My daughter, unbothered by the rave-level beat, bolted for the back of the store where the desired sale items were housed.
I tried to follow, but kept bumping into tables and clothing racks. Was I getting cataracts? The store was so very dark. Did this Hollister forget to pay its electric bill?
I worried, what if I stumbled and fell, hopelessly injured? No one would find me or hear my screams, my body concealed by darkness and my stench of death masked by the gallons of Hollister perfume.
Wishing I had night-vision goggles to guide me, I reached out for the clothes to steady myself as I searched for my daughter. The workers went about their business as if they could see clearly. Apparently, Hollister found employees who were part mole-people.
Finally, I found her. I yelled over the music. “Did you find some things to try on?” Her lips moved as if she were speaking to me.
“What? Are you talking? I can’t hear you.” I screamed back.
Eyes rolling, she used hand signals to indicate she needed a dressing room. We found one, locked, of course. The omnipresent employees had suddenly vanished. In any other store I would have shouted, “Hello” or “Yoo hoo” to get some attention, but here I would have needed a soccer vuvuzela.
We trekked to the front of the store and found a young worker. I mouthed the words, “She wants to try these on.”
Amazingly, I could hear the teen’s reply. “There should be sales people by the dressing rooms who can help you.”
Really? Did she think that I passed workers standing idly by the dressing rooms and walked all the way to the front of the store to seek out her special guidance?
Guessing that the worker would not have heard or understood my sarcastic response, we returned to the dressing rooms and somehow found entry. While I waited, I saw fellow moms trying on clothes for themselves. Though I admired Hollister’s offerings, I know my place and it is definitely not inside a pair of skinny jeans and a camisole. I wanted to shake these moms and demand that they exit the store, head 200 feet to their left and shop at a nice quiet place called Chicos. Because, let’s face it, we are not Forever 21.
My daughter emerged from the dressing room holding
three shirts and smiling. The clerk rang them up. “I thought you were getting the sale shirts,” I said to my daughter as I noticed the mounting total.
“One of them was on sale,” she offered. I wanted to send her back to try again, but knew that doing so would only prolong my stay and my agony. Maybe this was some ingenious corporate strategy? They must know that moms, worn down and weakened of spirit, will pay anything for the privilege of being allowed to leave. Frankly, I would have handed over state secrets to make the torture stop.
As I paid, I barked at my daughter, “I can’t stand this racket one more minute! When I get home I’m writing a strongly worded letter and you are not shopping here again . . . not until Christmas!”
I instantly felt badly. After all, my daughter was thrilled with her choices and I was being a grouch. What’s more, I was so preoccupied with my anger that I missed noticing a transitional moment in her life: the choosing of feminine blouses over tomboy tees.
The clerk didn’t need to witness my outburst either. The helpful teen wasn’t responsible for the sound and lighting at the store. Probably she needed the job to pay for schooling or the racks of clothes she likely bought with her employee discount.
I opened my mouth to apologize, but before I could, the clerk cheerfully handed me my bag and wished me a nice day. My daughter smiled and asked if we could head for a Frappuccino.
I didn’t need to apologize. Turned out, neither one of them heard me.
Apparently, the music was too loud.
Less than 24 hours
School starts tomorrow!
All morning I’ve asked the kids to get their backpacks ready, but they’ve ignored me. Instead they spent the time lying on the couch comparing the shape of their fingers. At least they’ve moved up from their toes - that’s one summertime accomplishment I can brag to the other moms about.
Finally I gave in and organized their backpacks for them. I know I shouldn’t. I coddle them too much. I need to make them more responsible for the details of their lives. I’m going to start doing that tomorrow, but for now I can’t stand the stress of not having things organized.
My two younger girls and I went out to my mom’s at lunchtime to give her a birthday gift. She said she’s still not strong enough to shop and nixed the bear-stuffing idea. She said besides, she had too many bears. So I gave her a book, some mystery about a woman married to an Episcopal priest. I hoped she’d like the Episcopal part of it. After she unwrapped it, she inspected the book jacket suspiciously, then finally brightened, “Oh, it looks like some character is attacked.” Thank goodness there’s some violence in that book or my gift would have been a total failure.
My mom was really happy to see us and seemed like she was feeling better. She talks a lot whenever we visit. Sometimes I’m not even sure she hears our responses. But, that’s okay. She lights up when all of us are there and I love seeing her happy.
My eldest daughter couldn’t come with us because she still has 200 pages left of that damn Iliad. I wouldn’t let her go out with her friends either. I insisted she stay home and read. I don’t usually have to say no to her, but she has to finish that damn book before school tomorrow. When I finally meet that damn English teacher I might wallop on her damn head. The rage of Achilles will seem like nothing compared to this mother’s fury.
I really don’t want to spend next summer reminding my kid about her reading, but I know I’ll have to. There will surely be another book for another AP class. The gods have made it my fate. But by next summer she’ll be 16 already and maybe even driving. She’ll be off with friends and I’ll be lucky if I even see her. I realize now that I only have two more summers with her before she’s an adult. Why didn’t I think about that a couple months ago and appreciate our time together more?
