Home Alone

Home alone. Lately it seems to be the story of my life.

Having a husband who travels frequently for his job has its pros and cons. Mostly I’m thinking cons. When the kids were young, it was tough because all the diaper changing and long nights fell to me. The unrelenting toddler talk and constant baby carrying simply wore me out, body and soul. These days the children are big enough to bathe themselves (but apparently not big enough to pick up their wet towels or carry their dirty clothes to a hamper), yet the exhaustion can still be overwhelming. I’m the only one who can help with homework, wash the pans, chase down the errant dog, or locate the form that was supposed to have been signed yesterday. No one but me can be trusted to lock the doors, turn off the lights, and throw the cat out at night. The game pieces, dog toys, and snack leftovers will lie where they are on the living room carpet until I pick them up. No one else feels responsible for their whereabouts.

"Fat": A Lifelong Label

The school sent home their BMI reports last week. These reports inform parents of their child’s weight, height, and body mass index. They also let us know where our kids fall on the scale of underweight to obese. I’m assuming they also share this information with the government and that’s how states track their childhood obesity rates.

When I was a kid, schools did something similar although BMI had not been created. They did make us line up in the nurse’s office to be measured and then checked our spines to make sure they were straight. I hated this day. Well, actually that day never registered on my radar until after third grade. Third grade was the year the doctor informed me that I was fat. It was the year my mother started watching what I ate. It was the year that food became an obsession. Prior to that, I didn’t have any real memory of what I ate or whether it mattered.

When I look back on my childhood pictures, I did start to look a little chubby around third grade. But I wonder now, if that isn’t normal. Kids seem to begin to grow wider faster than they grow taller in the years before puberty. I have to wonder whether my doctor did me a disservice by labeling me. I wonder if I had been allowed to continue on my course, if my weight wouldn’t have just leveled out on its own.

Instead, his pronouncement set me on course for a life time of dieting and obsessive exercising, interspersed with periods of weight gain in which I would throw in the towel and remind myself that I’ve always been fat. More than that it gave me a new picture of myself: I was fat and therefore according to our culture I was unattractive. That fact colored my adolescence and undermined my confidence. These days my weight falls in the top of the healthy weight on the BMI index, but that number does nothing for my mental and emotional assumptions. I still feel fat. I think I probably always will.

"UNKNOWN NAME, UNKNOWN NUMBER"

“UNKNOWN NAME, UNKNOWN NUMBER” reads the caller ID. Do I pick it up? I do. But only because my beloved is traveling on the other side of the planet at this moment and all his calls come in with this title. The calls from credit card companies, non-profits in need of my financial commitment, and energy companies enticing me to make the switch also come in with this label. During the school day I feel compelled to answer these calls because my children’s schools come in under the heading of UNKNOWN NAME, UNKNOWN NUMBER. As you can imagine I field more than a few solicitation calls. It tries my soul.

Odd Kid (and Parent) Out

“How come we don’t have cable TV?”

“Why won’t you buy Doritos?”

“How come I can’t have a game system?”

These questions are most commonly followed by, “Everyone else has them!” and sometimes, “Why do you have to be so weird?”

I’ve given up imparting my reasoning for all of these parental decisions, because my kids have heard it before and all it elicits is groans and eye rolls.

My husband had a conversation with my daughter this weekend that led to the unveiling of a reason even more compelling than my desire for my kids to grow up physically, emotionally, and mentally healthy. To my mind, these are perfectly logical reasons for cleaning the cupboards of junk food and not allowing someone else’s idea of “entertainment” in to my home, but to my children they are simply more evidence of my questionable mental state.

This weekend, frustrated by the snack and entertainment options, my daughter cut to the chase and asked, “Why do we always have to be so different?” My brilliant husband replied, “Do you want to be like everyone else?”

When Your Child Dumps You

When your children are small and snuggly and clamor for your attention you can’t imagine there will come a day when they will ignore you, dismiss you, or outright avoid you. But the day comes. And I don’t care how sweet and loving your child is, or how close you are or how openly they share their hearts with you; one day they will shun you. I promise. And it’s a good thing. Even if it doesn’t feel like it.

