parenting and children

I’m grumpy again, aka can you take my child to school for me?

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If you have issues with cursing just walk away now because I have to unleash some feelings and I don’t think I’ll edit.

Today, as we geared up for the first day back to school after winter break, I remembered that I fucking hate taking Jesse to school. I hate it in an irrational, tantrumy, 5- year-old-facing-down-broccoli way. I’m so fucking tired of it. Counting preschool and Jesse’s traumatic, PTSD-inducing 7-month stint in the most evil Montessori school ever, I’ve been taking Jesse to school for 5 and a half years now. I want a new job.

First, I have to make her lunch because of her egg allergy. It’s a ball and chain in my life. Jesse doesn’t eat packaged or normal so it’s either some crazy home made taco array with fresh tortillas, or fresh bread. Fresh as in I have to make it and bake it, otherwise she won’t bother to eat, and then her blood sugar and her mood go all haywire. Bad. When well-meaning (or maybe not) people suggest I send something easier in her lunch and she can take it or leave it, I say things like “yeeeah I don’t think that’ll work…” and I try to sound like a hippy. But inside I’m thinking mature, constructive things like, “why don’t you shut the fuck up, you patronizing asshole, or I will beat the shit out of you, and don’t think for a minute that you can take me because under this blub I am CHISELED.”

Next, I have to get Jesse fed and dressed in the morning, via some random combination of threats and promises. I used to have action plans and sticker charts, but they made no difference so I just live in the moment now. It’s all pulling teeth, and most of the time it involves a great deal of whining and dissent. Jesse often joins me in the noise-making. Getting out to the car involves more threats, more promises, more grim waiting. On the worst days, Jesse screams during most of the 5-minute drive to school.  If she knew how to curse, she would curse me to hell all the way. Picture Charlton Heston on a beach.

The battle continues when we get to school. Usually I end up standing next to her open car door in the parking lot, bent over with my hands on my knees, insanely muttering “God I hate this I hate this, this is the worst part of my day” while she sits glumly, refusing to get out of the car.  By now, the promises have been used up and it’s all threats. Eventually she dawdles her way to the school doors. When she starts with the whining noises, I think things like, “oh my dear lord, you little shit, get your ass through that door or I will drag you by the ankle to your classroom and good riddance.”

Then comes the worst part of all, when I sit on the bench outside the entrance and help Jesse put on her backpack. As other children straggle past, she turns to me with those enormous, puddly green eyes, sad and scared, leans in on me and murmurs intensely, earnestly, “Mommy I don’t want to go to school, I just want to stay with you.”

I can’t even say it makes me feel guilty; it’s worse than that. I feel broken and useless. After 5 and a half years, how come I haven’t figured this out yet? Why is it so hard? But Jesse and I have to keep moving before the emotional shale slips out from under our feet and flattens us. We hold each other, touch foreheads and lock eyes, ignore sweet-and-easy Nick for a moment. I whisper sweet nothings to her. You’re an awesome kid, have a great day, go with the flow, let yourself be ish, see you at the end of the day, I love you. She nods and takes a breath for courage, puts on her backpack and grabs her lunch. We fake smiles for each other. We tuck our broken hearts away and step forward into a new day. More often than not, she takes one last look at me as she walks through the door, but then she trudges on without a glance back, a diminutive 46-pound soldier walking to her schoolroom doom.

Do over tomorrow.

That's my girl

That’s my girl

Christmas is my miss-my-dad holiday

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This year we delayed the onslaught of Christmas in my home, in an effort to shorten the time of heightened anxiety for Jesse. It turns out it also thankfully shortened the amount of time I spend around this time of year missing my dad.

Dad was the King of Grumpy, but when it came to Christmas, I really have only fond and cheerful memories from my childhood. Dad loved Christmas kitsch, and in hindsight I see that he lifted my mom’s spirits with it. The house used to vibrate with the cacophony of noise-making Christmas gadgets–trains, snoring santas, musical clocks, a weird Mickey Mouse singing thing, music boxes, stuffed animals that sing when you punch them. As a child, my Christmas mornings were the stuff of Hollywood movies, full of plenty and laughter. Dad had serious Santa mojo.

