Don't Lick the Minivan

by Leanne Shirtliffe

  “Be good,” I said, as I whisked Will and Vivy inside the red automatic doors of stationery heaven. I wandered over to the computer section with my kids in tow.

  “Can I help you?” a sixteen-year-old pimpled cutie asked me.

  He could. He explained what kind of router I needed, the cost effectiveness of different brands, and how to use simple technology to take down a spy satellite.

  Vivy and Will danced and giggled, seemingly playing hide and seek amid the mid-aisle displays. I caught them looking at me and bursting into laughter, but that was nothing new.

  Eventually, I pulled a Homer Simpson and selected the second cheapest router. I took it, paid, and marched us into the Arctic air.

  Halfway to the car, I saw a mitten-less Will fiddling with his jacket pocket. “What’s in there?” I asked. “Your mitts?”

  “No, I left them in the car.”

  I stopped, faced Will, and repeated, “What’s in there?” I could see my breath hang in the air, accompanying his guilt. He looked at Vivy, who shook her head at him.

  He pulled out a pen—a squat pen with a face and funky plastic hair.

  “William,” I said. “You can’t take a pen. That’s stealing. We’re going back to the store.”

  He looked down and fiddled with his back pocket. He pulled out two more pens.

  “William? How many more do you have?”

  We stopped in the entry and did an inventory. Then we walked to the cashier and put them on the counter.

  “Tell the woman you’re sorry you stole seven pens,” I said.

  “Sorry,” Will said.

  The teen girl—who I half suspected had a crush on tech boy—smiled and took the pens back.

  As we walked out into the frozen tundra, I continued my lecture, saying words like “police,” “jail,” and “no TV.”

  I unlocked the van and we entered in silence.

  I looked back to see if Vivy and Will had fastened their seat belts. What my eyes fell on, however, were Vivy’s hands, in particular the funky pen in one.

  “Where did you get that pen?” I said. Pointing-out-the-obvious was one of my few parenting strategies.

  “Staples.”

  “You didn’t think you should have told me when Will returned the seven of his?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Out. Both of you. Back to Staples. Now.”

  “Mom?” said Vivy, as I opened the van’s side door.

  “Yes?”

  “I took five pens.”

  “Five? Vivian!”

  “Sorry. I’m really, really sorry. Mommy, I’m so sorry, I really am.”

  She sorried herself all the way to the cashier who rolled her eyes.

  I drove home in silence.

  “We have to call Grandma,” I said. As a semi-functioning adult, I’d learned what to do when I couldn’t handle things, like cooking a turkey or dealing with thieves. I tell my mom.

  “Are you going to tell her we stole pens?”

  “No,” I said. “Today’s her birthday.”

  “How old is she?” Vivy asked.

  “Sixty-eight. No. Sixty-nine I think.”

  “Is she dead yet?” Will asked.

  “No, Grandma’s not dead yet,” I said. “You just saw her in Arizona three weeks ago.”

  Once we established that Grandma hadn’t kicked the can, winter marched on. Eventually Will and Vivy needed a bath.

  Even though they rarely shared a bath anymore, they sometimes opted to. Playtime in our soaker tub was like a day at the beach, complete with beach toys, soggy towels, and high surf warnings. I played lifeguard, sitting on the toilet seat and thinking about what I’d do when my shift was over. This particular day, Vivy and Will took in the latest dollar-store toy Chris had purchased for them: Scooby Doo fake shaving cream with a blade-less razor. While they made Santa Claus beards, I became absorbed in an overdue library book, The 4-Hour Work Week, which could not have been written by a parent.

  My focus drifted to places it shouldn’t, such as dreams of four-hour workdays, life without kids, and Colin Firth.

  A flying shark and giggles ruined that reverie.

  “Look at us, Mom,” Vivy said.

  I looked. Birds’ nests made from shaving cream adorned their heads. Then I looked more closely. “You’re shaving each other’s backs?” I asked.

  They nodded and continued their barbershop act.

  I sighed.

  Parenting Tip: When your kids start shaving each other’s backs, it’s time for them to take separate baths.

