The Mother of All Spa Moments

Don’t get me wrong: I love my children.  Being a mother has been—hands down—the greatest miracle of my life.  I was born to do it, I wholly embrace it, I am thankful every single day that I am a full-time, stay-at-home mom. 

But sometimes. 

I need. 

A break.

My twenty-year-old self would fall over laughing at what I now consider a spa moment.  Not a trip to an actual spa, mind you, but a trip to the grocery store without my kids.  Ten minutes alone in my car, blasting Carrie Underwood instead of Music Together.  Any appointment, however banal, that I can attend unencumbered by Goldfish crackers and Wet Wipes. The dentist, the gynecologist, jury duty.  The opportunity to sit on a couch that is not being jumped on, in a room that I will never have to vacuum, reading back issues of US Weekly.

So you can imagine my glee at discovering I needed a tonsillectomy.  “Two weeks of down time,” my ENT warned me.  “A week of pain followed by a week of exhaustion.”

“No problem,” I told her smugly.  I knew from pain; I’d birthed three children. I’d been exhausted since 2003.  But two weeks of down time?  Two WEEKS?  Of DOWN TIME?   DOCTOR’S ORDERS???  This was a Christmas present beyond comprehension.  

On December 27^th, as soon as my husband and kids had ushered me into the waiting room of the short-term surgery unit and I’d donned my official hospital bracelet, I waved them away.  “I’ll be fine,” I said firmly, hugs all around.  “I love you.  I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“Are you sure, Mama?” my five-year-old asked.  “You don’t want us to wait?”

“No, no,” I said, self-sacrificing mother that I am.  “Go have some fun.”

And did I enjoy every pre-operative, trashy magazine reading, trashy TV watching, hairnet and johnny wearing, lounging on my gurney all by my lonesome moment?  Yes, I did.  When the anesthesiologist put me under, I babbled about college.  I woke to a delightful white haze of smiling nurses and cranberry juice.  I could have been on the beach.  My husband was late to pick me up.  No worries.  More cranberry juice.  More pain medication.  Door-to-door wheelchair service from recovery room to car.  I felt like a queen.

For two days, I was a queen.  I lay on my flannel-sheeted throne, hopped up on Vicodin and Haagen-Dazs, watching movies and devouring the new book I’d gotten for Christmas.  My husband and children were magically absent, off to gymnastics, out to lunch, on a bike ride.  My Queendom was a sanctum.  A sacred place.  A place of quiet, and tranquility, and ice water.

And then . . . Day Three.

I woke to a throat so sore and a headache so severe I thought I might literally be dying.  “We’ll get out of the house,” my husband assured me.  “Right away.  Let you rest.” 

What happened next is too gory and pathetic to describe, other than to say that I spent the entire day doing the opposite of what I was supposed to be doing.  Instead of hydrating, I was barfing.  Instead of resting, I was crawling back and forth from bed to bathroom, bed to bathroom, blubbering like a baby.  What can we do?  My husband kept texting.  What do you need? What can we pick up?  Pain medication wasn’t helping.  Ice cream wasn’t helping.  Nothing was helping. 

Which is when it hit me, of course, what I needed.  It was so simple.  There were only two words to text back.  Come home. 

It’s funny, isn’t it—how the thing you wish for more than anything isn’t what you need in the end?   How when the nausea subsides and the dust settles all you really want is to be back where you were to begin with?  On the couch in your very own living room, with your children in your arms, dripping popsicles everywhere? 

Open your eyes.  Feel the spa moment.  Happy New Year, everyone.

Keepin' the Mess in Christmas

When I was a child, my favorite Christmas ornament was a golden egg, encrusted with faux rubies, hollowed out to stage a miniature manger scene. I loved this ornament.  For thirty-nine years I loved this ornament.

Until this afternoon, when I unwrapped it—oh so carefully—from its tissue paper cocoon, feeling the old glee rise inside me, and holding it up for my three kids to admire.  “This was my favorite ornament when I was a little girl.  See how tiny the Wise Men are?  Look at the baby Jesus.  His head is the size of flea!”

“Fwea!” my two-year-old sang, jumping up and down.  “Fwea!”

“Careful,” I warned.  “It’s very fragile.”

“Oooo,” my five-year-old said, leaning in for a closer look.

And, or course, knocking it onto the floor.

Where, of course, it shattered.

This was, as every mother knows, one of those defining moments.  I could yell. I could cry.  Or I could give Ben’s shoulder a gentle squeeze and say, “Don’t worry, buddy.  It’s not Christmas until somebody breaks an ornament.”