I’ve got to enjoy my time with all of them more. They’ll all be gone soon and then I really will have turned into my mother, just sitting at home hoping and waiting for my kids to come visit.
God, I wish I didn’t have this job starting tomorrow. I wish it was already over and I wish I could be home with the kids.
But it’s only four weeks.
Then it’s just eight weeks until Thanksgiving break when I get to be home with them again.
That’s not too long. I can make it until then.
BOOK TWO:
Summer of Please Don’t End
“I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Yes! Yay for summertime!”
- Me, again
{Three years later}
Friday – The day after school let out
Chloe graduated. It was both wonderful and horrible. I kept it together until after the ceremony when I met up with her and her friends. Then my eyes teared up and when she saw me, I swear hers did too. But we were both able to dial it back pretty quickly. Thank goodness for our icy Nordic genes.
The whole thing felt so weird, so final, like our job as her parents was suddenly done. The last couple of months have been both wonderful and horrible. Every event was the last of its kind: the last choir concert, the last improv show, the farewell Girl Scout dinner, the final theater awards, the last prom. Each sendoff was entertaining and fun, but also felt like a knife slowly twisting its way through my heart, and I’m not talking a little paring knife, rather a Crocodile Dundee type knife, with serrated edges, and a poison tip.
I got to read her yearbook and discovered that she had been voted both “Class Clown” and “Most Likely to Host SNL.” I was more proud of those awards than had she been named class valedictorian. As soon as she learned to speak my husband and I began schooling her on the importance of comedy. We encouraged her to try for more than the easy pun, employ the rule of threes, a
nd never repeat a joke just because it got a laugh. Don’t beat it into the ground like other kids do. Take your laugh and move on, we’d say.
I’m not sure why this was so important to us. You’d think we would have focused on something more practical.
In a way I wish she hadn’t been given so many accolades. It’s too much to live up to. It would have been better to have been voted “Most Likely to Get Arrested” or “Most Apt to Get Pregnant,” something relatively easy to achieve. I remember in my twenties wishing that people hadn’t expected so much of me. Then I probably would have been satisfied to live for the weekend when I could feast on nachos, down brewskies, and destroy the sand dunes with my ATV.
Oh crap, that reminds me – who’s going to change the sand in the cat box when Chloe leaves for college? That is her job. That was her job.
This is too much to bear.
There are only 11 weeks before she packs up her things and leaves her childhood home - leaves our home, leaves me. But I can’t think about that now. I won’t think about that now. I won’t think about what life will be like when she’s gone, and I’m not going to wish this summer away like I have in the past.
Instead I will savor every minute.
Every damn, frustrating, teen-aged-filled minute.
Babies . . . Eeh
As much as I dread my eldest child leaving for college, there was a time when I had absolutely no desire to have her, or any kids for that matter in my life. While my friends would coo and melt at every passing baby, I simply never yearned for them. I’d fawn over an adorable puppy, but babies, forget it. When people would hand me a baby, I’d hold it at arm’s length, unsure what to do. Other people would gush, “Isn’t she beautiful?” but I couldn’t even manage a lie. Instead I’d mutter something noncommittal like, “Would you look at that baby . . . Isn’t she . .
. you want it back now?”
However I married a man who loves babies with a capital “L.” On dates I’d even catch him playing peek-a-boo with the toddler in the next booth. And when we talked about having a family I honestly agreed that “some day” I wanted one.
But in my mind that family was an idyllic Hallmark- commercial type family that magically appeared at my house donned in their holiday finest, ready to engage in witty banter around the dinner table. Sleepless nights and endless requests to be pushed on a swing were not part of that fantasy.
After stalling for almost seven years, I realized that if we really were going to have that family, a baby was the requisite kick-off. So finally I uttered the words that every eager father-to- be waits to hear: “Well, I suppose now is as good a time to start as any.”
I hoped that once I had the baby my maternal instincts would kick in, but no such luck. My first child was a crying terror who left me exhausted and miserable. I tried hard to be a good mom and enjoy her, but deep down I feared I had made a horrible mistake. It wasn’t until later that I realized her crying was probably due to constant hunger. First-time parents aren’t always so bright.
But what made things worse were all those dewy-eyed friends who would see me with my baby and say things like, “Isn’t it great!” or “Aren’t they such a blessing?” I wanted to smack them with a rattle. In fact I probably would have, but I was too tired to raise my limbs.
For months I paced the floor with my sleepless child, barely able to shower or eat. There were times that I wanted to put her in the crib, open the front door and run.
But then one day my dad was visiting and said something that really helped. “The reason God made babies so cute is because he knew that otherwise we’d leave the little monsters out in the cold.”
I realized then that I wasn’t alone. He knew exactly what I was going through. Well, of course he did. He had five of the little monsters himself.
Eventually my icy heart melted and the little buggers grew on me. I suppose I just needed more time - time and those adorable fuzzy blanket sleepers. Really, I think those adorable fuzzy blanket sleepers were mostly responsible for the softening of my heart. In fact, if you put a tattooed ex-con in a fuzzy blanket sleeper, I’d probably welcome him to my nest.