I looked up the word parenting in the dictionary and it says: “the rearing of children.” And what is “rearing”? I, being a horse person, of course thought of that moment when the horse lifts its front end off the ground and attempts to set you on your butt. But Dictionary.com says, “to take care of and support up to maturity.” Huh. So there’s some comfort in knowing that once they are mature I don’t have to support them anymore. I know a few parents that would find that knowledge welcome relief.

Herd Bound

I apologize that the following post is a bit long and wandering. I have had a hard time corralling my thoughts this past week. But I’ve grown weary of thinking about this, so I share my untidied thoughts: 

I was reading details of last Friday’s nightmare and one fact struck me. When asked about the shooter, a former administrator who had known him in high school said, “Did you find a best friend? Did you find any friend? You won’t. He didn’t have any.” The young man had no friends. Not one. Now, I am in no conceivable way excusing his actions, nor even trying to explain them. I’m just noting this fact. 

Every time I open Facebook, another beautiful face appears. These are the faces of the children who were killed at their Elementary School where they should have been safe from a maniac with a gun. Seeing their perfect, precious faces brings fresh tears to my eyes again and again. I can’t fathom their parent’s pain. All weekend long, the world felt out of sorts for me.  

And now today, alone in my house, I feel even more out of sorts. As a mom, you know all too well the worry that goes with parenting. But there are times when the worry you feel for your children is cranked up, and other times the worry recedes, like background music. Normally, by 9am on a school day, I can relax. If any of the school buses carrying my children were to have crashed, I would have heard about it by now. My children are safe at school. There is a break in the worry until 2:45 when they board a bus again. I am out of sorts because I can’t stop thinking about the path a crazed gunman might take in my own children’s school buildings. I wonder whether the fire doors could be automatically closed off to protect them. I consider that the Middle School seems safest because the classrooms are so far from the entrance. These are not thoughts that usually torment me on the average week day. 

Sibling Truce At Last

Kids fight. I know this first-hand. I remember some particularly spectacular disputes with my little brother that ended in violence – me with a pencil point in my hand, him flung against the kitchen wall so hard he was knocked unconscious (or faked it really well) causing me to hide in the bath tub from my mother. I remember when “I’m rubber and you’re glue, everything you say bounces off of me and sticks to you” seemed like a powerful protection, forcing me to resort to saying nice things.  

My own kids fought just as fiercely. There have been days when I have screamed in frustration when every other word uttered by my cherubs to each other was antagonizing or insulting. I continuously underestimated the topics and situations over which my children could fight with each other. I was horrified by the vehemence with which they spoke to each other. I lamented that they would never be friends. I implored them to remember that they were related and needed to back each other up, and when that didn’t work I reminded them that they were stuck with each other forever! 

This past weekend we headed out to choose a Christmas tree. It is not difficult for me to pull up recent memories of tears and insults passed back and forth in our quest for the perfect tree. The threats given in hushed voices with knowing looks did not quell their battles. Their insults and complaints echoed across the valley of trees causing childless young couples to shudder and me to cringe with embarrassment. As I recall there were always pleasant families, happily choosing and cutting their trees just one aisle over, while we sent someone back to wait in the car if they couldn’t be nice. More than once, my husband asked me, “Why is it we do this again?” 

If this is your family too, then it is with great joy that I offer this glimmer of hope. We chose our tree peacefully this year. As we wandered the rows of trees, the kids joked and gave silly names to potential trees. Then after posing for pictures with the chosen tree, they happily carried the tree up the hill to pay for it. My husband smiled and said, “Do you remember when…” and we laughed.  

I’m not sure when the moment happened that our children ceased their fighting and put down their guns. But sometime over the past year, they’ve discovered that they actually like each other. Sure, there is a nasty word on occasion, but for the most part the teasing is good natured and funny. Instead of hearing shrieks of indignity from the kitchen in the mornings as they get ready for school, I hear laughter. I watch them walk down the drive to the bus stop, chattering about music, computer games, comedians.  

They are developing their own collection of inside jokes. Some I am allowed in on and some they keep to themselves. They call each other by nick names and send each other funny messages on Facebook. They enjoy each other. 

A rare peaceful moment a few years ago.

As I said, I’m not sure what changed. At some point they crossed over an invisible divide. Maybe it’s that the youngest is old enough to keep up with their verbal banter. Or maybe the middle one has mellowed. Or perhaps it’s that the oldest finds them both a good audience. No matter. I’m not asking questions. I’m just grateful that the war seems to have finally ended.