I’m travelling for work again.  On one hand it’s just fabulous not having to make dinner, nor rush across town to pick up the girls from daycare. I only have to get myself ready in the morning.  I could exercise (I could!) without someone making derogatory comments.  I can watch TV, rated ‘MA’, uninterrupted.  I can catch up on weeks worth of emails.  Someone else is making my bed and replacing my towels.  Pure bliss!

Of course, there’s the dirty underbelly of being ‘sans kids’.  It’s boring.  I feel detached, alone in the universe.  When I do talk to them on the phone they are distracted by television, video games, or water dripping from the faucet.  I ask them if they had Chiclets and dust-bunnies for dinner and they reply ‘yes, Momma.’ 

I’m lonely. 

I’ll try to remind myself of this next time I’m up to my eyeballs in fighting, back-talking, mess-making kids.

We all have had That Year. The year we realized, or began to suspect that life’s not fair. Some of us have maybe had that year and then several other similar years to serve as a reminder or to keep us acutely aware of how it doesn’t all work out just because we want it to or ask our parents pretty please or because it never has not worked out for us in the past. Sooner or later, we all face that unfortunate truth.

My oldest son, Logan, just had his very first Life’s Not Fair year.

It wasn’t about not getting his way or dealing with frustration in order to learn patience. No, I’m talking about how life slams the door hard in your face sometimes, even when you don’t deserve it, and leaves you feeling gut wrenched, heartbroken and experiencing an anger like you’ve never felt before. It happens. More than once. Sometimes it gives us character, sometimes it leaves us bitter, and sometimes it makes us better.

But also maybe sometimes, it doesn’t do any of the above things. Maybe it just makes us wiser and wakes us up the next day with a different perspective. That, I think, is Logan.

Actually, the events of the past 9 months really haven’t been fair to any of the members of my family, especially the kids. Somehow, though, it is my 10 year old Logan that I have seen the most affected. I don’t know why, maybe it’s his age, his sensitive nature, or the fact that I’ve done more than my fair share of making it all OK for him as much as possible ever since he came into my life. I always said I’d never be that parent, but I could write a book on all the things I do that I said I’d never do.

I’ll never forget the night we had to tell the boys that their grandmother, Mimi, was going to die from brain cancer. It was one of the worst moments of my life. We’d put it off as long as we could, even though we adults, well schooled in the Life’s Not Fair lesson, learned in early January that there was no hope for her survival. We sat on the sofa in our living room on a bitterly cold Friday evening in February and spelled out the facts. Boys, we’re so sorry, but Mimi is very sick and she is going to die.

 There was nothing I could do to fix that. I couldn’t take the boys to the store as soon as it opened in the morning to buy a new Mimi. I had to just let it be not fair and hope that they would come to accept it and move on, as we adults were preparing to do. It was a helpless feeling I had as I could do nothing but sit on the sofa and hold my sobbing sons on that horrible evening. As I spent those sad moments with my sons, I could sense the desperation in Logan as he turned it over and over in his mind and tried to make it different, and finally settling on the reality of the situation.

The next day, my then 9 year old Logan went with his dad to Mimi’s house and crawled into bed with the woman who had been such a huge part of his life, his greatest champion even in the very earliest parts of his life, the woman who had less than 24 hours left to live.

It was several weeks later when the whole Life’s Not Fair thing reared its ugly head again and Logan watched helplessly as his beloved #1 in the country Kansas Jayhawks got stung by Northern Iowa in the NCAA Basketball Championships. Once again, I could do nothing but try to comfort him and wait for the sobbing to stop, for him to accept something that was not meant to be, no matter who you are or what you’ve done to deserve a better outcome, and then move on.

No matter whether it was losing Mimi to cancer or watching KU lose in the 2nd round of the NCAA tourney, both events were tragic for him in a way that only he can comprehend. As a parent, I can say with the most heartfelt honesty that I would relive any and all of my worst days if I could erase the worst of my children’s. Yet I know that Logan is on his way to a new understanding of the way it goes, and that sometimes it doesn’t go the way he wants it to.

Sometimes, life’s not fair and that’s all there is to it.

Logan and Mimi 2006

When I was pregnant, I had a couple of friends tell me, “The third baby is the BEST baby!” I was so excited to learn what they meant!

After Mae came along, I found myself thinking, “This is the ‘best?’” This is motherfreakin’ HARD!  Now, of course, we all know that Mae’s start was very hard due to her heart surgery, but even after the worst was behind us and I could “just” be a normal mom to three somewhat normal kids, I struggled.

Probably the hardest part has been dividing myself up into another chunk so that I can have a relationship with yet another family member. I find that I’m simply not able to meet all their needs (husband, three girls, dog…) consistently. But that’s fodder for another blog.