How can you not choose #3?  You have to choose #3. Especially at this time of year, when there is such a frenzy of maternal guilt and mass consumption it makes your head spin.  Listening to the mothers in my midst, you would think that a kid who is not getting an iPod Touch or a Wii—or both—for Christmas is somehow deprived.  That a house not perfectly scrubbed and wreathed and gingerbreaded is somehow unworthy of Santa Claus. 

Well, I say nuts to that.  I say bring on the homemade presents.  Bring on the broken ornaments. Bring on the burnt cookies.  Bring on the dog eating the advent calendar and barfing all over the rug.  Bring on the paper chains and the glitter adorning the counter and the grilled cheese for dinner again.  If I’ve learned anything from motherhood it is this: ease up.  Some of the most perfect moments are the messiest.

After my five-year-old breaks my favorite ornament and my eight-year-old punches him in the arm for breaking it and my five-year-old cries, and the dog gets in on the action and tackles my two-year-old and she cries, the UPS man arrives.

He comes bearing diapers.  And packing peanuts.

“Can we dump them out, Mom?  Please?”  The boys have stopped pummeling each other and are looking at me with soulful eyes.

They know how I feel about packing peanuts.  Five minutes of fun; five hours of cleanup.

“We want to make a snowstorm,” the eight-year-old says.  "A nor'easter."

“Well,” I say, “in that case . . .” 

And when the packing peanuts hit the air, there is a blizzard, right here in our very own living room. 

For a moment, there is peace on Earth. 

The Motherhood of the Flattering Pants

We have a situation here.  Ever since I became a mother I have not been able to wear a pair of pants—regardless of size, style, fabric, or brand—without needing to hike them up every five seconds so as not to shock the innocent.  This isn’t a weight issue.  It’s a redistribution of assets issue.  Ladies, do you hear me?  Have you felt the shift?  Has a disproportionate amount of your flesh found its home in the hip region, while your butt has become so flat that JLo would weep to see it?  Does wearing a belt just compound the problem?

I’m not complaining.  Really.  I appreciate the whole my-post-partum-body-is-a-badge-of-honor diatribe. But still, pants are an issue.

With one notable exception:

In my closet, at this very moment, sit The Pants*.  The fact that They are still in my possession is, in itself, a miracle.  I bought Them in 1998. 

The store: TJ Maxx

The price: $14.99

The brand: Bubblegum

The size: irrelevant to this story, except to say that They fit.  They fit me now just as They fit me twelve years ago, on the blind date where I met my husband.  They fit me all the way through the second trimester of all three of my pregnancies—and when I got home from the hospital.  The Pants are, suffice it to say, magical.

And no, They are not sweatpants. 

They are 98% cotton, 2% spandex.  They are black velour, low rise, bootcut, with silver zippered pockets in front and silver snap pockets in back.  And They stay on my body as God intended pants to do. 

Every time I put Them on I get compliments. I appear three inches taller and ten pounds lighter.  I can rock Them with cowboy boots, open-toed sandals, or Chuck Taylors. If I could wear Them every day of my life, I would.

But I will not abuse The Pants. 

We have an agreement, The Pants and I.  If I use Them only when I absolutely need Them—my husband’s office Christmas party, book tours, PTO meetings where the bitchy mom who hates me will be checking out my ass, my 40th birthday—The Pants will be loyal.  They will stop fraying at the edges.  They will stay with me as long as I need them.  Until I’m ninety.  Or at least until Bubblegum reissues Style #BG1940-894B in white, grey, and brown.

*Full credit to Ann Brashares here.  If you haven’t read The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants yet, you must. 

Sometimes it Takes a Hurricane

            We have a lawn again.  Yesterday morning, six weeks after Hurricane Irene walloped Southeastern Connecticut, the tree guys finally arrived.  Now the detritus of our yard is gone.  I can see grass.  I can walk from my front door to my driveway without spraining an ankle.  Everything is back to normal. And I feel . . . sad. 

            Okay, before you break out the straightjacket, hear this: I don’t want another hurricane.  I know that Irene wreaked serious havoc throughout the East Coast, even tragedy.  But here—in this particular town, in this particular neighborhood—something magical happened.

            It can be summed up, perhaps, by what my five-year-old son said when we came up from our basement camp-out the morning after the hurricane and walked outside for the first time.  “Mom, look!  It’s the best tree fort ever!”

