Why is it so hard?

Why is it so hard to...

...refill the (toilet paper, paper towels, napkin basket, baby wipes)
...replace the (wastepaper basket liner, recycle bin liner, Diaper Genie film)
...close the (Goldfish container, cheese tub, berry pint)
...pack a (backpack for swim class, diaper bag, lunch pail)
...double check our (milk supply, bread loaf, dry cleaning bag)
...move the (dirty wash, clean wash, junk under the bed)

But it's still easy to love you!

Autumn at the Zoo, or, Why I Love Amish Women

The girlies and I headed off to the zoo this morning to take advantage of what could only be described as "crisp" weather. Everybody had shoes AND socks on, so you know that there was a pinch in the air. Everybody got a ride in the triple, and for the most part we wandered unencumbered by stares, "Oh, boy, you've got your hands full" and "Have you got triplets?" When we were getting ready to leave, we encountered two Amish women who were accompanying six little girls. They were all dressed in "the" dress in robin's egg blue, with black stockings, navy blue cardigans and white caps. I'm never sure if the Amish will say hello or not--my experience with them has gone both ways, but I always greet them regardless. One of the women stopped.

"Have you found that the Soothie pacifiers are too firm for your daughter's mouth?" She asked. She was pointing to Emma's pink bink, which dangled precariously from her lips. She has a new baby girl and the child is having a hard time with the Soothies designed for older babies. I told her about where to find purple Soothies, which are very flexible and good for newborns. She pointed to her three daughters, who I realized were identical triplets. "I wish we would have had a side-to-side stroller. We had the front-to-back stroller and it was almost impossible to maneuver." My first thought was, Oh My Lord, after triplets she had more children. We chatted a bit more and I wished them a nice afternoon.

As I got to the parking lot I realized that woman accepts her family size for what it is, and she isn't thinking a thing more about it. Not because Amish women are not introspective enough to contemplate motherhood, but because their culture truly welcomes children. Their social infrastructure ensures that no one has to mother alone. This woman wasn't surprised to see another woman with kids who are spaced so closely together because half of her friends and neighbors probably have kids who are 15, 16 months apart. She didn't ask, "Are you working?" or "How do you go anywhere with all of them?" because she already knows the answer to both. She's been there, and still is. I felt, talking to her, that neither one of us had to defend our family size, which is an experience I have had talking to women from other backgrounds. Of course she had children after the triplets. Of course she piled most of them into the zoo for a day. Of course she cut right to the chase with me and asked about Emma's bink. Why act shocked or surprised at a situation which, for her, is as common and plain as the dress on her back?

Irony Tag Sold Here.

I was at the grocery store today, post-library hour with just OC, and when I got into line to check out, I ended up behind a very fit looking woman who was purchasing far more healthy looking items than me--organic butter lettuce, soy milk, nonfat yogurt, breast meat chicken, a ton of produce (again, most of it organic), free trade coffee, and skim milk. She was wearing a workout outfit of some sort, kind of running/yogaish, and tennis shoes. Feeling chubby by comparison, I bent down into my cart to start unloading my Pierre's ice cream, my Bertolli pre-made pasta, and when I looked up again the woman seemed to have disappeared. Even the checker was confused--"Are these your items as well?" I said, "There was someone here, but I don't know where she went."

"Oh," called a raspy voice to my cashier from the Customer Service line. "I just came over here to buy my cigarettes first so I wouldn't bother you with it."

I smacked down my full-fat American cheese down hard on the counter and silently, smilingly waited my turn.

The Cleanest Closets in Town, or, So What Do You Do All Day?

