There was nothing wrong with yesterday... nothing wrong with me, nothing bad happening, not that time of the month, no sick kids. I won't bore you with a blow by blow of the not-tragedies that consumed my heart and wore my soul down to a bloody nub, but I will share what I have been thinking about the dichotomy of motherhood... the way that the job is a perfect balance of the divine and transcendent to the menial and debasing.
These girls of mine... they are NOT mine. While their bodies are some funky blend of genetic soup that has brewed and stewed between Dadguy and I, not even my half of that soup is all mine. I have generation upon generation of ancestors to thank, and I'd like to think that LaLa's recent penchant for shrieking at full bore is somebody else's fault. I think I'll thank... umm, tsk! My Granny Grape. She's dead and cannot defend herself.
By the plan divine, we all progress and time marches on. The baby Pearl that was still living it up in my body when this blog began? She is officially been inducted into the mysterious Sisterhood of Chaos by virtue of her climbing the open door of the dishwasher and making her first grab for the filthy silverware. Fanfare.... huzzah, hippy-freakin'-kai-yay.
The menial and debasing side of motherhood? The constant sweeping, mopping, washing, vacuuming, blah blah blahhhhh, whatever. We all do it, some of us do it in a timely fashion and some of us wallow through the slime as we try to finish writing that To Do list while the two year old is ripping the plastic ribbons of movie out of the VHS cassettes so that she can carry them around by the ribbon like a cute little pre-DVD pocketbook... the baby howls, because that is what she now does, and the four year old who Will. Not. Stop. Whining. About the scrape she got on her elbow from falling in the parking lot.
After forty five minutes and two failed in-the-park applications of band aids Birdie was still at it. If she worked at it very hard she could maybe work another drop or two out of the now scabbing wound.
"Mama, it huurts still! The blooood is still squoozing OUT! I need a baaandaid! OwwwwoWowOWOWOWwwwwahhhhh!"
frustraaaation!
For the first time in her wee little life (to my credit, I feel), I tell her, "Oh Birdie! Just SUCK IT UP!"
A pause and then her baffled reply. "But mama, I don't EAT blood."
The blood, the poop, the barf-snot-pee rock bottom basics of human life, THAT is motherhood, and on a happy note... LaLa spent almost the whole day in the same pair of panties. Could it really be the end of Doobahs for her? Please. For the love of MIKE, let this be the beginning of the end. There is something that happens to my sanity after I wipe the sixth poopy bum of the day, five days in a row.
And then...
...tonite, in the midst of Chaos Family bedtime procedure, Birdie gave up the coveted lower bunk to her heartbroken sister...
Just
To
Be
Kind.
... and while I know that the primary part of her goodness came with the Birdie package from that place whence Chaos Girls come, I am redeemed. I transcend.
O, divine.
7 comments:
I call the constant housework "The Daily Failure" and it really can get you down. What's more depressing than cleaning something but within an hour you only have to clean it again? As I have kids in school now I relish the time I have to NOT fail...but oooh summer gets me cranky sometimes. Doubling up the daily failure with beeps and boops of toys and cartoons gives a person the trots.
When my youngest was small and a terror (He's still a terror at 12 and needs quite a bit of supervision.) I used to tell my husband that I was going for a while and I'd be back when I was less insane. That meant I was going to the Cedar City library for an hour to read magazines. People magazine is an amazing antidepressant when read in a 30 year old orange library couch, sagging in all the right spots.
Becky - I love the idea of housework being "The Daily Failure". So depressing, especially because it is such an accurate portayal of what it feels like.
Bon, this is just wonderful. When they do something like give up their bed, it just gives them a thousand points to cover their basic butthead-edness throughout the day.
Oooooooh! The Daily Failure. I get shivers- this is my life.
Sometimes when a Nemesis is named, my power over it increases!
But ummm, not today. At least now I know what to call it.
I just love you to death.
Yeah. You know I totally get it. ANd what a pretty way of writing it!
Oh you are so right - motherhood is a totally thankless job, 99.99% of the time. It's that 0.01% that pays the wages.
Having two babies at the same time who are so different for me means that it's so completely obvious that they are their own people. They could not be more different, and yet they come from the same DNA, born at the same time. I'm lucky I had two at once - I have never been attached to the idea that they are "mine" -- they barely have anything to do with me. They just borrowed my uterus for a time - they are so completely their own selves.
This is it in a nutshell, huh? The little tragedies, the little glories. It's so up and down when you have kids. Some days I'll be just about to leave her on someone's porch when Miss K will do something so simple, but heartbreaking, that I want to duct tape her to my chest forever.
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