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Maybe We’re Doing Something Right

Mrs. Chicken — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:16:22 +0000

We went to our favorite soda fountain this weekend, the one that fits in with my fantasy of what life in a small Midwestern town should be like.

The tin ceiling and gleaming mirrors behind the long marble counter are straight out of set design. The two women who own the shop bustle about delivering meals and smiles on a round platter.

They make all their own ice cream and candy, and that was enough of a promise to quell the momentary rise of rebellion when I announced that we’d be taking a drive to the outlet mall to get The Babyman some new shoes.The restaurant is just a mile or two from the ugly red buildings housing the Jockey outlet store, an Old Navy and the only Stride Rite for 100 miles.

After we ordered The Poo was restless. She was hungry for lunch, she whined for ice cream before her grilled cheese. She pulled on her father’s elbow and looked up at him.

“Dad?” she said.

“Yes,” replied Mr. C, exasperated.

“What’s the secret to the world?” she asked.

We glanced at each other over her head, amused. “What do you think it is?” my husband countered.

The girl muttered something and her father asked her to speak up. She cleared her throat and spoke louder this time.

“I think it is loving each other, saying please and thank you, and picking up litter,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back in her chair, awaiting our judgment.

My husband looked away quickly, but before he did I saw the quick tears spring to his eyes. He swallowed hard and stared straight ahead, a fist pressed to his mouth.

Just then, The Babyman reached for me and pulled my face to his, offering for the very first time a kiss. He pressed his lips to mine and I looked at him and laughed, delighted and surprised. My husband looked at us and rubbed at his wet eyes.

This was a hard week for him. Or rather, this has been a hard three years for him. He often feels pulled this way and that, torn between working day and night to finish his degree so we can move on and taking the time to spend with our children and me.

He is struggling. He feels lost.

In that moment, though, I saw my girl shine like a beacon for us both. Her innocent words, delivered with the utmost sincerity, are lessons we try so hard to teach her.

Love each other above all, we tell her. We have to love; we share what we have with others, no matter how humble our gifts, to show our gratitude for the love that is bestowed upon us.

We pay it forward, we open our hearts. It isn’t always easy or comfortable to do that, but we do our very best.

Saturday in a crowded soda fountain in the middle of nowhere, we got a glimpse of our daughter’s heart, and it was the most beautiful sight we’d ever laid eyes on.

New Eyes

Mrs. Chicken — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:40:53 +0000

She is slight, with curly blond hair and a wide smile. She is soft-spoken and modest and has the air of a girl sheltered from the ugliness of the world.

I show her into the family room. I am embarrassed by the stains on the carpet and damp with perspiration from a frantic, last-minute attempt to tidy up before she arrives.

“Wow,” she says, turning her head slowly this way and that. “You have such a nice house! It is so big!”

I’m taken aback; I mumble my thanks and bid her sit down on the couch, wincing as she pulls a toy out from underneath her. She holds it in her hands, bones as delicate as a bird, and smiles at me.

“You are so organized!” she exclaims. “I would never know that two kids live here.”

I look around the room, puzzled by what she sees. What does she see that I don’t?

***

The streets around our home are lined with overgrown trees. Their trunks are gnarled and bent, and they look irritable, like the elderly men who shuffle out their front doors clad in slippers to fetch the mail.

When we looked for a house during a hectic three-day trip to the Midwest, I winced at the low-slung ranch homes with gravel driveways. The streets, without sidewalks, looked so ugly in comparison to the wide boulevards through which I pushed my daughter in her stroller.

Four autumns later, I walk the same streets that once made me flinch, homesick before I ever left home. My second child, a son, turns his face to catch the breeze on his tongue. My phone is tucked in my pocket, a strange reminder of a new life that requires me to be available at a moment’s notice for a far-away voice in New York City.

We walk, The Babyman and I, when he is restless. The bump-bump-bump of the wheels on the rutted road soothe us both. A man in a faded ballcap waves at us, smiling at the small boy with the blue, blue eyes.

“G’mornin!” he shouts. “Nice day for a walk!”

