Days of Whine and Roses

We survived. Our nerves may be shot, our dignity may be slightly bruised, our marriage may have been shaken, but the husband and I have survived another year of kid birthdays. My twins’ birthday is in June and my youngest’s birthday is in July. It’s like the birthday Olympics here for a month and a half out of every year. Cake and presents and parties and kids hopped up on sugar. Enough!

I’m sure the question was innocent enough. When we were in the car driving home from a fun-filled family weekend in Massachusetts (there really needs to be a sarcasm font, doesn’t there?), the husband turned to me and asked, “So what do you want for your birthday?” After shutting down the cries from the back of the minivan about the toys the kids wanted to get me (apparently, I’m in desperate need of a Lightening McQueen Leapster game, a giant Optimus Prime figure {it’s not a doll, Mom!}, and a real make-up set {that I could probably use}), the cake they wanted to get me (decorated in minions from “Despicable Me”) and the best menu choices at Chuck E. Cheese’s (are there menu choices? I think it’s just pizza, right?), I started thinking. My _1st birthday is in a few weeks. What do I want?

I think I’ve come up with a few ideas.

• I want a minivan that comes with privacy glass standard. You know, like the screens in limos or taxis? I’m pretty much a chauffeur for these kids anyway. If there was a soundproof screen between the driver’s seat and the hollering minions in the backseat, the benefits would be immeasurable. If I didn’t have to yell at anyone to be quiet, I could pay better attention to the road and be a safer driver. I wonder if my insurance premium would go down.

• I want my children to stay in bed past 5:45 in the morning. I am up to the challenge of 3 kids 5 and under. Really, I am. But only after a decent night’s sleep, which I can’t claim to have if the kids are up at the crack of dawn. Alternatively, I would settle for changing the orbit of the earth around the sun so the sun doesn’t come up until the Today show starts. Anything to keep them in bed until at least 7:00.

• I have often fantasized about a switch hidden somewhere on my children’s bodies that will get then to do any number of things – clean their rooms, poop on the potty, eat their broccoli. I would really love to get a switch like that installed in each kid. I’m willing to pay. In cash.

• I’ve thought long and hard about this one, and I really want a wife. Not in a bigamist, Discovery-channel-special kind of way. But think about it. Wouldn’t it be great to have someone make your doctor’s appointments, do the grocery shopping, make sure you have clean clothes in the morning, take the car in for an oil change, pick up your prescriptions, ensure that TIVO records Grey’s Anatomy, tells you to rest when you’re sick, and reminds you to buy a birthday present for your mother? My husband is a great guy, but these are generally not things that are in his job description. A wife would take care of everything! Why should husbands get all the fun?

I realize that these things probably aren’t going to happen, but a girl can dream, even if she is going to be _1 in a few weeks. And if I can’t get the privacy screen, kids to sleep in, the “do what I say” switch or the wife, at least I can get a minion-decorated cake.

But I draw the line at Chuck E. Cheese.

During each of my children’s first years, I was like a hawk, constantly watching to make sure the milestones were being met at the right time. Being slightly Type A (if by slightly, you mean obsessively, compulsively Type A, that is), I actually wrote down at what point the kids hit all the milestones. And having twins didn’t help – I would write down the dates that each of them did each thing to compare. S tracked me with her eyes a week before D did, but D rolled over 2 weeks before S.

I was no less obsessive with my youngest, comparing everything he did to his brother and sister. My husband called me a doofus, but I persisted! These milestones were of paramount importance! What if the pediatrician asked me about their startle reflex? What if I didn’t have the answer? Surely, such a crime would warrant a visit from CPS.

Yes, indeedy. I was a moron.

Putting aside my moronicity (yes, that is a word. I know it’s a word because I just made it up), there are some big achievements that all parents wait for during that first year.

Sleeping through the night (I still recite 3 months and 4 months as if they are some badge of honor. And don’t get me going on how proud I was when my youngest slept through the night at 5 weeks *whisper* he’s my favorite *whisper*).

