I Couldn't Ask for More

My kids and I have a nightly dinnertime routine. As I am doing one of the twenty-five tasks at hand, one of my little darlings will inevitably ask me for a twenty-sixth.

By rote I reply, "Mommy is not a...

"... Fairy or a genie, she is a mommy," one or more of my angels reply, sounding as if they were programmed by some mad woman.

My reminding them of my lack of super powers does little to change their idea that in fact mommy can do everything and anything.

Truth be told, I'm 45 and I still think my mother has her super cape ready to grab whenever one of my sisters or me need her. It's hard for me to admit it, but to my children I am a supermom.

I am able to cure most ills with a kiss and a hug. Unlike daddy, I know you can't mix chocolate Turkey Hill ice cream with chocolate Haagen-Dazs. I know you have to pretend to give my youngest food on his plate, even if it is full, because if his sister or brother gets more to eat, he feels left out.

I know that if you sing, "I'm going to wash that man (or girl, if it's my son)" when you take a shower, it's not as scary. And, I know that when my special-needs daughter says, "I can't get out of the tunnel," it's her way of saying she needs help getting dressed.

No parenting book teaches that stuff.

My skill set is filled with the tricks of the trade I have picked up being a mother of three precious children. They may get mad, or wish they could trade me in, but I am mom. I am the center of their universe.

Pretty heady stuff. Pretty scary too. Sometimes I can't help but wonder what would happen if I was not around.

I don't like to dwell on this thought, but this month marked the fortieth anniversary of the death of my husband's mother. My husband was 12, the age of our oldest son. My mother-in-law was 44, a year younger than I am now.

I have always looked at my mother-in-law's death through the eyes of my husband. Her loss was devastating, something I've wished I could erase with our own happy family memories.

But recently I have been seeing her death through my own eyes, that of a mother of three children of her own. I wonder what in the world my mother-in-law must have went through once she learned her cancer was terminal. She knew the pain her children and husband would suffer once she died, and she had the pain of knowing they would go on without her.

My husband's sisters were on the cusp of starting their own lives. One was a junior in college, the other a senior in high school. My mother-in-law had finished her own degree a few years before and had a career as a school nurse. My husband, her youngest, was going to start high school soon. She was coming into a wonderful phase of life where she would see graduations, careers launched, marriages, and grandchildren.

She must have had plans with my father-in-law about their future once their job of raising children was done.

My husband was so young when all this upheaval happened, he really didn't know what his mother was thinking. Through the years, and my penchant for asking questions, we have learned a few things.

My sister-in-law shared that her mother had her daughters pick out their china patterns even though marriage was not in either's immediate plans. Knowing that she was not going to be around, she wanted to insert herself, even a little, into their futures.

We now know that the reason his mom was so hard on him toward the end of her life is that she was making a conscious effort to make him more independent.

The pain of the cancer must have been nothing to the pain of knowing she was not going to be around to help him grow into adulthood. Or, that she was going to miss all the wonderful things her own future could bring.

I honestly feel that my family would fall apart if I was not around. Especially when I think of my daughter and all of her needs. And, in the beginning, I'm sure it would feel that way to them.

But, like my husband's family did, I have faith that my own family would eventually survive, even thrive, without me. I'm not planning on that ever happening though.

My father-in-law often visits his wife's grave. I always found this both beautiful and sad and assumed that the visits meant he was still grieving and missing her.

Some time ago, I started wondering if there was another reason.

Visiting the grave may be the one way he feels he can share all the good things that have happened without my mother-in-law. Seven wonderful grandchildren ranging from 31 to 5. The success that their own children have had in their marriages and careers.

He had to do it all without her, but at least he experienced it. The pain and the pleasure. He got to see the graduations, the weddings, the births. Life went on without her. Just like she must have known it would.

Next time I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders and bemoan all the chores on my to-do list, I am going to take a deep breath, and then say, "Thank you for another day."

Parenting 101

My father taught me on of the best parenting lessons I ever learned, and I was only five at the time.

