walked the dog. She wrote her school supply list, sorted her current supplies, labeled her materials, and completed her homework to boot. And she did all of this cheerfully. Another night, she took care of the pets again, folded and dried more laundry, unloaded the dishwasher, set the table, and looked after her brother for a few minutes. She even prepared the fish for dinner one evening. Because she has undertaken all these things, we have been able to eat dinner early and still have enough time to run back-to-school errands before bedtime. While there are many things she cannot do yet (cook on the stove unsupervised, pay my bills, or raise Cain with a merchant over a badly written return policy), every bit of help she can give on the most minor of tasks relieves some of the burden of being a working parent.

My husband needs a man-at-home, too, I am sure he would say. Someone to open his mail, sort it according to priority, write out the bills, deal with insurance, wrestle with the IRS, mow the yard, mend whatever is broken, fertilize the lawn, change his tires, do his shopping, and iron his shirts. Too bad Tiny isn't 12 yet, not that I would ever trust him with an iron. He does little-man chores like feed the dog and make his bed. He can help put away groceries. Mostly, he is good at giving hugs and kisses, and both my husband and I can say that comforts any parent who works in or out of the home.

This evening, as I kissed my daughter good night and sat down to write, I thought, "You know, everything is going all right." Thanks to her, it really is.

Educating Tiny

With school starting again, I have been a little anxious about how my youngest will fare out back in a traditional group setting. Tiny Man is best one-on-one and gets bored easily. He is, as I have told his teacher, THAT child in the classroom-- the one that stands out, the one that doesn't conform, and often cluelessly so. I understand the exasperation of his teachers, as I am drawn to that point myself some days; it is hard to be THE mother of THAT child. At least now, with some of his acts of defiance in the past, I can find those things amusing.

Late last year, I was called by the assistant principal because my five-year-old son had, according to her report, kicked and punched three kids while waiting in the lunch line. It wasn't the first call I had, and wouldn't be even close to the last. When I picked him up from school, I told him that sometimes I was embarrassed to be his mother.

"Why?" Tiny whined.
"You beat up three kids at school today!" I snapped. My son's brow furrowed in a moment of confusion and he quickly corrected me, "It was TWO!"

You see my point. Months before, I had gotten a tired and irritable email from his teacher who wrote to document all the craziness he had performed that day, and then added that right at the moment she was writing, he was flicking balls of foil around the room and refusing to follow the Spanish teacher's directions. He had worn everyone completely out.

"This is precisely why I don't teach anymore," I responded. "Good luck with that."

Honestly, we worked very hard with his teacher to help shape my son's mischief into bouts of productivity and compliance. For every good effort he made at school, we rewarded it at home. For his more disruptive episodes, we withdrew privileges. And yes, headway was made. This year, we have taken a more proactive approach knowing what we know about our son and what he tends to do, such as why, for example, he might have lost bus riding privileges last year.

"Son," I said on the first morning of school. "Keep it in your pants on the bus. Understand?"
Tiny heaved a sigh of massive resignation. "Okaaaayyyyy."

She's Back, Maybe

I'm back. At least I think I'm back. With the kids going back to school and a new routine having yet to be put to the full test, I have a hard time saying how often I will be here, or what kind of posts there will be. But this first one after the long silence is a tribute to my friend Shane, who complained months ago that I wasn't writing enough fun material.

In preparations for a return to school and work, I cleaned out my desk in the home office and found a few little notes to myself-- dashes of thought about things my son had said to me in November of 2011. He was about four then.

"Mom, I hate diarrhea. It's hard. It's frustrating. It's complicated. It's diarrhea."

:)

Long Time, No See

These days, I don't write much, but I'd like to. I'm just too tired. Full time work, commuting, and kids have a way of inhibiting one from indulging in certain pursuits. Frankly, I don't talk to many people on the phone any more either--and sending email to me is no guarantee of a return response. I see it in my box and think that I just might get to it. This week I finally found time to read and answer emails that were sent months ago. Oops.

My silence has not stopped people from reading this blog though, and I am greatly amused to say that the one about the ugly dog has attracted the most hits. (I'd provide the link, but that's energy I just can't burn this minute.) Periodically, I get a comment that I don't post--like the one from a woman complaining and disagreeing about my point of view of academic paper farms-- the companies that sell pre-written papers to students who submit them to professors as the student's own work. (The woman told me that students who work and parent need all the help they can get. I'm not sorry to say she'll never get me to agree with her.) Or the one from a friend who complained that I don't write anything funny anymore. That's funny, because I really don't even write anymore. I've been asked to write on various topics here or to allow guest posts. I haven't done that either.