We smile back, my boy and I, as we take a left down Easy Street. The houses are humble and well-worn, some loved and some neglected. On the corner of Easy Street and Rainbow View, a jaunty white jeep pulls into a driveway.

The screen door creaks open and I catch a glimpse of an elderly woman, her body heavy with age, in a bright pink sweatsuit. She waits patiently as a young woman pulls a covered tray of food from the car.

Tears prick at the back of my eyes as I reach down to adjust the stroller’s canopy. “Babyman,” I murmur. “Mama loves her babyman.”

***

It’s been years since my vision was so clear. I see now, with 20/20 hindsight, how I let the past five years slip through my fingers. I mourned—deeply, legitimately—the death of my father. But the years that followed that first, terrible one are lost to me forever.

Months and days when beauty existed in the world. Months and days when my blessings mounted into great, shining hills and I turned my eyes from the riches. Months and days when my children were tender babies.

I struggled with the decsion—nay, the admission—that depression had mangled my personality to the point where I no longer recognized the woman in the mirror. Her eyes were so angry, so dead. She woke up angry and went to bed with sadness in her heart.

Morning, though it comes early, is welcome. Morning is when my children greet me with flushed cheeks and sleepy eyes. Morning is when I hold them close to my heart and breathe them in. I am in love, fully and completely and with abandon.

***

I wonder about the woman in the pink sweatsuit, the one on the corner of Easy Street. I think about the home of my youth, with its gleaming oak floors and bookcases filled with hard-back novels. I think of the journey from there to here and I hope against hope that when I am that woman, that woman in the pink sweatsuit, that I can look back over my years without regret.

In the distance I hear a siren and watch as an ambulance passes one street over. I cross myself, furtively, and whisper a prayer:

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee …

I think of my father, speeding through dark streets to meet his final dawn.

We get home, The Babyman and I, and walk to the front porch with sunshine in our eyes. I hold his hand and help him navigate the cement steps to the door, his gleaming, upturned face so open and fearless.

His eyes lock with mine, the love so strong that I almost have to look away.

I don’t.

Instead, I usher him in the front door and drop to my knees. I hold him close to my body and feel my heart open, fully, painfully … finally.

I Know How They Feel

Mrs. Chicken — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:53:53 +0000

I’m Not Sure Who To Feel Sorry For In This Scenario

Fiercely

Mrs. Chicken — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:40:11 +0000

I’m tired, so tired. But she looks at me, crazy quilt pulled up to her chin.

Just one song? Stay for one song, Mama.

I see myself in the kitchen, standing at the laptop, pounding out 300 words of drivel as she twirls around me.

Read to me, Mama?

No.

Sing with me, Mama?

No.

Can we make brownies, Mama?

No.

I’m busy.

I hate that word, Mama.

What word?

Busy.

I see her there in her bed, and I know when she wakes in the morning she will be different. That this moment will be lost. That it cannot be retrieved.

My ambitions are eating me up—my time, my attention, my focus is on the world outside my kitchen window. I peer into the computer screen and see my hopes and dreams there. I see a future made of words and phone calls and successes.

I don’t want to lose them. I don’t want them to remember me tethered to a keyboard. I don’t want them to gently mock me, when they are grown, for being too busy to play with them.

So I get into her bed.

I melt into her, my body relaxing around hers. When did she get so tall? I wasn’t looking. She asks me to rub her head, and so I do.

She sighs, turns her face to mine and fits it underneath my chin. I love you, Mama. Stay with me, Mama.

I miss her. I miss her so much when she is at school. She is the last thought in my head when I finally fall asleep. After all the noise of the day, all of the editors and the business meetings and the legal documents and the contracts.

They fall away, and she is what remains, and she is what I hold into, fiercely.

My Favorite Season

Mrs. Chicken — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:00:34 +0000

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My Kid Rocks

Mrs. Chicken — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:18:10 +0000

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Career Killer?

Mrs. Chicken — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:00:34 +0000

When The Poo was born, our plan was for my mom to watch her when I went back to work.