Eating solid foods.

And of course the twin pinnacles of the first year of life (more or less) – walking and talking.

Every grunt, growl, and shriek was parsed during the second half of the first year to see if any meaning could actually be ascribed to it. Clearly, when S babbled, “ah bi bu flur,” she was explaining that she would rather watch Charlie Rose than another Baby Einstein DVD.

And when D very eloquently prattled on about “de da di do dumdumdumdum,” it was evident to me that he was trying to predict the subprime mortgage crisis.

And my youngest? His exhortations of “ga ca famafama” were a rallying cry for education reform. My husband continued to look at me as if I were a doofus, but I was tracking milestones!

He was more interested in the walking. I can understand that. I didn’t have small babies (my twins were 5 weeks early and weight 6lbs.8.5oz. and 7lbs.4.5oz and my youngest was 11.5lbs. Yes, you read that right. 11.5lbs. I’ve cooked Thanksgiving turkeys smaller than that kid). Carrying these little butterballs around quickly became exhausting. What could be better than letting them toddle off? What a relief to our aching backs!

My twins are 5 and my youngest will be 3 on Thursday. They have been walking and talking for years now. And where has all this walking and talking gotten us?

Nothing but trouble.

Walking, for those who did not know, leads to running, jumping, climbing, rappelling, scaling and belaying, generally off of my couch. Which in turns leads to increased Band-Aid usage, a Neosporin addiction, and being on a first-name basis with the emergency room nurses.

Talking is even more dangerous than walking. My kids, and my daughter in particular, can speak without ceasing for hours on end. Don’t believe me? It takes 12 minutes to get from the summer camp to our house. Wanna guess how many questions my daughter asked me in that 12 minutes?

52.

Show me the mother who doesn’t want to open the nearest bottle of wine when asked 52 questions in 12 minutes and I’ll show you a mother who prefers beer. More dangerous indeed.

Not too long ago, I read the following adage:

You spend the first year of your children’s life waiting for them to walk and talk, and the rest of their lives waiting for them to sit down and shut up.

I’m embroidering that on a pillow. Which I can then use to either cushion falls off the couch or cover my ears to avoid the constant questions.

All sarcasm and snarky-ness aside, I do love my family. My husband is a great guy, and my children are the loves of my life. Our family was hard-won. Without going into gory details about shots and hanky-panky schedules and invasive exams, suffice it to say that having children for us was significantly more involved than opening a bottle of wine and queuing up Barry White on the iPod. I say this to be clear – I love my family and don’t regret for one moment the husband or children I’ve been blessed with.

However . . . there are days. 

I’m currently losing the battle to a raging sinus infection brought on by allergic rhinitis (yeah, I don’t really know what that is, but I do know that it feels like my 43 pound 3 year old is standing on my face. I’d Google it, but that would cut into my wasting-precious-alone-moments-on-Facebook time). I have a fever and sinus pain and want nothing more than to crawl into bed and stay there for about 13 days.

But I have small kids.

So, instead of crawling into my lovely bed and staying there until the world’s supply of Kleenex runs out, I get up at 5:30 to make my freakishly dawn-loving kids pancakes (frozen Eggo pancakes – I’m no hero) and start my day of running kids to camp and doing housework and fixing lunches and picking kids up at camp and mediating arguments and wishing that I could just take a 20 minute nap.

And I remember what my life was like B.K. (again, “before kids”).

When I was sick B.K., my only responsibility was to call my boss within a reasonable amount of time after the work day started and let him know that I wasn’t going to be in that day. I could call the deli on the first floor of my building in Manhattan, and they would deliver me the most delicious chicken soup. I could sleep all morning if I wanted to, watch Donahue (“Caller, what’s your question?” No, of course I never called in. And if one person asks me who Donahue was, I will shut down this blog. I swear I will!), and then take a nap. No one needed me, no one wanted to share the bathroom with me, no one whined at me.