  “Your hair looks funny, Mom,” Will said.

  I felt it. The humidity of the bathroom had increased its puffiness.

  “You’re a fluffy puppy,” Will said.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled. I thumbed my way to the back of the book in search of an index. “Nannies” was not in there. Neither was “boarding school.”

  Water hit me.

  “Enough,” I snapped. “Time to get out. You still need to brush your teeth. And floss too.”

  They looked at me.

  “You’re going to the dentist in four days. She’s going to yell at you if you don’t floss.” I knew it was never too early to teach kids two important skills: cramming and using fear as a motivator.

  Parenting Tip: A regular routine of brushing and flossing is essential the three days before your children’s dental appointments if you want to appear to be a good parent.

  Will and Vivy looked at me. I smiled, that fake smile that looks like I’m hiding severe indigestion. I knew full well that the dentist or her hygienist would ask them if they floss. I also knew that my kids wouldn’t lie. I became spin-doctor Mommy.

  “Can we play a bit longer?” Vivy asked.

  “Sure. You can shave each other’s backs for five more minutes.”

  Every International Women’s Day, I sacrifice a slutty toy to the great landfill in the sky. Because what says “International Women’s Day” like violently destroying a piece of plastic my daughter loves?

  It started with the shoes. These red plastic shoes that Vivy loved to wear around the house. They were that special type of plastic, the kind that was always either too big or too small and had a grip comparable to Bambi learning to stand on ice.

  I have nothing against red fancy shoes. I have a pair of peep-toe, three-inch heels that remind me I used to be sexy, I’m as tall as my husband, and I have bunions that Paul Bunyan himself would have had fun chopping off.

  But Vivy’s hand-me-down shoes were heeled and made from the carcinogen family of plastics. My original approach to dealing with Vivy’s red shoes of death involved denial: I tossed them into the dress-up box before a trip to the ER was required. Then, a month or so later, I’d hear the clip clop of uncertain steps again.

  So, when Will and Vivy were still in preschool, I destroyed the shoes. It involved a hammer, some cursing, and two Band-Aids.

  With our twins now in kindergarten, it was time to up the ante. I destroyed the toy Chris nicknamed “Stripper Barbie.” Stripper Barbie was a hand-me-down doll that came shirtless. Besides being topless, Stripper Barbie had a button you could press that made her hot pink skirt light up and spin. Whenever the skirt twirled, it resembled Linda Blair’s famous head spin in The Exorcist.

  In fact, seeing Stripper Barbie in action made my head spin. One week prior to Stripper Barbie’s funeral, Vivy had been playing with her and four other dolls when she decided to do show and tell.

  Vivy held up Stripper Barbie and said, “Isn’t she beautiful, Mom?”

  I ignored the question. “Which one’s smart?” I asked.

  Vivy held up a fully clothed doll.

  “Which one’s funny?”

  Vivy held up another fully clothed doll.

  “They’re all in a movie,” Vivy announced.

  “They are?” I asked. I looked back at Stripper Barbie. “But where’s her shirt?”

  “She doesn’t wear one. Not in this kind of movie,” she said.

&
nbsp; My eyes bulged, becoming bigger than Barbie’s boobs.

  Great, I thought. Stripper Barbie’s in a porn flick.

  One week later, when Will and Vivy slept, I stood at the door of our bedroom and asked Chris, “Do you want to come to Stripper Barbie’s funeral?”

  “Did she finally die?” he asked.

  “Not really,” I said. “I’m de-skankifying our house.”

  “You’re euthanizing Stripper Barbie?”

  “Yup.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a bit excessive?”

  “Excessive is my style,” I said. “Do you want to come to her funeral?”

  “You’re holding a funeral?”

  “Well, I’m going to give Stripper Barbie her Last Rites as I wave her over the garbage.”

  “I think I’ll stay here.”

  “OK,” I said.

  Chris looked up from his book. “How come you didn’t have a funeral for Ken doll when the kids decapitated him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Chris continued his questioning. “Is our family the doll mafia? Are you going all Tony Soprano on me?”

  Tony? Nope. Carmela Soprano? Maybe.

