Didn’t I Feed You Yesterday?

by Laura Bennett

  For a moment I flashed on an image of Peter, Peik, and Truman, saddling up horses and riding out into the wilderness, with no mice for miles. Or at least, no mice wearing shoes. I could almost smell the pot of beans simmering over the open campfire. Ah, simplicity. Oh, food.

  Food is absolutely everywhere. You can’t take a mousekastep without running into a restaurant of some kind. Care to visit Goofy’s Galley? Maybe Pluto’s Dog House? (Who would eat the food in a doghouse, I ask you?) Or perhaps Pinocchio’s Pizzeria? The pool deck is surrounded by mini themed food stands. My kids, who are normally not big eaters, were instantly overwhelmed by the lure of “free food.”

  “You mean we can have anything on the menu, for free?” Pierson grinned. He was mesmerized by the variety and the ease with which everything appeared. You just walked up to the counter and asked. No negotiations, no exchange of money. The pancakes, naturally, were mouse-shaped. The French toast was seared with the brand of Mickey. Even the ketchup was rendered onto the plate in three round squirts: one big, two smaller on top. Mouse.

  On day two, the novelty had not yet worn off. I watched Larson pull himself out of the ear part of the pool, skitter over to a fake grass hut, order a burger with fries, and deliver it to our poolside table, giggling deliriously. He had no intention of eating it; he’d gotten it just because he could. No parental involvement necessary. Ten minutes later, he went back and ordered a hot dog, to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. Nearby, the lure of self-serve soft-serve ice cream nearly undid Pierson, who by the end of the afternoon had stood in line countless times to concoct yet another version of Freudian Fantasia. Not to be outdone by himself, he also managed to mix about fifteen different “all new” soda flavors from the easy-access nozzles. How about a Pink Lemonade–Fruit Punch-Cola with a dash of Sprite this time? He brought each to me the way a cat brings a dead mouse to the door—with pride and insistence that I acknowledge how precious my son’s ability to jerk soda had become. So much for “Drop your kids off and have some quiet time by the pool.” I was only ever able to drop Finn anywhere, as Larson and Pierson required my attentive response to each and every new discovery. At least I got some quality time with Cleo, bonding with her over the absurdity of her little brothers.

  “Why do they do that?” I asked her, after one of the boys almost fell into the pool while trying to avoid some costumed character. Other kids went up to Cinderella or Snow White as if approaching celebrities, holding out little books to collect all the various autographs.

  “Two reasons,” Cleo observed. “One, they are boys. They have never seen any of the girl movies, and Disney these days is mostly for girls, except for Nemo, and it would freak a kid out to see a full-size Nemo, out of water. Second, you have nothing but disdain for sugar-coated fantasy. You have created them in your own image.”

  “That is not true,” I said, but Cleo was right. I like my fantasy dark and brooding, draped in cobwebs and with skeletons popping up out of it. So do my boys. Without trying to, I had trained them to mistrust good and to embrace the darker side of things. Was that so bad? “I’ll prove it to you, I’m going to take them on this ‘Private Island’ tour—see?” I pointed to a very Jim Jones–ish stop on the cruise, where you are actually let off the ship and encouraged to explore palm trees and a fiberglass pirate vessel anchored offshore. “They will love this.”

  Cleo rolled her eyes.

  “I will love this,” I retorted.

  I hated it. But I tried not to show it. I strapped on my lowest-heel espadrilles and gamely herded the boys off the boat and onto the shore, overriding their lazy complaints about how they just wanted to stay by the pool and make more ice cream and sodas—maybe even ice cream floats! What might chocolate and Sprite taste like together? They had to know! Luckily, there was more free food on the beach, and even an actual bar with actual booze so I could wrap a warm fuzzy blanket of alcohol around my mouse-numbed brain.

  The last day I did try to get all the kids to go to mousetivities, but by the afternoon we were all back by the pool, once again being regaled with looping Disney cartoons on the JumboTron (or was that DumboTron? It honestly might have been) overhead. Children with lesser fortitude might have caved, but after three days mine had had enough magic and dreams come true. “Mom, I want to go home,” Pierson said, drawing a tear of pride from my eye.

