The Highlight Reel

Well, kinda

Photo by Christian Agbede on Unsplash

My husband drops a kiss on my forehead asking “are you sure you’re okay if I go to the gym?” and I shoo him away. It’s his first time trying to get a workout in since we had the fat baby currently latched on to my left breast. He has just started to cluster feed and I settle in for another afternoon on the couch, operating a high volume dairy for my one extremely demanding customer.

A few minutes later, my son pops off my nipple for a minute, his little brows furrowing. At first I think he is just taking a minute to check-in with the great love of his life (his best friend, ceiling fan) and then I hear the unmistakable sound of a diaper being absolutely blown out.

As soon as his tiny butt stopped making a sound like someone stepping on a bagpipe while tearing open Velcro, he let out a small sigh and turned his head back to root against my breast again. It had been hot (perils of having a June baby while live in Arizona) and he’d only been wearing a diaper. I was wearing a nursing bra and loose fitting pants so as I stood up, I could feel wetness spreading across my belly. I stuck my finger in my tiny son’s mouth, trying to free myself from his lamprey like grip, and looked down at my collapsed soufflé of a stomach, now full covered in liquid baby poop.

It took me a beat or two to realize that the liquid in question had not confined itself to my stomach. As my son began to wail in outrage at the injustice of having his 27th feeding of the day interrupted, I stood frozen, realizing I didn’t quite know the order of operations when you realize that, for the first time in your life, someone else has shit your pants with you still inside of them.

***
My daughter sits in the front of the cart as we work our way through the crowded aisles at Target. It’s move in weekend for the nearby college and the store is filled with college students stocking up on dorm room supplies and snacks.

She takes a sip from her juice box and then announces, as though we had been in the midst of conversation about this, that “You know, Mama, that boys is alloweded to have nipples too. But they can’t make milkies because that is illegal. But I used to drink out of your nipples because they were milk, right Mama?”

She says this with a voice loud enough to suggest that she is not aware that other decibels exist, at the exact moment a small group of college football players walk by. They burst out laughing as they walk by and I realize that in another life I would have been mortified.

In this one, I simply agree with her that, indeed, my nipples had been milk and give her a baggie of Goldfish crackers to go with the juice box. She kicks her frog booted feet happily and I think maybe we should have 12 more babies just like her.

***
I’m getting ready to leave my office, hoisting my overly stuffed bag on my shoulder and juggling my keys and phone. I’m cutting it close for daycare pick-up, so I’m rushing when I pass a small group of my staff who are also leaving for the day. I slow down for a minute to smile and say “okay, nigh-night! love you!” as I hit the doors. I’m on such autopilot that it takes me a moment before I realize why they’re laughing as I pass.

***
In my heart I believe that every parents has, at some point, issued a new family rule that represents a sentence that they never thought they would say. Here are some of mine:

• Don’t poke your penis with a fork at the dinner table

• Don’t tell your friend that she’s allowed to pee in the sandbox

• Don’t kick soccer balls at your sister’s head

• Don’t trap your sister in a laundry basket just so you can kick soccer balls at her head without her getting hurt

• We don’t put stuffies in the microwave, even if they do look cold

• Nobody is allowed to have a used bandaid collection in this house

• No trying to make yourself fart if you don’t have to, even to win a farting contest

• If you lose the farting contest, tell a parent and don’t just put your underwear in the trash

***
After several rounds of “I said go back to bed”, I draw a firm line. Under no circumstances are there allowed to be more than 5 9 17 23 25 stuffed animals in bed at bedtime.

It turns out that I am willing to negotiate with terrorists when getting a child to sleep is the only thing standing between me, my couch, and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s that I’ve hidden in the depths of the deep freezer.

***
I have a high sense of confidence in my parenting skills and my kids are generally good kids who don’t tend to get in trouble a lot. Parenting, even in the teen years, feels like mostly smooth sailing, then one of my children does something so spectacularly stupid that I am briefly thrown off my axis. What did I do wrong that my kid would do something this dumb? They are older now and their worst mistakes feel more consequential; I feel worried and a little ashamed of my kid.

And then I talk to a trusted friend who is one of the best mothers I know. I’m certain she will keep my confidence and protect the privacy of my beloved little ne’re do well. I tell her the story and my worries about what we do next and how to figure out consequences for a good kid whose done a stupid thing.

She listens, she empathizes, and then she says “well, let me tell you about what my dumbass kid did last month…” and proceeds to tell me a story that reminds that sometimes all the best parenting in the world is no match for teenage hormones.

It takes a village, sometimes just because we need company when it’s our kid’s turn to be the idiot.

***
I’m driving my daughter to soccer practice and as she chooses with Taylor Swift song she wants to hear next, I say “Hey, I love you.”

She tells me she loves me too so I tell her that I like her and am so proud of her. She says “yes, Mom, I like you too.” I push my luck and say “do you know that you have been loved and liked every single day of your life?”.

She is the most Minnesotan of us all, so she just rolls her eyes and says “well, I think that is definitely enough feelings talk for the rest of the day” and turns up the Taylor loud enough to make it impossible for more annoying maternal sentiment to sneak out.

***
It’s Mother’s Day today, with all the emotional complications that can bring. I’ll send texts to my friends, the ones who’ve kept me company through all of the stages of parenting so far, and tell them again that they are good moms who are raising good humans.

I won’t call my own mom and she won’t call me.

I’ll think about my stepsons and how wild it is that they are both now older than I was when I first met them. I’ll miss them, like I always do, and be grateful to have been able to love them for the last two decades. They are very good humans. I don’t get any credit for that, but I’m grateful nonetheless to have had the chance to another adult who has loved them along the way.

We’re not a big presents on Mother’s Day family, so instead I’ll hope for my usual things: a bagel sandwich for breakfast, time by myself to read on the porch, evidence that my teenage children want to spend time with me but not in a way that requires me to take them somewhere or buy them something. I want to retain my position as the most popular person in the family without having to do all the things that helped me earn that title in the first place.

Maybe I’ll look at some of the old photos of my kids and let the highlight reel of the mundane and the absurd and the sublime play in my head for a little. I have been so lucky.

(Final note: today can be a tough one, so please take care of yourself if this isn’t a day you look forward to or one that brings up complicated feelings. You aren’t alone, and you deserve tenderness, in whatever form it comes.)