One of my favorite things when I was a little girl was to go to Eisenhower Park with my family. The park had a small petting zoo that included a pig pen.

Any time my two sisters and I disobeyed our parents, we would be warned that we would be sent to live with the pigs.

It was a threat that was made in a way that we knew they weren't serious, but just in case they were, we better do what we were told.

I can't remember what made me buck the system one fateful day after my father gave me his usual warning. But this time I decided to show him just how smart I was.

"That's fine daddy. Send me to live with the pigs"

My poor father didn't know what to do. This clearly was never a result my parents thought they would encounter. But once he made the threat, he had to follow through.

He made a big show of getting ready to take me to my new home. He got his coat... and his hat....and his keys. He hoped this would put an end to this and that I would realize that the inmates were not running the asylum.

I wasn't giving in.

I was having a grand time insisting that I was ready to go to my new home. I confidently said goodbye to my sisters and mother. Not knowing what to do, my dad took me to the car. I kept waving and laughing playing the game I knew I was going to win.

We got into the car and I was still waving goodbye and feeling pretty darn good about myself.

Then my dad pulled out of the driveway... and onto the street.

I am still 99.9% sure he wasn't going to let me live with the pigs, but I knew at that point that someone was going to have to end this. And that someone, was going to have to be me.

My father stood his ground that day and without yelling or laying a hand on me he let me know who was in charge. And it wasn't me.

I think of this story often whenever I'm tempted to ground my 12-year-old until he turns 30. He is an amazing child and I dearly adore him. As I did with my own parents, he knows he is loved and is very confident in that fact.

But he is starting to spread his wings and is determined to test the limits.

"I didn't go to chorus rehearsal today, I'm going to quit."

That was the opening salvo of our latest battle. I did my usual spiel of the need to keep commitments and deal with the consequences of our actions. In this case, it meant missing homework club. Unlike chorus, homework club requires no commitment and is just a fun place to do your homework and hang out with friends.

As the battle was heating up, I saw a letter from the school's principal. Thinking that this form letter congratulating him on his hard work at the winter concert was a sign from above, I laid the letter down to where he was doing his homework.

Suffice it to say, this did not bring the epiphany I was hoping for.

Quite the opposite. I can honestly say the Bill Cosby quote, "I brought you into this world I can take you out of it," came to mind. Especially when he started waving the letter in my face while threatening to tear it up.

I surprised myself, as well as my son, when I calmly took the letter from his hand and tore it up.

I'm not sure if I was right, but his behavior was clearly out of bounds and I felt the need to let him know who was in charge.

He continued to protest but listened to me and went to his room. When the dust settled, he came out and apologized. He was also looking for an apology from me. I didn't give him one. I told him that I loved him enough not to worry about his approval. I was his parent, not his friend.

The next day the pieces of the letter were still on the table. He looked at them and said, "I guess the letter meant more to me than I thought. I am sorry."

Being a parent is not for the faint of heart. Setting limits and following through can be the hardest part. It is also the most loving thing a parent can do.

I learned this at five when I almost joined a family of pigs.　

The Parent Jungle

One night a few months ago, the family was sitting around the table enjoying a nice weekend meal at home. Because my husband has a long commute and frequently doesn't get home until late on weeknights, the weekends are the one time we can all eat together.

We were laughing and enjoying each other's company when my five year-old just got up from the table and nonchalantly walked to where I was sitting. He then proceeded to spit out the contents of his mouth into my hand. For some unknown maternal reason my hand instinctively opened up. My husband looked up at me and without missing a beat said, "And we thought we would never go anywhere exotic."

We have been exploring the jungle's of parenthood for 12 years now. Everyday I am amazed and in awe of how each day can bring something so completely different from the next.

We have experienced such great joy. Watching our first son in utero dance around on the sonogram with the sound of his strong heartbeat in the background. Made all the more joyful since we had experienced previous pregnancies when the sonograms showed no heartbeat.

