Sadly, it’s the least of the ways I’ve embarrassed myself in front of babysitters in the last eight years. When we were new to our neighborhood, a young woman stopped by one night to welcome us to the hood. She brought over her phone number in case we ever needed anything and complimented me on the kids, who were getting ready to take a bath. “Thank you,” I said, trying to keep our dog away from her dog and a naked Evan from running into the street. “Do you have kids of your own?” I asked, trying to make polite conversation. “Um, no?” she stammered. “I’m only . . . fourteen.” As if my hole wasn’t deep enough, I proceeded to inform her that theoretically, she could have children if she got started early, but that I wouldn’t recommend it. And then I gave her a modified version of the sex talk. Remarkably, she’s become one of our favorite sitters. And in the daylight, she doesn’t look a day over sixteen.
Back in the days when I babysat every Saturday night—what else was a frizzy-haired girl with bad skin and no boobs supposed to do?—I spent my time rifling through bedroom drawers and devouring pints of ice cream in between calls to friends. Sure, I kept the kids alive, but just barely. Frankly, they just weren’t my priority. What was my priority? Fantasizing about the father of the kids for whom I babysat. He was dreamy. So what if he had a slight porn habit? He was going to take me to my prom and, one day after college, we would be married. He just didn’t know it yet.
I cringe when I think about that old saying “What goes around comes around.” Perhaps my sitters have gone digging in my bedside drawer and made a battery-operated discovery. Or three. I wouldn’t be surprised if I turned over the cushions on my couch and found old pizza slices and orange soda stains. And it would serve me right to learn that my sitter made long-distance calls to a boyfriend in Europe.
The sad thing is, even if I found any (or all) of this to be true, I still would guard my babysitters’ phone numbers with my life. They are mine, warts and all, and I’m not sharing. There are some things worth sacrificing a bit of privacy and pizza money for, and a night out with my husband is one of them.
Chapter 20
THE XANAX APPROACH TO PARENTING
Mommy Confessions
• Soccer, ballet, painting, karate, speech therapy, swimming . . . When did I become a fucking chauffeur?
• I put my kids to bed in their clothes so I don’t need to get them dressed the next day.
• I clock out of motherhood at 8:00 p.m. I’m so done that I walk out even if they aren’t all tucked in bed and go hide in the basement with my laptop and a beer.
• My kids eat the same exact lunch every day because it’s the easiest for me to make them.
• I have never actually played with my kids. I’ll read with them, ride bikes, et cetera, but play Barbies or tea party? No thanks.
• If I took the amount of money I spend on my kids’ after-school activities and actually put it toward myself, I’d be a hundred times happier.
• I spend more time in my minivan driving kids to activities than in any other single place. I hate it.
• My kids ride the school bus because I’m too lazy to drive them every morning.
• No matter how old you are, no matter how badass you think you are, if a toddler hands you his ringing toy phone, you fucking answer it.
• Is it bad that I want to have another baby just to give my son a playmate? So tired of rolling around on the floor with him.
• Sometimes, my daughter plays maid and cleans up the house. It’s the best thing ever.
• I hate reading bedtime stories. I only do it because I know I have to. Sometimes, I just let them fall asleep watching TV.
• I didn’t like playing with other kids when I WAS a kid. I certainly don’t like it now.
• My kid never took ballet because I was too lazy to deal with practice and recitals.
There is no such thing as a perfect parent. We all (or most of us) do the very best we can, succeeding at some aspects of parenting and failing miserably at others. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t show and tell my kids just how much I love them. We roll down the windows in the car and sing at the top of our lungs, and unless there’s lightning, I have no problem letting them run around joyously in the rain, splashing in puddles. We do art projects and bake together and have sweet, tender moments throughout the day when I feel like an exceptional mother.
And then there are the other moments that showcase my weaknesses. More than once, I’ve been horrified to think that a neighbor most likely heard just how loudly I yelled at the kids as they were walking the dog by our house. I don’t change the kids’ sheets often enough and I’ve been known to accidentally make them bleed while cutting their nails. But perhaps my biggest parenting flaw of all is my laziness.
For the last several years, the kids haven’t been ready for bed anywhere near seven o’clock, but I am more than ready to be finished with them by then. The day has been long, the night has been longer, and I am done. Stick a fork in me, done. Unfortunately, my charming children are not. All three are night owls and not ready to call it a day until well past nine most nights. The solution? They need to entertain themselves. I want nothing to do with them.
Every night, after dinner and their baths, the kids retreat upstairs to play together and remain up there, alone, for hours. They know I’m not going to entertain them and it’s either sleep or play, and they always choose play. Hours of playing house and grocery store and airport and vacation and vet before they are tired enough for bed. Hours of making forts and lining up their animals as patients and arranging dolls as restaurant patrons. They play and play and play endlessly while I get to watch TV, talk with my husband, or work on the computer. Ignore them.
The silver lining in all this is that my kids, unlike so many I know, are content just being left alone to explore by themselves. Imaginary play requires nothing from us, the parents, and it’s almost like having them asleep for the night at seven thirty. Or close. For them, it’s really fostered their sibling relationship and they do consider one another their best friends.