  Once off the ship at eight A.M., we were all raring to get those two plane trips out of the way and be back home in time for an early dinner and a couple of episodes of The Simpsons. Our flight from Orlando arrived in Atlanta just in time to connect to the 2:40 flight to La Guardia. Make that 3:45. Oh, we meant 4:40. Well, maybe 6:15. Actually, it was looking more like 7:30. Cleo was already back in Houston, and I was again kicking myself that I hadn’t made her suffer this part of the trip by my side. The delays were accompanied by a game of musical gates, some which required a tram ride to another terminal, all of which required me to break camp and move the three caballeros along. A toddler, much like a puppy, can only be expected to stay cooped up for a limited amount of time. I had to let Finn out of his restraints every now and then, which would result in him running in circles around whichever gate we were temporarily at, hugging strangers’ legs, and sipping from untended straws. Pierson and Larson, long over being entertained by airport snacks and the dwindling contents of our activity bag, spent their time wrestling, playing chase, and fighting to the death over a one-and-a-half-inch Lego figure of the Incredible Hulk. Why I didn’t bring a DVD player along for each boy will remain one of the great mysteries of the modern world. Had I thought they would have enough mind-numbing images on board the ship? Had I thought that traveling with my kids should be a time of fun and old-fashioned games? Had I been smoking crack when I planned this? Who knows? But it will never happen again.

  We finally boarded at seven, then sat on the runway for forty minutes. Somehow the shuffling around had resulted in the four of us being upgraded to first class. The extra leg room was nice, but first-class passengers have a heightened level of expectations and no one wanted to be in the vicinity of two exhausted, whining boys and a toddler with poop in his diaper.

  Shortly after takeoff, the exhausted boys all fell asleep, and I was able to enjoy a quiet meal of airplane food, which is exactly the quality of food to which I had grown accustomed. The angelic faces around me were certainly a blessing, at least until they became a curse as I tried to get them all and our luggage from La Guardia to Manhattan at eleven P.M.

  However I did it, I was pleased to put them all to bed that night in a mouse-free environment—no origami-animal-shaped towels, no mouse chocolates on the pillows. I still had two days to go until the big boys returned from the dude ranch, but who cared, really? I had survived a vacation with four of my children, and now I never had to do that again. Or at least not until Fox makes a cruise on which Lois and Petah are at the captain’s table, seated next to Marge and Homer, and Finn can run wild with the likes of Maggie, Stewie, and Brian. Perhaps I’ll send Peter on that cruise with the kids. I will stay here in New York and go on my own safari to bag the big five: Bergdorf’s, Bloomingdale’s, Barneys, Bendel’s, and Saks.

  HOLIDAZE

  “I grabbed the extinguisher and pointed it at the coniferno.”

  LET’S JUST DISPENSE WITH MY LEAST FAVORITE holiday right up front: Christmas. it’s not that I am Grinchy, nor am I guilt-ridden over the obvious excess required to celebrate the holiday with six children—I love giving my kids gifts and paving the house with new toys that will be dismissed and forgotten within fifteen minutes of unwrapping. I love that. What I can’t bear is the escalating expectations and ultimate pressure associated with all things year-end. There is absolutely nothing to buy for these kids; we already own every version of every toy ever made, and even coming up with a decent show underneath the tree has become a hassle. How many Batman figures does Larson really need to own? My older boys are always happy with the latest video game, but that doesn’t make much of a pile, and for m
y little men, it’s all about the show. Clothes? Forget it, they’d kill me on the spot. Books. Sure, if you like hearing your kid groan when he opens a package. I tear my hair out trying to come up with big stuff and lots of it. Peter tries to help, but usually comes home with the Radio Shack 200 in 1 Electronics Lab, forgetting we still have the ones he bought the previous three years in the closet.