  I walked away with the doll. Minutes later, in honor of International Women’s Day, Stripper Barbie went to the Great Beyond, also known as the landfill.

  R.I.P., Stripper Barbie.

  IF YOU CAN’T STOP LAUGHING, THINK OF SOMETHING SAD, LIKE DEAD PUPPIES

  Given that Will and Vivy had thus far survived puking in Arizona, camping with rattlesnakes, and their parents, I decided to try harder to inflict pain. I took them to get their H1N1 shots to protect them from the deadly flu that never came.

  True to my haphazard approach to parenting, I didn’t go prepared. No snacks, no games, no distractions for the lineup. I was spinning plates to entertain two kids already hyper from chocolate cake they had consumed earlier that afternoon at a birthday party.

  We began Operation Distraction by playing I Spy. I was pretty proud of Will and Vivy’s progression on this game. We started playing it as a stuck-in-traffic diversion when they were two years old. I’d issue challenging clues like, “I spy . . . mommy,” and both kids would point at me. Not exactly the Harvard version. Standing in that dim hospital hallway, we graduated to colors. It all went swimmingly; as we inched forward, new posters and doors offered a rainbow of possibilities. Soon, however, the line slowed and the options dissipated. It was Will’s turn. “I spy something black,” he said. I followed his eyes. He was staring at the boy in line behind us, a recent immigrant from the Sudan, whose mom I’d chatted with earlier.

  “All right, let’s play something different. How about rhymes?” I paused. “Name one word that rhymes with car.”

  “Star,” Vivy said.

  “Bar,” said Will, eyes shining, as if he knew where I’d rather be.

  “Here’s another one,” I said. “Tell me a word that rhymes with truck.” You don’t need the punch line to know where this joke went. It fell in the “Mommy’s not too swift” category.

  We progressed to Simon Says. After I jumped up and down for half a minute, a nurse uttered that beautiful word, “Next.”

  We walked to Station Twelve in the final row. Vivy opted to go first. It seemed like a good idea until she saw the needle lying in wait on the table. Then she started screaming, “No, Mommy, no!” I attempted to wriggle up her sleeve, but it was too tight. Great. More clothes that didn’t fit.

  “You’ll have to remove her shirt,” the nurse said. I twisted it off and snagged Vivy’s glasses in the process.

  The nurse gave me precise “gripping instructions” that seemed more complicated than when Vivian was an eighteen-month-old awaiting her immunization: sit my daughter sideways on my lap, pin her right arm between my back and the chair, and hold her left arm down with my other hand. Will watched the entertainment unfold before him. Vivy caught a glimpse of the needle approaching her arm. She screamed, “I’m not ready yet!” Her enunciation and volume caused all stations to pause.

  H1N1, Take Two. Vivy squirmed into a back arch that nearly catapulted her over the table, while screaming, “I need another minute!” She’s got some serious potential as a B horror film actor if her career as a one-girl-craft-factory doesn’t work out.

  H1N1, Take Three. She saw it coming. Her eyes were wild and she bucked like a bull-rider at the rodeo. The nurse gripped Vivy’s bicep. She meant business. Vivy screamed, “Didn’t you hear me? I said I need another minute!”

  And the needle pierced Vivy’s flesh. A shriek echoed throughout the hospital auditorium. There was a silence underneath the scream as all eleven stations once again stopped to watch the freak show. I scanned the area, making eye contact with them all. No sense pretending this wasn’t my kid.

  Parenting Tip: When your child freaks out in a public space, glare at every person staring at you. Learning to “tell off” strangers with a glance is a useful skill. Practice on your spouse.

  Will, transfixed by his sister’s episode, was a postscript to the whole ordeal. He sat still, watched the needle prick his epidermis, and whispered, “Ouch.”

  When we returned home, Chris was back from work. “How did it go?” he asked

  Vivy looked at her Band-Aid and said, “It was fine, Daddy.”

  And it was fine. Now. At least for her. I sunk into our time-out chair as deeply as I could, thoughts filled with what I couldn’t articulate: birthday parties, swimming lessons, doctor’s appointments, teaching, grading, filling out school forms, thank-you notes. And our kids didn’t even know how to ride bikes. Not even on training wheels. That last fact crushed my heart and elevated my guilt.

