I hate this game, this ‘hide and go seek’ game.  I didn’t start hating it until my daughters tried it out when I had suffered through a day at the office, then was tortured for hours by rush hour traffic.  I walked in to day care to pick them up and ‘SURPRISE!!!’, they’re hiding.  Oh joy!  That’s the last thing I wanted to do at this point of the day.  I propose a different greeting.  Perhaps a ‘Hi Momma! We have all of our homework done, will make dinner for you, clean up the mess, then treat you to a foot massage!’ 

No.  Of course not.  It’s more akin to ‘Hey, let’s see how mad Momma can get when all she wants to do is go home and cry!’

This week I have off of work for Thanksgiving.  So, the girls are a bit more rambunctious and creative than usual.  This evening they made footprints out of paper, lined them down the hallway, and asked me to search for them. 

Okay. 

I followed the pieces of paper, amazed at the amount of work they put in to coloring these things, and happy about the money I invested in their eighteen cases of Crayola markers.  I pretended not to know where they were, and then faked a heart attack when they jumped out of their closets.

Today, and only today, I like Hide-And-Seek.

When I head back to work next week, it’s a different story.

Today I decided to take my youngest daughter ice-skating at the mall while her sister was at choir practice.  She was thrilled, to say the least.  Both girls adore ice skating even though there’s no natural ice within 1,000 miles from here in Houston.  We stopped at a pretzel stand where we indulged in some low-calorie, dripping with oil, salted pretzel with fake cheese sauce.  Yum! 

Afterwards, she skipped to the skating rink , babbling happily while I put on her skates, then she daintily tip-toed onto the ice, finally  shuffled over the huge precipice, er, step, and then down onto the gleaming, Zamboni-smoothed ice.  She carefully merged into the ice-skating traffic grinning the entire time.  I watched from the side for a while, waved as she scooted by, and became incensed when a young man was hanging on the side, talking to a young girl, blocking Eva’s progress.  I was about to give him an earful as he ignored my 6-year-old pleading with her eyes for him to move.  Luckily, one of the ice-skating attendants offered her his hand so she could skate around, then she zoomed back to the wall to hold on.  I went upstairs to watch from there while she made me dizzy with her circles.  I started to realize the dizziness was coming in waves, along with groans from my stomach.  Apparently that healthy pretzel I had indulged in wasn’t playing fair with my innards.  I asked a woman where the nearest restroom was then sprinted to it, knocking down pregnant women and old men to get there.  I reached the bathroom and being that it’s for women, there was a long line.  I tried to think of anything but my gurgling mid-section and prayed that whoever was ahead of me wasn’t in the same predicament.  I made it to a stall without embarrassing myself, but I was stuck in there for an eternity. 

What went through my head was the fact that my 6-year-old was alone, 100 yards away, in a mall skating rink.  Worrying about Eva made my stomach cramp up worse, so I hoped and prayed for the best. 

I raced back afterwards and noticed a crowd of police just aft of the skating rink, my heart leapt in my chest, then I noticed they were just snacking on other wholesome food court nourishment.  The Zamboni was once again cleaning the ice, so the skaters were seated at the back waiting to re-conquer that slippery surface.  I scanned the crowd for my daughter’s pink jacket. I spied a pink coat lying over the wall but no daughter nearby.  My heart, and stomach, cramped again as I was walking more quickly in search for her, fearing for the worst.  I had made a complete tour of the rink when out of the corner of my eye I saw a dejected girl seated on the floor wearing her socks.  Eva!!!  As I came over she says brightly ‘Hi Momma!  I hit my leg with my skate and now have a big bo-bo!”  She seemed proud of her badge of honor, and I gratefully hugged her and put on her shoes. 

Another day, another stressful situation.

Recently I’ve had some vivid dreams, no, let’s call them nightmares. I usually dream in a spectacular form of technicolor,including  surround sound, smells, texture and even tastes, just ask my annoyed husband.  One dream I had recently has bothered me, a lot.  In the dream, er, nightmare, I was walking hand-in-hand with my youngest daughter in an M.C. Escher painting.  The cement stairs went on to infinity and her hand came out of mine, and she fell, and fell and fell.  I woke up in a panicked, gut-wrenching sweat.  Just thinking about it today makes me fear for her life.

I may complain about my kids, a lot, (in fact every day), but just the thought of losing them makes my heart clench up in an ice-cold vice.  Losing a child has to be the worst hell a person could endure in this life. 

