WELCOME

Before I had my baby I read Mothering Magazine religiously. I planned to put lavender oil in his playdough and campaign for gender equality in pre-schools. I was going to a damn super mama. Year four. I burnt the pizza. Again.   We are late for school. Again. I am buying the sixth swimming cap because the others have been eaten by aliens. Yes, again. And when I look at other mothers who use calm measured tones at all times but especially in crowded public areas I  assume they are on meds. 

Mediocrity is not something we aspire to, but sometimes we are forced to capitulate to its force. My strengths in mothering are not explicit and maybe not even be that socially valuable. One the upside: I can handle massive repetition. I can watch Sponge Bob many times and still laugh. I prefer groups of screaming primal boys to winsome polite girls. I can sneak grated vegetables and garlic into his food, everyday. I can blow respectable sized spit bubbles. I could, if really bored, dance topless with body paint clown faces daubed on my boobs, for a laugh. I bake amazing sugar free apple pie but my son doesn’t eat it. Every night I really love to read his children’s books with the dramatic intensity of Bette Davis and the comic timing of Danny Kaye, but I miss a lot of other details. Like working a small nail brush. Like matching socks. And the two BIG ones: routine and regimental discipline. My son eats here and there. But he eats. So, given the roving carrot munching, I avoid going on play dates in households where structure is huge. It just ends up in tears. And profuse apologies and getting the hell out of there fast. 

Often mothering style (and rules) are more of an issue between mothers than between children themselves. Kids get on. They compete for the real stuff- like toys and turf. I love to yell “Play nice” and leave them to it. Leaning down, whispering into their little faces like a chid psychologist. It gives me the creeps. And it’s popular. Even expected. But live and let live, or live and let scream, as the case may be.  

Everyday I try and pick up the game a bit and the results are so comic/tragic. I’ll organize a trip to a science based toddler activity center only to witness a bolt-from-the-blue melt down.  I’ll pack a mega-lunch on the one day he’s not hungry. I love the idea of baking and wearing aprons but my son rejects my muffins almost every time. So, I have come to live with the Zen of crap motherhood and know that I give my all and that it’s never really ever going to be enough anyway. Because the minutea of mothering outweighs the whole. Literally because we get so absorbed in the details that faults are far easier to spot than triumphs. I feel so accomplished when the house is clean and the fridge is full but I know (with a sinking heart) that these glories of tedium are just the bare basics. 

And then, oh dear, childhood comes in such dreadfully distinct developmental stages, so that just when you find your groove for one stage - Hah finger paint!- your new accomplishments become so last week. And then there is the sheer fact of hours: being physically together almost all the time becomes more like a mini-marriage and less like a mission. At six months old I watched him like a hawk, every breath, every mouthful, every move. Now, at three and a half he seems to have his own apartment/art studio and I drop in with meals, new books and fashion options.

I am not writing in defense of complacent parenting but I’d like to raise a hand for more self forgiveness and a certain acceptance of the strengths we might all have as mothers that are subtle or silly or outside the cup cake tin. If you sat down and listed all you did in one day minute by minute you might just be astounded at the detail and the strength involved. Keeping a level head and a kind steady voice, THAT is the job beating beneath the job. And it’s a hard core effort. Being gentle is more challenging than being right. 

Today in a noisy middle eastern restaurant Cello was hungry and  over-tired. He cried and writhed and screamed while a placid boy his age looked on. I held him and stroked his face and rocked him like a baby until he calmed down and behaved like a little boy. He was comforted, he eat his lunch. It could have gone so differently if I had wanted my son to behave like another child or if I had wanted to make an example of him to some prim watchful family I’d never met before. But I felt happy in that moment with choosing the instinct for sweetness over force. Choose your battles. Ignore who’s watching. Be as soft as you wanna be.

Currently, in this house, I am staging an anti DVD stance. Cello had the flu so he was nursed by the screen. Now his chest is clearing and he wants the same slothful routine, wrapped in a blanket, working the remote. Yes, it’s going to be confronting, it’s going to involve food bribes and maybe, just maybe, it might also take some topless dancing. Anything to break the routine!

Till next time, KEEPING IT YUMMY.

XXX ANNA