The ugliest question by far that I encounter fairly regularly is, "So, how do you spend your days?" As if tending to the bodily needs of three other human beings all while managing a decent-sized house isn't really work. And by looking around my house, you'd think I never cleaned. There is always laundry happening--either waiting to be washed, washed but not dried, dry but not folded, folded but not put away, or empty baskets lying around waiting for the next cycle. The girls have their De-luxy kitchen against one wall of our (formerly) formal living room, complete with all the De-luxy plastic food and Big T's shopping cart (which the other two have apparently been told is off limits). Books are everywhere all the time, as are OC's "dollies" (Little People) and assorted plastic animals from our Noah's Ark. I have had visitors actually snort when I mentioned just having cleaned, or even more embarrassing, just having had the cleaning lady in. (And no, those people don't get invited back, although sometimes they still continue to show up).

But my days are full of cleaning jobs that no one ever sees, but I know it's done. Saturday I demolished, reorganized, refolded, and sorted my linen closet, which also serves as Cleaning Supply Central (since I can't leave anything out lest the twins get at it) and Medicine Alley (same reason). Today I cleaned out, sorted, and garage-saled a ton of glassware that we received (presumably) as wedding gifts and that have sat, untouched, for the last five years in my cabinet taking up precious space. I sort the girls' clothes literally every day--is this too shabby to wear out and therefore relegated to the "in house playclothes" drawer? Has Big T grown out of this, but Little T could squeeze into it for another month? Do all of OC's 2T summer playshirts need to be bagged, tagged, and moved into the attic for Round 2? Don't get me started on cleaning the wastebaskets, changing the bedclothes (on 3 beds), plus food maintenance--are these leftovers too old for even the adults to eat? When did I make that mac and cheese for the kids? Do I have enough fruit for Little T to make it through a couple of meals, or do we need to plan a grocery run post haste? Never mind checking on my own coffee supply, keeping the cat from turning us over to the authorities for neglect, and keeping tabs on my ever-dwindling yet incredibly important supply of diapers (two sizes, two different styles, about 30 a day). I had an off day last week and let myself get down to one pack of wipes in the house, and that was what stays in the diaper bag. I was nearly apoplectic.

I would love to live in a house where nothing is ever on the (sparkling clean) floor, where there are no weird smells floating off of 3/5 of the people who live here, where everything is put away, labeled, and perfectly suited to purpose, a la the cover of a Real Simple magazine. That's not my life now, and I don't know when it ever will be. I know there are people who can't hang with our level of ordered disorder, or can't imagine how my mundane work fills the hours. I've stopped trying to explain, and just pick up the Wet Jet for the third time today. There are green Goldfish on the floor mocking me.

Top Story: The World is Out to Get Your Children

I apparently at some point e-subscribed to a parenting bulletin and boy, was that a mistake. I get this email this morning that proclaims, in big red evil letters: Top Story/Kids and Germs--How Worried Should You Be?

Apparently, I should be be bolting the doors and sending the girls to live in a clean room.

Why do "parenting" magazines and newsletters do this? Why do they take something fairly innocuous--dirt--and turn it into a dire killer? I understand the seriousness of teaching children proper handwashing. I understand the consequences of not following through with wound care, even if the cut looks shallow enough. But some women are absolutely neurotic, and these kinds of scary-scary headlines just send them over the edge.

"God made dirt, dirt don't hurt." Repeat three times, and go play outside.

.....And They're Off.

The race for preschool places begins a full year before a child is eligible to go. OC won't be three until May, and potty training is still way off her radar, but we spent two hours today touring one of the Elite Private Girls' Schools in order to find a school for her. It was exciting and overwhelming. Exciting because I found myself trying to imagine her in one of the little chairs, in the library, in modern dance class acting like Twyla Tharp. Overwhelming because I earn no money and OMG, is this going to be expensive. However, I frankly feel that we owe it to OC, and to the T's, to try our absolute hardest to get them into the school that's right for them, even if it ain't cheap. I'll go back to teaching when the T's are in school, so eventually there's going to be two paychecks again. However, right now, it's all Mr. Man, and I know it's a burden, but we have to make a go of it.

Besides, not going on a pricey cruise is temporary. Having a kid who isn't bright enough to make health care decisions for you when you're old--that's some scary permanence.