  December is the month when, regardless of how equal a marriage may seem on the outside, mom is left holding Santa’s bag, or lighting the candles, whatever her religion requires. I can’t bring myself to do the Christmas card thing; I’d have to start thinking of a setting back in August. What will best represent how fantastic we are as parents and how blissfully happy our children are? A sunny beach? A pristine white ski slope? How would I get all of our children decent-looking and smiling in front of a camera? Getting six children to sit still for.2 seconds is not as easy as it seems. Then I’d need to find a stand-in for my daughter, who is never around, and spend hours Photoshopping her face onto the surrogate, not to mention Photoshopping out somebody’s pinkeye infection and the bunny ears Peik made behind Truman’s head. The entire process is just so exhausting. I have yet to organize a database of addresses, so even if I did have the wherewithal to get a card made, I doubt it would actually be sent out. I have a friend who never sends me a card for Christmas, but instead sends one on Valentine’s Day. It’s a brilliant idea; not only does she have an extra six weeks of downtime to execute this thankless task, but the card arrives after the chaos of the holidays and I actually have a moment to enjoy it. I am seriously considering Arbor Day cards.

  During the countdown to Christmas break, four backpacks enter my home every day, chock-full of announcements of school fund-raisers, recitals, end-of-trimester parent-teacher conferences (why does a preschooler need a conference?), and birthday party invitations (“I hope Truman can make it, it’s sooo hard for Christian to have a Christmastime birthday”)—a constant stream of paper working its way into my house, bent and creased and greasy and each single piece expressing its claim to a pound of my flesh. And then there are all the “Winter Solstice” events at Larson’s international preschool, because God forbid Christmas should take up all of our attention: we also have to find time each December to teach our children to be tolerant of others. Don’t even get me started on all the tipping and gifting—of teachers, teachers’ aides, teachers’ assistants, nannies, mannies, therapists, parking garage attendants, postal delivery facilitators (formerly known as “mailmen”), secret Santas, and class moms. My bank is broken along with my spirit of giving.

  How did spreading holiday cheer become women’s work? How many men actually make it to a holiday singalong past pre-k? And of the few who do, is it even remotely possible that they have sewn some sequins on Mary’s blue headdress or run down to the 99-cent store the morning of the big show, praying that there are three fuzzy Santa hats left?

  During this hundred-yard dash to the five-minute finish line of opening presents on Christmas morning, all children lose what shreds of common sense they might have had the month before. They may spend eleven months of the year jockeying for position on my favorite-child list, but come November 30 they are gaming Santa, even the ones who no longer believe. Like most parents with children hopped up on snowman-shaped cookies and dreams of the latest iPod, Peter and I wield the old fat man like a cudgel. Every other sentence out of my mouth is a shouted “Santa’s watching you!” After many repetitions of this threat, I sometimes have to take myself into the bathroom and soak my face in a sink full of ice water to keep from going insane. Who am I? How did I become this harpy, demanding that my children answer to a fictitious red-and-white executioner?

  As if all of the above weren’t enough, in the middle of the month my children are handed over to me for twenty days of “school break,” backpacks now stuffed with “projects” and “homework” to be done during our holiday “downtime.” Because, of course, there is nothing a child wants to do more than spend a vacation working. Talk about a busman’s holiday. Seriously, can we stop with the break projects? Does my six-year-old really need to make a photo collage all about him? Must my ten-year-old sculpt clay figures of middle grass prairie life? Yes, I know that education is an ongoing process and that without my careful tending they will slowly forget everything they have learned in the past few months, but if you’re so worried about them then don’t give them to me for twenty straight days. When the nannies and teachers and therapists all disappear on me, I find myself in the dubious position of having to take care of my own kids. I have to walk away from my career and go on sabbatical, completely and without reservation, in order to satisfy all the sugarplum dreams of this pack of wolves. They have been promised so much by the media and by the world at large that I am nearly blinded by the crush of responsibility. They have to be fed, for one thing, and entertained, for another. Why add algebra?