            That’s what Ben saw.  Not the downed power lines.  Not the hole in our roof.  Not the $14,000.00 worth of damage and home insurance red tape and hours and hours of yard work ahead.  The best tree fort ever.           

            For the kids, this was nirvana.  A jungle gym that spanned an entire neighborhood.  A lifetime supply of marshmallow roasting sticks.  A road through which no cars could pass, so they could run, climb, ride bikes with abandon.

            Adults, unable to drive, were forced to walk.  Gone were the perfunctory waves from the windows of their SUVs.  People actually stopped.  And talked.  And offered each other a cup of coffee, or a chainsaw.  Teenagers, unshowered and unplugged from their iphones, slouched down the street in their sweats and grunted good morning.  I never even knew they existed. 

             For eight days, we had no electricity.  No running water.   No cell service.  What we had was simple: conversation, the joy of watching our kids play, a shared cup of coffee cooked over the grill, and a reminder that the worst of Mother Nature brings out the best in humanity.

            The power guys came all the way from Louisiana to fix our downed lines.  One mom made them hotdogs.  When the lights came on, we danced in the streets.  Literally.  It was a beautiful thing.  So beautiful I’m hooked on the junk.        
            That’s why I’m sad.  I don’t want another hurricane; what I want is for people to open their eyes again.  Unplug.  Check in.

            So if you’re looking for me this weekend—if you’re looking for me to give you a perfunctory wave as you drive by my beautiful yard in your SUV—maybe I won’t be here.  Maybe I’ll be in the Amish country, raising a barn.

39 scary/humiliating, but potentially life-altering things to do before I'm 40

On this traumatic birthday morn (Thirty-nine? Thirty-freaking-nine???), I did what I always do in times of trauma.  I started a list.  “Thirty-nine Things I’m Grateful For”:

1) My kids.

2) My friends.

3) My loving, supportive, healthy parents.

4) A husband who still thinks I’m hot even when I’m wearing footy pajamas, therapeutic cotton gloves, and the mouthguard that keeps me from grinding my teeth to dust. . . .

This list couldn’t have been easier to make.  I am genuinely, infinitely grateful—on a daily basis—for the bounty in my life.  But still.  Around #13, that niggling voice in the back of my head came back.  Thirty-nine? Thirty-freaking-nine???  That is old, woman.  OLD.  That’s halfway to 78. 

I know, I know.  “Age isn’t a number, it’s a state of mind.”  I could make another list. “Thirty-nine cheery clichés that are supposed to make us feel better about aging”:

1) You’re only as old as you feel! 

2) Act your shoe size!

3) Don’t regret growing older!  It’s a privilege denied to many!

4) Forty is the new thirty!  (Really?  Are white hairs the new highlights?  Is flab the new firm?)

Which is when it hit me that I am not, in point of fact, the big 4-0 yet.  I am merely anticipating the big 4-0.  Indeed, I have 365 whole days to be thirty-something.  365 days to change my attitude—and my perspective on the next decade.  Hence my new list.

“Thirty-nine scary/humiliating, but potentially life-altering things to do before I’m 40.”

1) Skinny dip.  (I know.  I call myself the eternal camp counselor, but I have never done this.  I saw “Jaws” at an impressionable age.  The time has come.)

2) Wear a bikini in public. (I am the girl who goes to the beach in a sweatshirt and shorts.  Always have been.  I tell people this is for sun protection.  I tell people I have a low body temperature.  I am lying.  The time has come.)

3) Dye my hair red.

4) Karaoke with my husband. 

5) Make amends with a jerk from my past. 

6) Hustle someone in pool.

7) Learn to tap dance.

8) Learn to lap dance.

9) Get my palm read.

10) Audition for something musical.

11) Sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. 

12) Let my freak flag fly. . . .

Wait--what am I doing?  This list can wait until tomorrow.  Life is short, people!  Birthdays are for celebrating!  So, if you’ll excuse me, I have a few things to do today.

I have cake to eat.

Songs to sing.

A bikini to buy. 

Faith in Humanity, Restored

From the women on my mother’s side of the family I have inherited three qualities: a mean game of Scrabble, good legs from the knees down, and the supernatural ability to lose things.

My grandmother Sidney used to leave her purse in the freezer and find it days later.  My own mother misplaces credit cards and car keys so often it’s become a family joke.  “Did you check the muffin batter?” we ask her.  “Did you check the toilet?”  No matter how many organizational “systems” we give her for Christmas, she still loses things.  And somehow, miraculously, those things always find their way back to her.  Like the cell phone she dropped in the middle of an Indiana state fairground during a cross-country road trip.  Not only did someone find the phone, but that someone tracked my mother down and Fed-Exed it to her next destination. 