  Eventually, I shelved my Guilty Mother Syndrome for a while. I managed to do a useful parenting task: collect used Band-Aids on my bare feet.

  I think a great gift for new parents would be stock options in Band-Aid. Let’s face it: If you have a young kid, BandAids are an accessory. In my early days of parenting, I was anti-Band-Aids. Tough kids don’t need ’em, I reasoned. So I made a rule: No Band-Aids unless you’re bleeding.

  I thought this was quite clever, and it worked well enough when Will and Vivian were two. Our consumption of BandAids was below average. The rule enabled us to rake in a savings of about twenty-five cents a month, not even enough to get an extra shot of chai.

  My Scrimp-on-Band-Aids, Save-for-College theory—like my breasts—eventually went south. One early spring Saturday, we went to the front yard where Vivy and Will played with sidewalk chalk, which is the perfect craft for an Anti-Craft Mom since it involves no cleanup unless your kid runs onto the road and gets smushed.

  Parenting Tip: If you live in a rainy climate, sidewalk chalk is the perfect craft.

  So there Will and Vivy were, playing hopscotch on their crooked squares. I was flinging grape-sized gravel off our dead lawn. I looked at our Dandelion Seed Factory and shuddered. I’m a farm girl who can’t even grow grass, I thought. And then came the screams.

  I wandered over.

  “Mommy,” Vivy sobbed. “I need a Band-Aid.”

  The knee looked like classic road rash: pink and inflamed but not bleeding. “No blood, no Band-Aid,” I said, hugging her.

  I went back to flinging gravel pieces.

  I’m not sure how much time passed until I noticed my kids were quiet.

  I looked up and saw them huddled together, inspecting something.

  I walked over.

  Both twins were using their fingernails, scratching Vivy’s scrape.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” they chimed, the mantra of the guilty.

  “Are you picking the scrape?” I asked.

  Four eyes looked up at me. Will answered, “We’re trying to make it bleed.”

  “So I can get a Band-Aid,” Vivy added.

  I am losing it, I thought.

  Parenting Tip: When you ask your children a question, the reply “nothing” means they’re guilty. Either investigate
or hide.

  After the chaos of the day and dinner, we usually spent evenings in the living room. Typically, Will and Vivy took many minutes to clean up fourteen toys. Often I just did it. Then we’d play crazy, made-up games like “Cirque du Soleil: The Uncoordinated Version” and “Jump Over Mommy.”

  The former involved me lying on my back, bending my knees, and lifting Vivy or Will into the air and bouncing a twin on my legs. It was a good quad workout, one that I would have benefitted from doing twenty hours a day.

  To play “Jump Over Mommy,” I lay on the carpet and my kids two-foot hopped over me. This game helped work my abs because I would tense every time a twin leapt. It was all fun until someone landed on my face. It was Will.

  He kept backing up his starting position. I had my eyes closed, but I felt it, a kick to my jaw, a shin on my nose, and a knee on my eye.

  “Please don’t jump on my face,” I said, crawling to the couch.

  “Sorry, Mom,” Will said. “Can I get you a stuffy?”

  I wiped my nose on my sleeve. Then I realized I was wearing a tank top. I looked from the fresh smear on my deltoid to Will. “No thanks. Just play something with Daddy. I need a time out.”

  Bedtime was difficult. Even though our twins were good sleepers, the evening hours sucked the life out of me. I prided myself on being the parent who tucked them in, the mom who recited a nightly blessing, the English teacher who read aloud to them using different voices for each character. But really, once you experience endless numbers of bedtimes without a break in the routine, it becomes a chore, even if it’s a chore you opt for. Bedtime was a dangerous mathematical formula that had been tested time and time again: tired children + desperate parents = fast track to epic meltdown and/or therapy. When you had twins who slept in the same bedroom, it was like your kids were having a slumber party 489 nights a year. There was jumping on beds, giggling, slamming doors, scaling closets, hiding and (sometimes) seeking, constructing forts, and chucking pillows.