This relaxed sleep routine goes back to when they were infants. I simply hated to hear the kids cry, especially when they were so easily comforted by nothing other than my touch, so we often slept together. They all napped on the couch, cuddled up to me as I wrote, or fell asleep in the car if we were out running errands. It was just so much easier than having to bring them upstairs, rock them to sleep, and deal with their incessant crying.
There was no strict bedtime, either. When they seemed tired, we’d put them to bed, but it wasn’t solely because the clock struck seven. Now, I’m not endorsing my way of doing things—I do think there is something to be said for getting kids into a tight routine. I’m completely envious of my friends whose children are all asleep by seven thirty and who know, with absolute certainty, that they will be the next night as well. But my way isn’t completely without benefits. The upside of not maintaining a routine is more flexible children. Mine don’t get bent out of shape sleeping on vacation or dealing with circumstances outside of the ordinary. They sleep when they’re tired, on their own time. It works for us.
Back when Lily was a newborn, I would make all of the day’s bottles in bulk, lining them up in neat little rows on the top shelf of the fridge first thing in the morning. I figured as long as I couldn’t have the convenience and ease of simply whipping out a boob, I may as well make things as easy for myself as humanly possible. Sensible, right? I certainly thought so.
It never even dawned on me to heat those premade bottles, until my mother-in-law noted that I was feeding my precious warm-blooded little angel ice-cold milk. “That can’t be comfortable in the middle of winter,” she volunteered. “I wouldn’t want to drink freezing milk at three in the morning!” Much as I didn’t appreciate the unsolicited input, I had to admit it wasn’t an entirely off-base observation. They were pretty cold and it was the middle of winter. But Lily took them just fine and my pediatrician said it didn’t matter
if they were warmed up or not. Why make her picky about something when she didn’t know the difference, anyway? She was eating and gaining weight and I wasn’t going to change a thing. So there.
Looking back at those early days, I remember that her face did seem to jolt wide awake when I fed her, and it mustn’t have been all too comfortable on her little belly, but it did save me a few precious hours in the middle of the night. As far as I know, she’s not still holding the cold bottles against me.
I don’t think I scarred her by using cold wipes when I changed her diaper, either. The bulky wipe warmer I received as a shower gift was promptly exchanged for diapers, which I simply couldn’t keep well stocked. Of all the unnecessary parenting steps, wipe warmers may indeed take the cake. I never understood why a mother would possibly want her child to get used to a nice toasty wipe-down—what happens when you’re out at the grocery store or in the car or on an airplane? Wipes can’t always be brought to a dreamy eighty degrees if you ever plan on leaving the house. Better to just get the baby accustomed to the chilly wipe right from the start. Plus, the less comfortable it is, perhaps the more willing she will be to get potty trained in a few years.
Speaking of diapers and ease, my kids got changed anywhere and everywhere. I’m always amused by parents who schlep around fancy portable changing stations or own designer changing tables lined with terry cloth. Kind of silly, no? It is shit we’re talking about, after all. I plopped my kids right on the kitchen floor or the ottoman or wherever was convenient and that’s where we did our business. It was far easier than having to march upstairs a hundred times a day, and an old towel was just as effective as some overpriced gingham cover thing. And fancy diaper disposal systems? Pfft. I refused to buy expensive refill bags when I could just use the ones I already had from the grocery store. It would be like flushing the toilet with Perrier.
I have a friend. Well, sort of a friend, depending on your exact definition of the word. This “friend” of mine is the perfect specimen of a mother. If you were to google the term “good mother,” her picture would probably be the first one to come up. Her son is involved in every kind of sport and activity you can possibly imagine. He’s an “exceptionally skilled” athlete and a gifted student as well. He is kind and generous and gives half of his hard-earned allowance to charity each week. He is like this, no doubt, thanks to the countless hours and thousands of dollars his mother spends carting him around to various specialists and experts. She gave up her own promising career and has made it her mission to give her only child every opportunity under the sun. Making plans with her takes months because her schedule is so jam-packed with the child’s activities that she can barely squeeze in a coffee date. When I do run into her, she looks frazzled and exhausted and drained. Raising the perfect child takes effort and she is 110 percent committed to the job. And it seems to be paying off.
Her boy is a well-adjusted, happy kid. He proudly boasts about his latest karate belt and displays his track trophies on his long bedroom bookshelf. He speaks Spanish almost fluently and loves conversing with the housekeeper when nobody else can follow along. He is absolutely bright and confident and no doubt will excel in school. But I wonder whether he’d be just as great a kid, and she might be a happier parent, without all the extra effort?
I know many parents who are like this, to varying degrees. Their weekends are jam-packed with sports and art classes and socializing. During the week, the kids are in school all day, with extracurricular activities lined up until dinnertime. The moms spend hours in the car just shuttling kids back and forth, keeping the appropriate changes of clothes in the trunk. Activities, meant to be supplementary and enjoyable, have become just another chore. Their kids are definitely benefiting, but they’re driving themselves a little crazy in the process.