What I want to write about is that it now does, truly, feel beautiful and I know what my friends meant. I think I had to get past the newborn slog and turn the 6-month corner.  And now, yes, this is the BEST baby!  Not that Mae is, per se, a better baby (geez, she’s already taken me to hell and back). But the third baby is the BEST!  Because I’m more confident. I don’t worry about the stupid little things that used to panic me. Examples…

I don’t pack for every possibility when I leave the house with Mae. We have a diaper and a bottle and we’re set. No extra clothes (I love naked babies so if she makes a monster mess, she goes naked); no extra toys (there’s always something laying around that she can play with – aka, a spatula)… I laugh at all the crap I used to haul around with Delaney.

If she sleeps longer than normal, I don’t wake up in a panic. I revel in it.  No, I don’t go check on her.

I play more!  I know that the laundry will be there tomorrow and next year, even. Mae is just learning to giggle an awesome, gut-busting giggle. Who wants to miss that?

I don’t think she’s going to poison herself if i turn my back.

I don’t know how many baths I gave her last week (I was a nut about Delaney’s “bath time”) and we don’t have a “bedtime routine” yet. No schedule at all, really. We just go with the flow.

And finally (drumroll, please) I still haven’t cracked a parenting book. Yes, I have forgotten EVERYTHING about Delaney and Allie’s baby-hood, but I also know there are a million ways to do it “right” and really only a couple of ways to do it “wrong” so the odds are in my favor.

So, yes, Mae was a surprise and I spent a lot of time fretting about how hard life would be — for good reasons. But I had no idea how much FUN it would be.

I’m so glad I got the chance to find out!

I just read an article claiming to teach you techniques on how to deal with your children without yelling. I started it with an open mind, but as I read each step the sarcasm was screaming to come out. Maybe some mothers can and will benefit from these techniques, but I am not that mother.

Step #1: Breathe… They say that before your blood starts to boil, you should stop and breathe. I breathe all damn day, if it worked so well, why is my blood boiling in the first place? I’ve tried taking deep breaths, letting it out slowly, all it does is give me the look of The Hulk just before I lose it. As a matter of fact, I like this technique; adds to the intimidation factor.

Step #2: Speak softly… The idea is that children have to work harder to hear you, and will therefore calm down in order to hear what you are saying. Clearly the author has not met my children. Actually, I find that lowering my voice is an effective way to warn them that I’m about to snap. If that doesn’t work, see Step #1, for The Hulk.

Step #3: Help your child explain their feelings… When Johnny pushes Sally because Sally knocked over his tower, you say “I know you’re angry, but it’s not OK to push.” What does this have to do with stopping me from yelling so much? OK, I get it, if I’m busy coddling Johnny, I won’t notice that Sally is rolling her eyes behind my back, laughing at this week’s BS parenting technique. I get it.

Step #4: Have clear rules and stick to it… No more “I mean it this time!” while you shake your fist and remember your breathing technique. They say the kids will eventually call your bluff, and ignore the threat. I agree with this one. My kids are smart and see right through my whole “I swear on all that is holy and good; you will sit in that room for the rest of your ever loving life!” routine. Oh well, it makes me feel good just saying it.

Step #5: A strong bond makes discipline easier… So apparently if you have a strong relationship with your child, and spend enough time together, subsequent discipline will be easier. This does not address the issue of having to scream and holler in order to get one freaking minute alone so that you can piss in peace. Maybe I’m going about this all wrong.  

Step #6: Put yourself in their shoes…

Step #7: Praise good behavior…

blah blah blah… I’m bored with this.

I’m loud, I’m animated, I’m a screamer, and my kids are the same. I wouldn’t expect anything less. Why did I even bother reading that in the first place? Thanks for wasting my time Parenting Magazine. The next time someone writes an article about “Potty Training your Pre-Teen”, “Back-Handing the Back-Talker” or anything else relevant, please email me. Thanks.

Lately I realized that there’s a green-eyed monster in our midst.  Recent conversations with friends and family, or even postings on social networking sights, I hear many of these types of comments:

“That married mom gets a break from parenting, and an adult to talk to.  Also, dating is hell!”

 “The divorced mom gets weekends off!!  I am always on duty!”

“That mom of one child has it SO easy!”

“The mom of multiple children has built-in playmates for her kids, my child always expects me to entertain her”

“That new mom has kids that actually think she’s the center of the universe, must be nice”

“The mom of older children can DO things alone, like bathroom breaks…”

“That empty-nester mom is always travelling and just enjoying life”

“The career mom gets to get out of the house and experience adult interaction every day, whereas I’m covered in spit-up and play-do and have heard the same knock-knock joke 37 times”

“The stay-at-home mom gets to spend quality time with her children, I have to deal with the ‘children’ at work”

In every one of these statements a trend pops out at me, the word Mom.  We’re all moms; we all have those hellish moments, and (hopefully) we all have those wonderful moments.  Don’t worry, I won’t ask that we join hands and sing ‘Kumbayah’, but I really think it’s time to put that green-eyed monster back under the bed.