October 27, 2005

Peapod

I have never been the type to lament how quickly my children are growing up. I loved the snuggly baby phase, I loved the toddler gibberish phase, but now we’re in to playdough and HotWheels and Harry Potter, and I’m loving that, too. My friend Molly once said that when her sons were very small, she found herself repeatedly announcing, ‘THIS is my FAVORITE phase!’ Two weeks, or two months later, she would find herself saying, ‘No, I think THIS is my FAVORITE phase.’ And so on. For the most part, I feel that way, too.

But recently I have started to notice that Henry is in yet another new phase, one I can only call Big Kid. When I take him to school in the morning, he heads straight for the door, with nary a backward look, while the other kids in his class hug their mommies and ask, ‘When are you coming back?’ I am not complaining about this–I had two years of him crying and hanging on my leg when I dropped him at school; this sprint toward the door and his day is SO MUCH BETTER than that ever was. But yesterday morning, I missed the (very small) window, as he was scrambling out of the car, to ask for a kiss (which he always gives me). And he was gone. And I was a little surprised by how sad I felt, watching my baby high-five his teacher and run down the hall. Because he’s not that baby any more.

Henry was my first baby and he was a tough baby, from the very beginning. There was NO phase that came easily for him; he was premature, he never learned to latch on, he had terrible reflux, he was a bad sleeper, he crawled late, walked late, talked late . . . and on and on and on. When he was not quite a year old, he had an almost paralysing case of separation anxiety. We would visit my parents and he would cry inconsolably every time he lost sight of me, even if I had just stepped around a corner. He was a mess, and so was I.

So every successful separation from me has been a triumph, for both of us. I agonized about how Henry would adjust to preschool (and then to a NEW preschool), but he has done just fine. And now that I think about it, I can see other ways in which he is becoming more independent, more grown up. Until recently, when he woke up in the night (which is often, as he is still a terrible sleeper) he would come in our room and beg me to lay down with him and ’snuggle’. Now, if I hear him get up, he will say politely, ‘I just needed a Kleenex. You don’t have to come lay down with me.’ He will still hug and kiss me, but unlike Charlie, who wants to sit in my lap and burry his head in my shoulder, Henry will give me a perfunctory kiss on the cheek and then say, ‘Gotta go, Mom!’

This Big Kid phase is also a little startling because, in so many ways, Henry still needs to be coached to do normal five-year-old things. He still confuses what is real and what is pretend; he still has a difficult time understanding how his actions affect other people; he still has epic meltdowns. So I find myself doing a funny little dance, hopping forward to help him or calm him and then hopping away to give him room to learn. More and more I find that I can stand back and watch as he finds his way through his own life.

And while I am daily delighted by how much he is growing and learning, and by how independent and charming Big Kid Henry is, I miss the little smooshy baby. Today, for whatever reason, I find myself pining for the real Baby Henry, for my fat little Peapod.

October 26, 2005

because I’m shellfish (get it?)

I cooked tonight. Yeah, you heard me: I COOKED DINNER. And all it did was remind me why–and how much–I hate to cook.

I honestly do know people who like to cook, who love to cook. For me, cooking is essentially stressful. I can’t explain why, it just is. Tonight I made Shepherd’s Pie, which is about the most idiotically simple thing you can imagine–brown beef, add tomato soup and canned peas. Make mashed potatos; spoon over meat mixture and heat in oven. Serve. Ta da! By the time I had gotten to the potato part, I was begging Wade to stop at the liquor store, it was that stressful. And then! It didn’t turn out right and most of it went in the trash. But still, I cooked!

Part of the problem, I will acknowledge, is timing: five o’clock is a TERRIBLE time to try to prepare a meal. My children are all out of nice by five o’clock. I am all out of nice by five o’clock. And the actual preparation of the meal is hellish (there is the cooking itself, plus all the refereeing, and the occasional triage). My mother once suggested that I try to pull dinner together in the morning or during the boys’ rest time. But morning at my house is almost as chaotic as dinner time (but with a lot more nice) and nap time–oh, nap time . . .