My first day back in the office was snowy and cold. I sucked in my tummy and zipped up my trousers, pulled on knee socks. I bundled The Poo up in fleece pajamas and a blanket.

We set off on the treacherous roads to my mother’s house. She lived on the lake shore, and as we approached the flurries thickened. The windshield wipers beat a rhythmic chant: go home go home go home.

Still, I pushed on. Turning into the driveway, my tears started and they didn’t stop until the day in April when I filed for a disability leave to deal with my post-partum depression. Leaving my precious girl every day—even with her grandmother—on top of my fresh grief, drove me to the razor’s edge that spring.

I could not stand it. In July, I made peace with that fact and signed my resgination letter with a rueful smile on my face. It was official—I was a stay-at-home mother.

***

These memories came flooding back when I read a post on Becky and Hollee’s blog yesterday morning. They reference an essay by an associate professor at the University of California, who wrestles with the question of whether or not a third child is a “career killer.”

Hollee asked me to pop over and maybe comment, and I couldn’t resist doing so. I could have written a novel over there, so I decided to take the topic up here, instead.

First of all, I think calling a child a career killer says everything about how motherhood is viewed in our society, doesn’t it?

Killer. Think about that powerful word for a minute.

*taps foot*

Now think about your kid.

See? WRONG WORD.

Children do bring change. They bring chaos and filth and imbalance. They bring a frenetic pace. They also bring joy, warmth, love and endless fascination to your day.

I love my children, and I say with confidence that most women like me love theirs, as well. I know many women who have careers they love, but I sincerely doubt that they would ever choose their work over their child if put to the test.

I chose my child over what was then just a job. My career ended four years before her birth, when I left community journalism for markeing in the interest of my personal life and my finances. I could not have a family or a normal relationship—or a positive balance in my checking account—if I continued on that path at that time.

I made a choice before I made a child.

So when the child came and it was so heartwrenching to leave her every day for eight hours of paper-pushing, the decision to abandon my hefty paycheck and soul-sucking day job made sense—it made sense for me.

Having children gave me the courage and yes, the freedom, to pursue my heart’s desire. I revived my writing career right here on this blog, the blog that was inspired mostly by my new motherhood.

My child? She breathed new life into my career.

I know my story isn’t common. Or maybe it is. I do know that if my body would bear it, I would have a third child. My heart fills up at the mere thought of my daughter and my son. When I look up from my laptop and the words dancing on the screen in front of me, I see their faces and I know my life is just as it should be.

Corporate life was a noose around my neck. My girl slipped if off me. She gave me permission to be who I am, inside my heart.

What about you? Did your kids kill your career? What conflicts do you have about motherhood in all it’s forms, WOHM, WAHM, SAHM?

Tell me. I want to know.

I’m Just Going To Put Down Some Hay And Be Done With It

Mrs. Chicken — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 01:48:24 +0000

I am convinced that when my children go to bed, they unzip their human suits and reveal their real selves—tiny, adorable, DISGUSTING PIGS.

I had an unexpectedly light work load today, and The Babyman was remarkably cooperative. He slept late and took a textbook-perfect nap. I had plenty of writing I could have done during those hours, but instead I literally got down on my hands and knees to clean.

The kitchen floor—and the family-room rug, for that matter—were filthy. Like, so filthy that the entire population of a third-world country could subsist on the food on my floors.

DISGUSTING, I tell you. PIGS.

I spent two hours washing dishes, floors and counter-tops. I vacuumed. I dusted and stowed toys in their proper places. I got behind the fence and cleaned up all of The Poo’s teeny-tiny Polly Pockets shoes.

And by the way, the person who is responsible for Polly Pockets? A firing squad is too good for that person. That person should be covered in raw meat and eaten by wild dogs.

At 3 p.m. I left the house to fetch The Poo from school. By 4 p.m., my house was wrecked. Wrecked, I tell you! Some brown substance, either chocolate or feces, was all over my sofa. And the floor?