  Because of the exorbitant cost of traveling at Christmas, it has become our habit to head for the local “mountain,” armed with ski passes bought at a discount during the off-season. One year, I was too pregnant to decamp to the country for the holidays. The more babies you have, the faster they deliver, so my doctor wanted me in town in case the little one decided to pull a baby Jesus on us. We cobbled together some decorations from the 99-cent shop (my Christmastime go-to), and put up a tree in the apartment. The questions about how Santa would get in without a chimney went unanswered, Christmas passed, and for months the tree stood in the corner. Many months. We had found some energy and focus back in February to take off the decorations, but now the bare tree stood there, taking up precious urban square footage. I would like to blame the new-baby tumult, but the truth is that getting rid of a tree in New York City is not an easy feat. The Parks Department will pick them up and make them into environmentally friendly post-holiday mulch, but pickup is only on certain days, and I never seem to get the memo.

  In the country, we just drag our tree outside and burn it. This sparked an idea. It occurred to me that I had never used a fire extinguisher and that perhaps it would be good to know how one works—you know, in case of an emergency. So, in the ultimate what-were-you-thinking moment, we gathered around the city tree, Peter included (so I can’t be the only adult blamed for this), and someone held a lighter to a dry, crackly branch. It wasn’t me, as I was tasked with actually putting the fire out so I was standing by with the extinguisher locked and loaded. I’m a pretty good shot with a rifle; how hard could this be? The moment the first needle caught fire, the entire six-foot tree exploded into flames. Why this result was so unexpected is a mystery to me even now, but it caused me to scream and at the same time completely forget that I was the one assigned with putting the damn thing out. I grabbed the extinguisher and aimed it at the coniferno. It stopped burning as quickly as it had started. As I looked around at the apartment, I realized the true lesson of how fire extinguishers work, and why they should be used only in case of emergency: the entire apartment was covered in a fine white powder, every crack, every crevice, every curlicue of my husband’s grandmother’s elaborately carved French provincial armoire.

  “Ai-ai-ai,” Zoila said as she looked upon the scene, shaking her head and no doubt wondering at how we can create a fresh new hell for her at every turn.

  Unfortunately, I don’t have a Zoila upstate to deal with the magnitude of our collective messes, so during the holidays most of the crime scene investigations are handled by yours truly. As you can imagine, it is a constant job, with armloads of toys to remove from one part of the house to the next, and countless hours spent washing clothes, dishes, and weenies. The kids do seem to have a good time, but there are a few fundamental problems for me. First and foremost, I am a warm-weather gal, and I fear the cold the way some people fear man smell, or taxes. Temperatures in the below-zeros are commonplace in the Berkshires. I don’t care if my children get frost-bite—they can still grow new toes—but me? There is only so much time a woman with my taste in shoes
can spend wearing Uggly boots, and at about an hour I pass my limit. The occasional stroll out to the pond on a weekend is one thing; hanging out on a snow-covered mountain all afternoon quite another.

  These ski vacations hold little interest for me because I don’t ski. I don’t understand the appeal of a sport that often results in tearing something that makes your knee stop working. Best-case scenario, I am careening down a mountain at high speed, out of control. Worst case, I am on my ass, cold and wet. And why would I willingly engage in a sport that requires me to wear puffy clothes that make me look fat? I much prefer the cute white pleated skirts suitable for summer sports, or the regal gear worn for riding. Naturally, because I can’t leave the house for fear of the cold and hideous footwear, I am stuck cooking and cleaning, two activities I also try to avoid. I do feel a responsibility to put in equal time—Peter gets the boys to the mountain every cold morning, so the least I can do is have something warm waiting for them to eat, even if that means throwing something from the bottom of the freezer in the oven.

  As much as I love my husband, once the novelty of skiing with his children wears off he reverts to wandering around inside, looking for something to “fix.” I find myself wondering around day ten of Christmas break whether he has any errands that will get him out of my hair. I think he must feel the need to get away from me, also, because he starts to focus on minutiae that he otherwise tends to overlook.