Quiet Time, or, Why The Two Year Old Doesn't Control Naptime

Usually naptime ("quiet time") in our house is very quiet. OC and Big T sleep in the room they all share, and Little T sleeps in our room in the pack n' play because she is a light sleeper and the other two aren't. However, the OC has decided for whatever reason today that she doesn't want to sleep and boy is she mad at me about it. She got out of her bed and started coming downstairs. I marched her back into her room, changed Big T's poopy diaper, put OC back in her little bed with her af-a-gany and her blankie (not the same thing at all, you know) and re-informed both of them of the rules of Quiet Time (we stay in our bed, we rest, we do not get up and wander around and disturb other children). Now there is less Quiet than there was before, and I'm sure my neighbors are hearing the brunt of OC's rage.

However.

The two year old doesn't control sleeptimes in this house. She doesn't control mealtimes, either. I don't get mothers who say, Well, he won't sleep in his bed, or he won't eat at the table, or whatever. And they're talking about a nine-month old. Won't? What does that mean at that age? It means that the parents don't want to do the sometimes ardous, always drudgy task of setting the rules and then enforcing them. I don't like that OC is upset, and crying a little, and the thought of her falling asleep still upset is upsetting to me. However, my will must be bigger than hers, because if I let her run the show on this one point, which is not insignificant in the big picture (if she doesn't nap now, she'll be a mess by 5, and I can't have that) she'll get the very bad idea that she can run the show on other issues. That never ends well for anyone.

I can usually tell the moms who are cavers. The ones who will do anything, ANYTHING, to get their children to stop crying, stop making a scene, stop using what we call a VERY SASSY VOICE in places that sassy voices are not appreciated, like library story hour, or Nordstrom, or 30 people back in line at the post office. My solution is a warning and then we leave. And I've done it--just said, that's it, and walked out. The most impressive time I did it was when OC threw a tantrum in the parking lot at music class because I wouldn't let her "ride on Mom," which is her lingo for me carrying her. I told her, This is your warning. You are going to walk like a big girl or we are going home. And she pushed it. And we left. Boy, you should have seen the look of surprise on her face when we got back in the van. It was like, Holy s**t, she meant it.

We haven't had that problem since.

BTW, OC is still hacked off at me as I type this. But she's still in her bed. And Big T is already asleep.

I just might win this one, too.

The Childrens' Museum, or, Why aren't your kids in school?

We got a late start today and there was a threat of rain (which proved no threat at all--we got trounced for about 20 minutes) so we ended up at the Children's Museum around 11:15. They have an excellent hands-on exhibit called Abracadabra that OC and the T's (twins) love. What puzzled me when we arrived is not the number of children present--it's always been busy when we've gone--but how old the kids were. Seven, eight, nine year olds were frolicking around with much-younger siblings, working the tops, playing in the water tables, playing pretend store and riding the faux RTA. Parents were clearly present and trying to herd their progeny from one activity to the other.

What gives?

I don't understand kids who aren't in school on school days. I see it a lot and I can't figure it out. Why would a fifth grader be at Target at 10 am? Why are seven and eight year olds at Zagara's when you can hear the second bells ringing down the street at Boulevard Elementary? And today, why would a group of siblings be causing chaos at a museum instead of getting their heads on straight in a regular school classroom?

Oh, the homeschoolers will protest. It could have been a homeschool field trip, or a homeschool recess, or a homeschool break. Homeschool, my tuchus. Somehow these kids either railroaded their overwhelmed and easily broken mothers into letting them rip school for the day or the moms, despite their normal enough appearances, have this idea that school is optional if you've got something theoretically better to do. These are the same parents who will berate the school district for the way it organizes breaks because (and I've heard this) they don't line up with "extended family vacations."

The schools do allot for extended family vacations. It's called summer. And October is hardly that.