I’d much rather pop a Xanax and focus on an activity or two that my children really enjoy than overwhelm myself (and them) with a dozen. Kids simply can’t excel at everything. And that shit is expensive. The memberships and uniforms and coaches’ gifts all add up and before you know it, you’re broke. I remember wanting to faint when I found out the cost of Lily’s first dance recital uniform, which she would be wearing exactly one time, for one hour. It was more than I’d spent on myself all month—were they kidding?!
I honestly don’t think a child ever ended up in therapy because she didn’t get to take advanced painting as an eight-year-old. No teen is crying over not having mastered every sport before school even started, and colleges could care less what your kid did before high school. Childhood is such a fleeting time and I really want my kids to just enjoy it. Equally as important, I want to come out on the other side still sane and somewhat in one piece. If I didn’t have a couple of hours to myself at the end of the day, there is no doubt in my mind that I would be certifiably insane. I love my kids to death, but OMG, those punks can be annoying. Space from them is not only desirable but completely necessary. After all, part of parenthood is taking some time for ourselves, too.
But really, what do I know? My kids will no doubt be sitting on the couch complaining about the cold formula I fed them.
Can’t win them all.
Chapter 21
THE TWELVE-FOOT-DEEP DEATH TRAP (AKA THE POOL)
Mommy Confessions
• I never take my kids to the pool because I don’t want to wear a bathing suit in public.
• I’m thirty-eight years old and I still pee in the pool.
• I told my kids the pool was closed today because I’m feeling too fat to put on a bathing suit.
• Why does throwing our kids into giant vats of deep water ever sound like a good time? Who came up with this and what happened to good old-fashioned sprinklers?
• Whoever invented the blow-up pool has never met my child . . . and his determination to destroy all things inflatable.
• The pool is my single favorite place to go every summer . . . the kids jump in the pool with their dad and I wave from my lawn chair with my margarita. I don’t want it to end.
• Years ago I told my husband I can’t swim . . . the truth is I have very difficult hair and don’t want to get it wet.
• When we drive past public pools I envision all those people frolicking in urine and having a great time . . . I will never take my kids.
• I had to jump into a pool fully clothed to help my daughter. I was glad to help her, but my white T-shirt was mortified.
• I’m thirty-two years old and I still plug my nose when I jump into a pool.
• My kids were forced to learn to swim so that I could relax by the poolside . . . now I see them swimming in the deep end and can’t relax by the poolside.
• I’m not sure why ALL swimsuits aren’t installed with a floatable device . . . that would make the most sense, right?
• The pool is not the best place to discover that you have your period. Especially with a highly observant two-year-old accompanying you.
One of the best things about having kids is being able to see familiar things through their new, innocent eyes. Through them, we can once again appreciate all the little things we’d long forgotten ourselves. Clouds once again transform into imaginary flying horses and hopping frog princes. Rainbows are more miraculous than ever and even grilled cheese sandwiches are more delicious than they were two decades ago. And then there are the things that used to be wonderful, but with kids became something else entirely. Something awful.
I’m talking about the pool. That crystal-clear body of water that used to be associated with golden tans, pure relaxation, and all things good. The tropical smell of suntan lotion wafting through the air and poolside burgers and fries. Cheesy romance novels bordering on soft-core porn along with delicious alcoholic beverages. The biggest stress at the pool: imperfect tan lines.
Until kids, I mean. With kids, everything about the pool is stressful.
The stress begins at home, long before that first step in the too-chilly water. It can begin days or even weeks before th
e first trip, even. The mere thought of it is enough to send me into a psychotic rage, throwing various items around my bedroom like a possessed lunatic. It’s called finding a bathing suit to wear, and it’s something no out-of-shape mother should be subjected to.
Now, this is not to say that I was the most comfortable swimsuit wearer before I had kids. Hardly. But, in retrospect, I should have been. The remnants my children have left on my body are never more visible than when I’m wearing a bathing suit, and it ain’t pretty. I have cellulite in places that didn’t even previously exist. Where my skin used to be smooth, it’s bumpy, and I seem to look three months pregnant, despite not being knocked up even a little. This postbaby body is just not made for swimsuits.
Once I have somehow settled on the actual suit, after trying on the seven I own and vowing to invest in one of those “miracle suits” that are guaranteed to make me look three sizes smaller next time, it’s time to begin the hair removal process. These days, this can take a full hour from start to finish. (I mean, seriously, when did my toes sprout hair?!) It’s a much, much longer process than it was ever meant to be. Finally, it’s time for cover-up selection and sunscreen application. Getting the kids all dressed and protected is another half hour, and then, finally, we’re out the door. Let the fun begin!
Once we arrive at the pool, one of the first people I always spot is my archnemesis. The moment I see her, I immediately go all Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Images of long swords nearly missing her eyes fill my head in slow motion. I could take her down if I had to. Never mind have to, I want to. I want to see blood splatter in every direction and sport a black eye as proof of our battle. It’s a fight I’m proud to have.
Confessions of a Scary Mommy Page 10