Seeing our daughter emerge with a huge shock of black hair and a scream that could shatter glass, knowing that at last our son was a brother.We were a family.

And laughing with complete delight when we found out we were having another boy after thinking our baby days were over. Having the wonderful feeling that someone was listening to our secret wish of having three, beautiful children.

Then there are the times when we questioned our ability to care for these precious people.

I will never forget the time my six foot husband took our first baby, then only six months, out of his crib. The "fly to mommy game" may have gone better if there hadn't been a ceiling fan in the nursery. I can still hear the sound of my precious baby's head as it hit the ceiling fan.

"Kathy, look at the baby," my husband said, in panicked voice.

"I am not looking if he has no head," was my hysterical response.

When my husband spoke with the pediatrician a short time afterward she said she knew it was a new father when she got the message: Baby hit head on ceiling fan.

Many a sleepless night has been spent tending to sick children or worrying over milestones not reached. There is nothing quite like being covered in toddler vomit to strengthen a marriage.

We have had weeks of panic as we have had to endure the wait of possibly devastating test results for our daughter. And we have had the frustration of sitting in a specialist's office only to be told they have never seen anything like our daughter and her still undiagnosed neurological disorder.

We have become partners in the truest sense of the word. We are the only two people in the world who know how the other one feels when it comes to our children. Laughter and tears have their own meaning in our world.

Little did I know, 19 years ago this Valentines Day, that when I said "yes" to marriage I was starting on a journey to a place more exotic than any jungle we could find on a map.
　

Past and Present

When I became a mother I figured I would lose some of my freedom and maybe even some of my sleep. I didn't know I would lose my once sharp memory.

There was a time I could remember things as insignificant as what someone was wearing on a particular day. Now I'm lucky if I can remember what my kids wore yesterday.

I could flip through my memory as if it was a photo album and recall what I wanted when I wanted to. Though those days are gone, there are a few memories that have remained crystal clear to me.

My friend Carol and I lived a few blocks from each other and were in the same afternoon kindergarten class. Carol was my ideal of what a girl should look and be like. Her long brown hair hung down to her waist, and she had the all-American face I wanted for myself. She always looked just right.

If Carol was a polished pearl, I was a diamond in the rough. I couldn't stay clean if I was kept under glass. Unlike Carol, I couldn’t color in the lines, glue anything neatly, or cut a straight line to save my life. School never came easy for me, and kindergarten was no exception. It wouldn’t be until years later when my dyslexia was discovered that I knew why everything in school was a struggle. But even at the age of five, I knew something was wrong.

I never felt like a misfit when I was with Carol. She liked me for who I was. If someone smart and pretty like her liked me, how bad could I be?

One day in class, we were working on Valentine's Day cards. I couldn't figure out how to spell the word love and I asked her for help. With the skill and patience my teachers sometimes lacked, she taught me how to spell and write the word on my card. I never forgot how to spell it again.

There was another difference between us. Carol was Catholic, and I wasn't. I got mad at the Catholic Church when the following year she started first grade at Catholic school. We were never classmates again, despite living a few blocks from each other. We rarely saw each other from then on.

I can't remember if my mother used the word cancer when she told me Carol was sick, but I knew it was serious.

I can still see her that Halloween when she came trick-or-treating. Her beautiful long hair was gone, and she had a little granny cap on. But she was on my front stoop smiling and getting her candy like any other kid.

A few months later I went to her birthday party and brought her a Barbie doll. Since I ripped everything unceremoniously out of its package, I thought it was so odd that she wouldn't take the plastic off the doll's hair. Years later, I wondered if she was trying to protect the doll's hair because she couldn’t protect her own.

I was home sick from school the day my mom got the call that Carol died. I was in the third grade and hadn't seen her for at least a year, but I felt the loss. She must have been about nine. The same age my own daughter is now.

It's strange to watch your own children reach the age you were when a significant event happened in your life. All at once you are confronted with your past, present and future.

Carol was in my life for such a short time, but the impression she made on me was very deep. Forty years later, I still remember her every time I spell the word love.