But this is not B.K. It is A.K. ( for “After Kids,” pronounced “ack,” which sounds a lot like my cough). Some people say that when you’re a mom, you can’t get sick. That is not entirely true. You can get sick (see info re: raging sinus infection above). You just don’t get to act sick. No napping. No resting. No snuggling in your bed watching bad TV. And if you’re eating chicken soup, it better be shaped like Lightening McQueen or a Disney princess, because you’re going to have to share with the little raccoons you call children.

Rather than wallow in memories of my life B.K., and how much easier it was to be sick without children, I will suck it up. And hope with all of my being that no one else in this house gets sick. Not the kids. Not the cat. And especially not the husband, who (despite his many excellent qualities) turns into a squalling toddler at the first sign of the sniffles.

I don’t hope this because I’m a selfless person who would rather suffer all illness than see her family suffer.

I hope this because I’m a selfish person who doesn’t want or need extra whining in her life that a sick family brings. And so, rather than hope for health for myself, I hope for it for my family.

And for some soup.

I need to apologize I am truly sorry. From the bottom of my heart, I regret what I did. I acted or spoke out of ignorance, and in all honesty, did not know what I was talking about.

So, to all those who were the object of my look of disdain, my harsh whispers to a similarly ignorant companion or simply my unspoken head shake, I apologize.

You see, before I had kids (or as I refer to it, B.K. [before kids]), I was a perfect mother who would one day have perfect children. And yet, all around me B.K., there were children who were not as perfect as the little snowflakes I would one day have. Who were these mothers who weren’t raising their children to be perfect?

Clearly, I was an idiot.

So, to all those mothers who were mothers before me, I offer my sincere apologies for the following:

* For questioning your parenting skills when you child had a runny nose. It is only now that I am a mother that I have realized that kids have runny noses 10 months out of the year, and if you tried to wipe their nose every time it ran, you would eventually be wiping down to cartilage. I’m sorry – I didn’t know.

* For rolling my eyes when your child threw a tantrum in the grocery store or Target or the bank or the restaurant. I have experienced the parenting pleasure of running out of Stop & Shop, leaving a full cart of groceries behind, with one child under my arms, dragging the other two with my free hand, while all three have shrieked at the top of their lungs because I wouldn’t buy them the Dora popsicles. And I have felt the accusing stares from the non-parents. I’m apologize for ever thinking I could do it better. I can’t.

* For buying your child a birthday present with tiny little pieces. I have come to realize that I loathe toys with tiny little pieces with the passion of a thousand suns. I would not blame you (and in fact, would likely applaud you) if you told me you threw them out as soon as I was gone. I regret any difficulty my stupidity may have caused you.

* For thinking you had “let yourself go” when I saw you out in public without your hair combed or wearing spit-up stained sweats. When my kids were babies, weeks went by where I didn’t touch a brush to my hair and every pair of sweats I owned were stained with spit-up (thank you, acid reflux!). I’m so sorry for not knowing what I was doing.

*For getting irritated when I wanted to go out and you couldn’t get a sitter. I should have realized that NO ONE wanted to go out more than you did, to just get away from your kids for a few short hours to remember what it was like to be your own person without someone climbing on you, constantly interrupting you and refusing to let you use the bathroom on their own. I still can’t believe my ignorance. Mea culpa.

* For ever thinking, “It’s just a kid – what could be so hard?” Really? REALLY?!?! This was just sheer stupidity on my part. I have no excuse for this one. I was just a moron.

For these, and any other ignorant, stupid, and/or selfish acts or thoughts of non-kid superiority, I am truly sorry, and hope that I am forgiven. I can only offer my apologies, and pay it forward by forgiving the woman at Wal*Mart who muttered at me under her breath while my children dumped out an entire box of pool noodles in front of her.

One day, she won’t be so smug.