For a while, when Charlie was a baby, I actually DID use the afternoon nap to make casseroles and whatnot. Of course, BOTH boys were still napping for a good two hours at that point, and even I can’t make assembling a casserole take more than an hour (I’m not THAT bad a cook). But now that Henry can tell time, ‘rest hour’ is over at PRECISELY 2:00, and I have (on a GOOD day) 75 minutes to myself. And I will be honest with you: I am too damn selfish to give up that hour to a beef stew. Or anything else that I fundamentally don’t give a damn about.

Which leaves me wondering about my mother’s generation. When I think back to my childhood, I swear we ALWAYS had a good meal on the table at the end of the day, one that included some protein and a vegetable and a starch. Not elaborate five-course meals, but certainly not the half-assed things I pass off on this family. What changed between my childhood and my mommyhood? Are we busier than our parents were? Or are we just more selfish?

While I am not enamored by the selfish option, I do feel like I am fighting to hold on to some non-mommy part of me, and that hour in the afternoon, when I read or answer e-mail or write, is crucial to that. And it seems to mean, at my house at least, that we are trading delicious casseroles for Mommy’s sanity, which is a complicated kind of deal with the Devil. I am certainly a better parent, a better wife, a better person, when I have time to myself; but if it means my children are eating grilled cheese and chicken nuggets all the time, is it really worth it?

And at my house that’s the kind of thinking that ends with a trash can full of Shepherd’s Pie.

for all you lovely people who said, ‘your kids look FINE’

Let’s give this some context: today I am wearing a pink turtleneck, cropped khakis, and green suede driving loafers. WHICH I PICKED OUT MYSELF. At the grocery, I ran into a very stylish friend of my mother-in-law’s, who said, ‘Don’t you look nice!’

Charlie, on the other hand, is wearing THIS (which he picked out himself):

How is it possible that people think I dress him? HOW?

October 25, 2005

they need a little TLC

People are forever asking me if I let the boys dress themselves. The answer is god, yes–it’s all I can do to get myself dressed in the morning; the kids are on their own.

Last week someone said to me, ‘But surely you don’t let them PICK what they are going to wear!’

Why yes, yes I do. Can’t you tell? Oh, we give them weather-related guidelines (today, everyone had to have a long-sleeved shirt and pants of some sort on). And for special occasions (school pictures, Thanksgiving dinner), I chose what they will wear, which is (usually) fine with them. But the rest of the time, it’s up to them.

Henry actually does a pretty good job of putting an outfit together, mostly because he tends to wear the same things over and over and over, so once he has figured out what goes with what (he will ask, ‘Does this shirt go with these shorts? How about this shirt? This one?’) he will just repeat and repeat and repeat the same outfit (the teacher he had last year found this a little unnerving. ‘He really likes red, doesn’t he?’ she said once. Yeah, whatever, AT LEAST HE’S DRESSED). Of course, he does have trouble moving on when the seasons or his sizes change (notice that the t-shirt in the picture is a little bit small). He also has some oddball clothing quirks: for example, when he wears tube socks he has to have them pulled up to his knees because he doesn’t like the way they feel when they are scrunched down. Last spring, when the weather got warm, his shorts were so long that they actually covered the tops of his socks. I ignored this for as long as I could, but I finally bought him some ankle socks and hid the tube socks. Because frankly, it was just too wierd.

Charlie, on the other hand, is a mess.

Despite the fact that he is obssessed with what I wear, Charlie has never seen a clothing combination that doesn’t work for him. This outfit was actually one of his BETTER choices recently. He will not wear anything except sweats (pants or shorts) and absolutely NO shirts with buttons or collars. I swear to god it takes him half an hour to get dressed in the morning, which is odd when you consider that HE WILL ONLY WEAR SWEAT PANTS AND A T-SHIRT. I just don’t get it. I didn’t agonize that much about my wedding gown. But because it takes him so damn long to pick out a T-SHIRT, for god’s sake, just PUT ONE ON AND LET’S GO, we pretty much let him leave the house in any old thing, just to be out of the house. And closer to Starbucks.

What really amazes me is not so much the number of parents who confess to me that they are still dressing their school-age children but how many of them will ask about my kids, while Charlie is standing RIGHT NEXT TO ME in a fleece cow suit and Wiggles slippers. Honestly, do they think I picked that out?

I mean, really.