Playground Politics, Vol. 1

Gosh, it didn't take long for this topic to rear its ugly head. For those of you who aren't familiar with playground culture, let me tell you this first off: it's the first competitive sport your children have to play, and at least they have you to help them run interference for them. If they didn't, they'd get crushed in the melee.

The scene: Kenilworth Park, Cleveland Heights. I like it because it's never crowded and they always seems to have fresh woodchips, which is critical when you're dealing with at least one child who isn't a confident walker. The culprits: two moms with one child each (this is another issue for me, one I'll deal with later). One of the kids is a pretty blond girl about 20 months whom my oldest was desperate to befriend. The other was 3 month old boy, bundled up and snoozing in a pram. The moms were my age.

The showdown started when Oldest Child (OC from now on) followed the girl onto the climber and said, Hi. Because this is her thing now, to say Hi and be social. She follows modeled behavior fairly well.

The blond girl starts screaming. SCREAMING. If the mother could have grown wings and flown onto the climber, she would have. She shoves past OC and picks up Blondie and stares accusingly at my kid, who has begun her "It's okay, girly" speech, because she has sisters and knows what it means to have empathy for another child in distress. Blondie's mom calls down to me, in reference to her daughter, "She doesn't like strangers." I responded, "I'm sorry about that. [OC] is eager to try out her friend-making skills." At which point Swaddled Baby's mom pipes up and says, "Well, we're here on a playdate together." She gives me the defiant jaw, and slowly the picture comes into focus. They are In. We are Out. I can't force them to play with my children, but I can let them know that I am thinking I wouldnt want them to anyway. I responded, "Why yes, because gosh, your son is just raring to have a go!" Blondie's mom marches down the climber, grabs her stroller, and she and her cohort move their stuff over by the swings. They don't look our way again.

My child, meanwhile, is still standing on the climber saying, "It's okay, girly" and clearly wondering where her playmate has run off to. I coax her off the climber and get all my kids in the van. There's no point in staying at the playground. We just learned a hard lesson in exclusion. Blondie was upset, certainly, at this bigger child trying to interact with her. But really, Blondie could have been consoled rather quickly and gotten back on the horse. The issue was that we got sized up by these two chippies and apparently didn't make the cut. And they let me know it by physically removing themselves from our space and nonverbally freezing us out.

This kind of behavior is so pervasive with parents (read: moms) in our neighborhood that it's almost boring to talk about it. It's expected. The mom whose kid has been in the only toddler swing in the park for 30 minutes and doesn't require him to take turns. The moms who show up together to a playground, commandeer a climber or the sandbox, and won't let their children even talk with kids who weren't prescreened for the event. The mom who refuses to scold her sassy, ungrateful child for being rude to other kids because she doesn't want to be seen as a controlling mother. These are the same women who cluck about the fact that 70% of children born in the city of Cleveland are born to unwed mothers 18-22 and that those children are set out on a life of poverty and crime. Well, Kettle, this is Pot, and I'm here to tell you that your children may not be poor or criminals, but they are rude and spoiled, and some days I'm hard pressed to decide which is worse.

So here I go.

I've been talking about doing this for a while and when my friend Jim said he had a blog (albeit about his yard, of which he is obsessed) I knew it was time. If he can spend six months writing about hosta, I can write about this mess.

By the way, I'm not disparaging Jim's yard blog. It's actually quite motivating. http://theresnohorsetoodeadtobeat.blogspot.com/ He and his wife Pat taught me how to split hosta only yesterday, and today I split seven plants and moved three more. So it was a worthwhile lesson, and one which I will put to good use often.

The question is what I want to write about. In typical fashion, I'll say my kids, my never-ending quest for the Ph.D. (not one of my three degrees, but one that I want more than any of the others), my book club, playground politics, and the curious cultural significance of street signs.

Jim said to keep the blog about one thing. My feeling is, there are so many kinds of hosta to choose from....why have just one variety in your yard?