In the weeks since the dream, I’ve attempted to be a better mom.  I can’t say I’ve completely mended my ways-I’m still grumpy when a daughter wakes me up at the break of dawn on a Saturday to show me her boo-boo, I’m still irritated beyond belief when the girls are screaming ‘Noooooooooo!!!’ at each other over the dinner table because of a ‘look’ or a ‘snort’ from the other sibling. I have, however, tried to count to ten in the few languages I know (including Pig-Latin) so that by the time I figure out the words I’m no longer angry.  I’ve spent more quality time with them in the past month since the dream.  I’ve hugged them more often, read more books, and didn’t complain (too much) when they slobbered a messy kiss on my cheek.

There are many parents who have lost their children and I can’t even begin to imagine their pain.  There are also those who have unsuccessfully tried to be parents, their anguish is palpable as well. 

I can’t say that I’ll completely change my ways because bitching about mommy-dom is a prerequisite of joining the mommy-club.  I will remember that this life is tenuous at best and my children are my life, for good and for bad.

I’ve been a mother for almost twenty years.  I have to be honest-I’m tired of being a mother.

I’m tired of the daycare expense.

I’m tired of the disrespect.

I’m tired of rushing home to make dinner that no one eats.

I’m tired of dealing with grumpy teachers and the endless homework.

I’m tired of the dirty house and umpteen loads of laundry.

I’m tired of no time to myself.

Yes, I’m evil, but most of all, sleep-deprived. 

Initially, I didn’t even want to be a parent.  The children that I babysat were whiney, physically distraught, emotionally stunted and troublesome.  I just wanted to be paid so I could spend it at the nearby record store. 

Then, I fell in Love (note the capital ‘L’) and birth control didn’t work.  Right out of high school I became pregnant.  I decided to keep my baby and raise him, which I did.  I put myself through college, dragging the poor kiddo and activity bag to night classes, meanwhile keeping him fed, educated, entertained and housed.

Years later I found someone else to fall in ‘Love’ with, and had two more children.  I love them.  (I really do!)  But, lately, as they approach the pre-teen years, I just feel beaten.  I haven’t had time to myself since the last millennium, and it’s wearing on me. 

When they have ‘back-to-school’ night I literally roll my eyes.  MY GOD PEOPLE!! I’ve been attending these snarky events since the 1990’s, give me a break. 

 I meet frequently with my friends, and travel, thanks to a decent spouse, but I still don’t have hobbies.  I haven’t written the novel of the century.  I don’t volunteer.  I don’t run for office.  I haven’t done squat.  I take care of kids.  Do they care? (Yes, that was rhetorical).

I spoke at length with my son today.  He’s now in college in Europe of all places.  I told him that I think I’m having a mid-life crisis.  I mean, what’s it all about?  Was I placed on earth to raise many children, for three-plus decades?  Thankfully, he inherited the wise gene in our family and he consoled me with ‘just a few more years and they’ll be teenagers, they won’t know you exist’. 

 Terrific!  Then maybe I can acquire that hobby I’ve been trying for since 1989.  Then I can take my sweet time heading home from work.  Then I can have spare (!!) change from the departed daycare expense. 

 Then I’ll miss them, and wonder where the time went. 

 Maybe I’ll take a nap.

I read a cartoon the other day with a kid snake in his room, eyeing a discarded snakeskin on his floor (bear with me), he complains to his mom “Why do I always have to have Kevin’s hand-me-downs??!!??”

I realized just lately that my youngest daughter’s life has been all hand-me-downs. 

Last night we went to a baseball game, just her and I, which is a rare event.  On the drive downtown she saw various Houston-area landmarks and asked about them.  I told her about our visits to those places, which happened before she was born.  When we got to the baseball field I told her about the time we took her brother to Tucson for spring training one year.  I also reminisced about the time I was pregnant with her sister and went with her father to a season opener. 

She wore her sister’s old Astro’s jersey. She held my old coin purse with her saved allowance in it to buy a baseball souvenir. She had her brother’s old baseball mitt for a stray foul ball. 

Stupid, obtuse me finally noticed the flicker of hurt in her eyes.  I started thinking back and realized how many memories I have in the two decades of parenthood that she’s not in.  I won’t even mention the blank pages in her baby book. 

The post-game fireworks started up and she asked to sit in my well-worn lap.  I curled my arms around her and breathed in her scent and reveled in her warmth.  She’s the only one that sits in my lap anymore, and that can’t ever be handed down.