Similarly, I once left my backpack (including my wallet and address book) on a New York City subway.  The transit police laughed when I asked if they could please help me find it.  “You’ll never see that backpack again,” they told me.  Little did they know that a twelve-year old girl would pick it up and, within 24 hours, track me down at the school where I was teaching to return it to me.

I’ve left my wallet ($300 in cash, $500 in gift cards) in a shopping cart, in the middle of a parking lot, and received a phone call from a cashier at Michael’s, telling me she’d found it. 

As a result of these small miracles, I have always been a believer in the Karma of Lost Things and the Essential Goodness of the Universe.  So you can imagine my dismay when my i-Phone disappeared last Thursday morning, somewhere between my car and the library, and failed to turn up.  My husband, knowing me as he does, had placed a GPS tracker on the phone and we were able to trace it to a beach house on the other side of town.  I called, I texted pleas for the phone’s safe return, I summoned the help of the Madison Police Department, AT & T, and Apple—all to no avail. By the next morning, the phone was off the grid and everyone I spoke to assumed that it had been wiped clean, its SIM card replaced, and I would never see it again.

But today, another small miracle: I received a phone call.  A lovely Turkish woman who works at a clothing store in town found my i-Phone.  The reason she hadn’t reached me sooner was that the battery had died and she didn’t have a charger.  Her boyfriend, an i-Phone owner himself, was able to charge it and read my texts.  When I went to pick up the phone at the woman’s shop, she politely refused the $20 I offered her as a reward and we ended up talking for forty-five minutes—about lost things, about our children, about trying to teach them right from wrong.  We got on the subject of the tsunami in Japan.  This woman had experienced firsthand the 1999 earthquake and tsunami in Turkey and she’s raising her children to believe not in the power of materialism but in the power of humanity. 

I came away from that conversation not only with my i-Phone in my pocket, but with a reminder of what actually matters.  I’m going to use the money that I would have spent on a new phone to donate to the Japan disaster.  Because I still believe in the Karma of Lost Things and the Essential Goodness of the Universe.  Because those people in Japan have lost more than i-Phones; they've lost everything.  Because if anyone needs to feel the Goodness of the Universe right now, it's the survivors of that tragedy. 

Join me.

http://blogs.reuters.com/prism-money/2011/03/11/japan-disaster-how-you-can-help/

The Upside of Total Humiliation

So I’m on this soccer team.  A soccer team that I really had no business joining because, well, I haven’t played soccer in twenty years.  And even then, my only two marketable soccer skills were speed and unadulterated aggression.  So here I am at 38, sleep-deprived mother of three, old, slow, playing with a bunch of shiny 26 year-olds fresh off their college soccer careers. And the only skill I have left in my arsenal—aggression—just doesn’t translate. I do a lot of slamming into people.  A lot of falling down.  A lot of groin pulling.  And a lot of explaining to my two sons—soccer players both—that no, I do not mean to keep passing to the other team.

So why do I suffer this indignity?  Because I don’t just want to be a soccer mom; I want to be a mom who plays soccer.  And because I subscribe to the adage,  “Do one thing every day that scares you.”  (Or perhaps more accurately, “Do one thing every day that humiliates you.”)

I am a firm believer that a little mortification is good for the soul.  It shakes us up.  It rearranges our molecules. It is the reason I write for an audience of thirteen year-old girls, who are themselves cesspools of humiliation, and who often ask me, “Did all the embarrassing things that happen in your books really happen to you?”  

           

“Yeah,” I tell them.  “A lot of those embarrassing things did happen to me, and they are the reason I’m a writer.”  Mortification, I explain, makes for great story material.  Just ask my high-school Oral Communications teacher, who, on her sixteenth birthday, got out of the shower and realized there were no clean towels in the bathroom so she traipsed naked through the house and down to the basement laundry room, where—surprise!—the entire sophomore class was waiting to wish her a happy birthday.

Everyone needs a good humiliation story.  Even if you’re not going to write about it, you can tell it at cocktail parties. You can tell it to make your kids feel better.  You can use it to remind yourself that today, at least for now, the junior-high hockey team is not serenading you with “Get Around” by the Beach Boys and Tammy Albee is not decorating your locker with toilet paper.  Life is pretty good.