Mommin' It Up!

January 21, 2010

The Referee Has Left the Building

It is 1983. I am six years old, and like every other girl in America, all I want out of life is a Cabbage Patch Doll. I want her round head, adorable dimples, and signatured butt to be mine all mine. And like every other suburban parent, my folks make it happen for either my birthday or Christmas that year. Hallelujah! My kid life is complete! Her name is Dorena Monica. Dor-eeeee-na, how beautiful to my six-year-old ears! I could not have chosen a more lovely name if I’d tried.

But my brothers, they had a great idea for a better name.

“Doofus”.

That’s right, the joy of parenting Dorena Monica was pretty much instantly dulled for me by my brothers calling her “Doofus” whenever they got the opportunity. I am sure my indignant shrieks of displeasure were music to their ears. I should have known this would happen, as for the past two years of my life they’d been deriving great pleasure from shoving my favorite stuffed animal’s (Bob the Bear) head down into his body repeatedly. When I’d regain possession of Bob, and pull his head back out of his body, there would be not stuffing left in his head, and I’d have to painstakingly work the stuffing from his belly to his head so it wouldn’t just flop there like he’d had a stroke.

I’m getting an anxiety attack just thinking about it!

And I have a point. The point is, for a long time, I have thought my parents were a little lax when it came to defending their precious baby girl against those monsters they had previously spawned. I mean, honestly the most I can remember being said on the subject was “Well if you don’t cry about it they won’t do it anymore.” Seriously!? They just stuffed my bear’s HEAD into it’s BODY and you don’t want me to CRY about it! I’m four years old, you want me to be STOIC!??

Ok, again, I have a point. The point is, I have always believed that although every parent makes mistakes, my parents did about 99% of things right.

And last night, when Joshua and Sophie were screaming at each other over whose turn it was on the computer, and I told them I was not going to fuss about it with them and they needed to work it out themselves, I had a light bulb moment.

Sibling arguments are a pain in the butt to resolve. And I am not all interested in being a referee. No wonder my mom just let Andy smack me around (while Charles watched)! I guess she got that one right, too.

January 12, 2010

The Final Round

Tonight was the first night of my very last class. I’m working on a MA in instructional design and technology, and this is my final semester. (There’s also that minor detail called a thesis, but I’m sure they’ll be plenty of neurotic posts on that subject at a later date.) I’m in a class about human development that I think is going to be rather interesting. The professor has a “traditional” style, I’m told, and from what I can tell that consists of her lecturing and us taking notes. And blue book tests. Oh, how I love the blue book tests. That was the standard teaching style back in the olden days when I was in college, and it is a welcomed relief from the “Go outside and observe a tree for eight minutes” nonsense that I dealt with last semester. So anyway, I think it’s going to be a pretty good class.

However, it was when I got home that I remembered just how much fun “class night” is – I guess I blocked it out during the break. It’s after 7:30 by the time I get home from class, which means it’s almost immediately bedtime. I pretty much walk through the door on those nights and put Sam to bed – I hardly get to see him at all. After he’s down, it’s time to start the process with Kate, and most of the time, like tonight, that’s not easy. Because I just got home, she doesn’t want me to leave her room after stories and prayers the way I typically would, which leads to lots of tears and phrases like “Mommy I just miss you” and “Mommy I just want you,” which of course makes me feel quite guilty. Tonight I was extremely exhausted and just wanted to go to bed myself, and I didn’t have a lot of patience, which of course made the guilt even worse.

Jenny often reminds me that she was in kindergarten, like Kate, when her mom earned a master’s degree, and that she was not psychologically damaged and in fact hardly remembers it. I know this will be the case with Kate as well, and though it’s hard to have that perspective when she’s crying because she hasn’t seen me all day, I am trying to keep that in mind. And, it will be over soon, right?

One week down, 15 weeks to go.

January 6, 2010

If, When

Growing up I always wanted a big family. First I would say, “I want five or six kids.” I remember once when Bobby and I were talking about it early in our marriage and he said he thought two was a good number and I was horrified. Then I had one, and even though he was a pretty easy baby, I thought, ok, “I’d like three.”

Then I had a second, and she was, um, let’s say, difficult. Because I was violently ill for about the first 15 weeks of my pregnancy with her, I was already feeling before she was even born, that there was no way I could possibly go through that again. Still, when I was on the operating table after Sophie was born, when my doctor asked me if I wanted her to tie my tubes, I said no. Because I was 29, and I just wasn’t ready to say that my childbearing years were over.

And then in the ensuing weeks, the transition from being a mother of one to being a mother of two pretty much solidified it for me. I was done. Even though, after I decided that, I would get sad thinking of that bunch of kids I wanted to have that I was not going to have.

But now, over three years later, I wonder. I’m 32, if we’re gonna do this, we should do this. But can we? Do we want to? I’ve already told my mom to put away her hopes and the high chair she keeps in her dining room.

I’m doing so well on my depression/anxiety meds, do I want to mess with that? I really don’t.

But sometimes, looking at our two amazing kids, Bobby and I look at each other, and say, “Wow we make amazing kids. Maybe we need another one.”

And seeing baby Marler be born…it made me sad that I’ll never have that again.

All our baby stuff has long since been given away. We would really have to start over. And we don’t know if we want to or not.

So how did you know when you were done?

(P.S. Mom, please do not get excited.)