While I never totally loved the baby phase or even the toddler phase, now that I’m almost through with the elementary school years, my life with my kids is so different.
Instead of constantly mothering, feeding and doting, I’m finally enjoying them. I can talk to my kids about politics or the latest injustice at school or the horror that became of Miley Cyrus, much like I talk to regular people, and because I’ve brainwashed them into my way of thinking, most of the time they even agree with me.
I love being with them now, so much more than when they were helpless babies. They’re clever and funny, and contrary to clichés about teenagers, enjoyable to be around.
Sometimes, like when my eldest daughter wears her grown-up-sized zebra blanket sleeper, I might get sentimental for those baby days and wish I could have enjoyed them more.
It’s true I didn’t start out loving kids, but now . . . now I adore them.
Week One
My mom’s paid companions come seven days a week now, for twelve hours a day. They make her meals, help her shower, and do her grocery shopping. She refers to them as her “Helpers” as in, “My helper brought me to the beauty parlor,” or “I had my helper call Dr. Abassian’s office,” or “My helper took me to the sale at Damons and Drapers because I knew you would never have time to take me.”
I discovered that the two sisters who alternate as her helpers now actually have names, Annette and Dora, but you would never know this from talking to my mother. I have to constantly remind her. “Mother, you mean, ‘Dora made your tuna sandwich.’ She has a name. There’s only two, and one has purple hair, so it’s easy to tell them apart. They are not your servants and you are not the Queen of England.”
“Oh, yes, yes, I meant to say Doris made my sandwich.” “Dora! It’s Dora!”
Sometimes I think my middle daughter Samantha may have inherited the “knack for making people do things for me” gene from her grandma. When I see the way that girl manipulates her younger sister, I actually fear for the future of our planet.
Samantha became especially adept at getting people to do things for her when she missed three months of the 7th grade because she was sick with mono – the Mono Days of Spring we called it. She was so sick and missed out on so much early teenage fun, that I felt bad for her, and I catered to her every whim.
Even though I wanted her to recover and be a normal teenager again, I secretly enjoyed spending time with her and hoped she did with me. One day I was out at the store and she texted, “When are you coming back home?” That’s so sweet, I thought. I’ve only been gone a couple hours and she already misses me.
Then I got the next text, “Cuz I need help opening my
Pepsi.”
She finally did get better and returned for the start of the
8th grade, but then by springtime she felt sick again, this time with stomach pains and incredible weakness. After another few months home from school, trips to various doctors, and numerous tests, we discovered she has Celiac Disease. The doctors told her that she could no longer eat bread or pasta, or ever drink a sip of beer.
“But what am I gonna do when I go to college?” she asked, earnestly.
She was well enough to return to school in the fall and completed the entire 9th grade. To celebrate she’s having outpatient surgery tomorrow to remove a benign bone tumor thingy that she’s had on her knee for the last three years. Woo hoo! Lucky Samantha. Fun times.
She’s been a good sport about it all, and even though I know that many kids and families have suffered worse, it still doesn’t seem fair that she’s been through so much.
I just want her to have a normal, carefree childhood. If there is such a thing.
Gluten-Free Drop Out
It started with a pretzel, the deliciously crunchy stick kind; my favorite, “go to” snack food before the gluten-fre
e edict came down.
Oh, how I savored that pretzel and its crunchy salty goodness, all the while promising myself, I’ll just have this one. But I looked down a few seconds later and the bag was empty. Good Lord, how could I have been so weak?
Barely a month had passed since my daughter was diagnosed with Celiac Disease, the autoimmune disorder that attacks one’s own digestive system if even specks of wheat, rye, or barley are consumed. Of course we didn’t bat an eye when her doctor said that to prevent cross-contamination, our entire household needed to go gluten-free. We’d do whatever it takes to help Samantha feel better again.
I was confident I wouldn’t have a problem going gluten- free. After all, parents are used to sacrificing for their children and, besides, I was pregnant three times and never had a problem giving up sushi, coffee or wine (well, you know, within reason).
My husband embraced the change, hoping that he too might feel better without all those carbs. Admittedly my other two daughters weren’t thrilled, but once they heard that they could still eat most of their favorite decadent foods like nachos, steak, and ice cream they were okay with it.
For the first few weeks it was great. We ate like kings, as my talented chef husband whipped up naturally gluten-free meals like enchiladas, barbecued ribs, and stir-fry. Next he tackled gluten-free pastas and flours, all with surprising results. “Wow, this tastes almost like the real thing,” we would say, genuinely amazed that gluten-free foods could be so delicious.
I maintained my gluten-free diligence even when out of the house or at work. After all, Samantha couldn’t choose when and where to follow the diet, nor should I.
But then... the hunger came; the insatiable, unquenchable hunger. Because no matter how much gluten-free food I ate, I never felt satisfied. It never felt like enough. As I lay in bed at night, my wheat-deprived belly actually ached. There was this constant gnawing in my stomach like something was missing, something that was filling and warm and doughy. Something like, oh, I don’t know, perhaps BREAD?
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