I don't feel too bad though. I'm just busy in a job I really, really feel good about doing, and when my kids aren't trying to beat each other into subservience, I am enjoying them a lot, too. It's just a new phase--this incredible focus on career and the nuclear family. It's okay. I'm doing what I should be doing. And I'll eventually get back into routine on the blog.

See you sometime?

New Year's Revolutions and Other Teeny Holiday Glimpses

With the holidays at a close, there is so much I would like to write about, but can just sum up events in a series of snippets. I'll let your imagination fill in the rest. See below:

• Recently, my eleven-year-old told me she had a New Year's revolution. I corrected her, but frankly I like her version of the word better. Keeping promises can be revolutionary. Let's roll with that.

• It took me five minutes to decode my son's complaint to me this Christmas. It began with "aweeweewish." I asked him, "WHAT?" And he repeated, "Aweeweewish you wouldn't use my airpwane to wite a note to schoow." Translation: I really wish. Got it. Note to self: Ask teacher about speech therapist.

• Christmas letters that capitalize on a family's success and perfection can be annoying. The one I sent out this year was short and sweet, but what I really wanted to say was this: Child A lost her cell phone privileges due to downloading $160 worth of games and Child B lost his bus riding privileges. Here's to another year of towing the line. (There was more I wanted to say there, but my husband said I couldn't post it.) If someone sent me a card like that, I'd frame it.

• I became a reluctant vegetarian this year and then was given a Christmas turkey by my company's president. It was delicious. Oh, and this week I had bacon. Is 6 meat-free days out of 7 ok? It's going to have to be. 

• I gave my mom a Kindle for Christmas, which is a little like giving her a crack addiction. We call each other: What did you read this week? It is so wonderfully fun, but I have a hunch nothing else is getting done at her house and her Amazon bill for books might end up looking like what my daughter did to a certain cellphone bill. At least, we are bettering ourselves with our Kindles though, as this week my mom and I read Henry James' Washington Square. I need to reread Wuthering Heights soon. It's like a nineteenth-century Jerry Springer show. Umm, bettering ourselves is a relative concept in light of that last comment.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and may this year be one that is full of goodness. I can say, as hardship has transitioned to simply overwhelming busyness, that I am about as content as I have ever been, and am looking forward to this year-- my husband's hand in mine, our children in our hearts, the idea of home as warm and comforting as ever.

Love to you--

Catiche

Little Reflections of Parenting

Periodically, a mother's words can come back in the funniest ways. One evening over dinner, my son piped up with a complaint about how I had used one of his paper airplanes to write a note. In desperation that morning, I had unfolded his hand-crafted jet, smoothed out the creases, and wrote a note of permission for my daughter to give her teacher. He had objected to my doing this at the time, and hours later, still was a little peeved.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Next time, I will go into my office for paper and use that instead."
"It's okay, Mommy. I still love you," he answered.

I'm glad he does. I am also glad that of all the things I tell my children, this was the one thing I clearly heard reflected before my children left for holidays with their father. And they will come back saying or doing all manner of things they have learned from time with their other family. Of course not everything they learn is so charming.

A few weeks ago, my son came home with a note from school. "Had a good morning," it began, "but kicked, hit, punched, and gave Ryan a wedgie at snack time." My ex-husband was appalled and sent a text asking me who Tiny had learned the wedgie from. I texted back an answer, "You."

Heh.

Recent Publication in Parachutist

I always swore I would be the mother who could work, create, raise kids, and keep a clean house. How humbling to learn that is an impossible dream. Something has had to give... largely, this blog... and the yardwork... and the laundry... and.... And I miss writing for pleasure. These days, I spend several hours a day combing other people's copy for a myriad of errors, and at the end of the day, I simply cannot look at another computer screen, even for creative purposes. I can boast however, a recent publication for Parachutist, a nationally distributed magazine that my son likes to steal from my skydiving husband. You can visit my article by clicking HERE. The print version that fell through the mail slot this weekend has the full spread of family pictures, which aren't visible online.

Happy Reading!