Littered with sweaty socks, shoes, tote bags, papers, toys, and yes! Food! Where are they getting all this fucking FOOD? There are Goldfish crackers in every corner of my home.

Hey, I think I just pulled a Goldfish cracker out of my ass!

And speaking of asses, can someone please tell me why when one of my children poops, the other is compelled to poop at the exact same time, or directly thereafter? Why? WHY?

At 8 p.m. tonight I descended the stairs to see my filthy family room and dirty kitchen. I hadn’t eaten yet, but couldn’t rest or consume an ounce of food until those two rooms were clean again.

So it’s official, I am my mother. She could never rest until the house was tidy again, and I could never understand why. Now, I do. She needed order after a disorderly day, and all her days—like mine—were, by definition, disorderly.

Order is necessary. And so, I clean. While the children sleep their piggy sleep in their neat beds.

Or, I could just cover the floors with hay and be done with it.

Yeah. You know what? I am totally going to do that.

Apple For The Teacher

Mrs. Chicken — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:33:23 +0000

The Poo holds an apple she picked at the local orchard yesterday, on her first big-kid field trip.

Growing Pains

Mrs. Chicken — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:01:56 +0000

The past two weeks have been eye-opening—or more accurately, soul-opening.

Yesterday was a long day, even with four hours of babysitting under my belt. I had a lot to do, both professionally and around the house, and so The Babyman was trapped inside with me most of the day.

Then, when we finally ventured out to fetch The Poo, she poured out all of her hurt feelings from a tiff with an alpha girl at her school. The child, whose name I won’t mention, has figured prominently in The Poo’s school tales ever since the first day.

She loves this girl, looks up to her as a Big Kindergartner. The child in question told The Poo that she “wasn’t her best friend anymore.”

My girl, her heart was broken.

That set the tone for our late afternoon, always a time of insanity. Both my children call the hours between 4 and 6 p.m. the witching hour. They always have, since birth.

The Babyman bounced around the kitchen like a pinball, pulling pots and pans out at my feet as I struggled to make an edible dinner. The Poo moaned and complained and refused to undertake any task required of her—including emptying her bladder.

By 8 p.m, when both were tucked into their beds, Mr. C and I were wiped out.

As we are wont to do, we couldn’t help talking about our lovies, even though we were both relieved to see them off to Dreamland.

As we marveled over our creations, I had an epiphany.

Ever since The Babyman was born, and in fact well before that, I have been closed down. Hunkered into a small, tight ball, my heart rigid with fear and worry. There is so much to fear: joblessness, The Babyman’s early health problems, the sibling rivalry that I fretted about and which has since come to pass.

I started a new gig just after the boy was born, perhaps pushing myself to work harder than I should have at that stressful time.

All of these concerns—some concocted, some real—left me numb.

Lately, since I’ve owned up to my brain chemistry and admitted both privately and publicly that I was struggling, I feel a flowering of love inside my heart.

I am falling in love with The Babyman the way I wanted to when he was an infant. I am so full of affection for him that he squirms in my embrace when I squeeze him a little too often. I want to kiss him all day long, I laugh at his antics, feeling the rock inside me shatter as he breaks every barrier we set before him.

He is magnificent, my son is.

And my girl, oh! My little baby, the child who made us a family, she is so beautiful and smart. Today she told me that two plus five is seven as she swung her lunch box in front of her knees. She is just like me in so many ways, so sensitive and so fearful of the new.

But she is an open book, her emotions—good, bad and ugly—all right there on her face for the world to see. I want her to be that way forever, I want to show her that there is a better, brighter path than the one I trod for so many years, my eyes trained on the ground instead of the big, blue sky.

“Mom,” she said, this morning. “Last night I had growing pains.”

Oh, my girl, I thought as I hugged her tight. Me, too.

***

By the way, welcome to my new site. Eternal thanks and a pint raised to my English friend and biggest fan, Jon Beckett. He worked into the wee hours of the night last night, all out of the goodness of his heart, to make my site as clean and flexible as my soul feels right now.

I am on the verge of a sea change. Won’t you come with me?

Photo courtesy of urimland