As I got older, Christmas got even better because I didn’t get grumbled out of the kitchen anymore. Instead, Dad and I did a lot of cooking together. I have early memories of him giving me some pie crust scraps and, with a twinkle in his eye, wasting precious time to make cinnamon sugar so I could sprinkle it on the crust and bake “cookies.” We didn’t share them with anyone else. I helped with the stuffing the night before, I peeled potatoes, I washed dishes (mostly so that I didn’t have to listen to Mom complain about the mess) — little things. He shared his tricks with me. Over the years he entrusted me with more, including stuffing and pies, and then at some point in his waning, on the rare years I was home for Christmas, I just did the whole meal for him. And really, in my heart it was for him and not for the rest of the family.

These days I think Dad and I spent Christmas time together in the kitchen because we were both loners and lonely. We were each lonely because we needed some more human connection; but we were loners even more. Faced with the messy reality of what human connection entailed, I think we each prefered to avoid it most of the time. With each other, we didn’t need to try very hard, and the kitchen got us away from the scrum of humanity in the living room. We could potter about quietly, chatter about memories and music and family stories, and not worry. Somehow, we could laugh together most of the time even when things went wrong in the meal. I even liked his pineapple cottage cheese lime jello mold. This is no small thing, because it also contained horseradish.

Dad loved to watch White Christmas around the holidays. He adored Bing Crosby and he loved the story in the movie. It’s only recently that I begin to understand how much the story resonated with him — about an elderly, forgotten man wasting away in a pretty corner of the world, too proud to ask for help and largely unaware that anyone cared about him. And of course the music is delightful. Many years after Dad died, I finally got Anthony to sit down to the movie, and it turns out he loves it too. We try to watch it every year. I don’t know why that’s so dear and painful to me. I suppose I wish Anthony and I could have sat down with Dad to watch it together.

In fact, I just wish I could share another Christmas with my Dad, one where my kids are there. I missed so many Christmases with him through the years, for all sorts of lame reasons, mostly involving my self-absorption and pride. Every Christmas season, for each of the 12 years since he died, I’ve spent hours and hours grieving and weeping for those lost chances, those lost days I should have spent with him. I can barely type this for the wretchedness that’s pouring out of me on this Christmas Eve. It’s pathetic.

All I can do is make it up to him in this living world. So I’ve spent the better part of my free time for the last month getting ready for Christmas morning to happen for my kids, who weren’t born until after my father died. As I go through this process every year, I imagine that Dad’s Christmas spirit watches over my shoulder and guides my hand. He would have valued my kids’ insanity. He would have forgiven Jesse her challenging personality and behaviors, without reservation. He would have chuckled away at Nick’s loud silliness on Christmas mornings. He would have been proud of me for giving my kids a splendid, magical Christmas, even if they act like jackasses. But I wish he was really here, so that I wouldn’t have to just imagine it.

And now to bed. I have to wake up in about 5 hours, find my happy place, and deal with two kids experiencing maximum sensory overload. I can’t wait. If they’re crazy enough, I won’t miss my Dad as much.

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My first blog post EVER

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Last week I was sitting in the waiting room while my daughter had her weekly session with her psychologist, whom I will call Dr. Abrams (because that’s actually his name).  Jesse is 8 years old and she has issues.  She’s pretty darn functional, but she’s definitely got a severe anxiety disorder and OCD, and then also she’s sort-of-Aspergers and on a tic spectrum somewhere, and there are some social cue issues, and a lot of rigidity and self-loathing.  And maybe it’s all related to anxiety, or maybe it’s not.  In other words, she’s got PITA (Pain In The Ass syndrome).  Also she has severe egg allergies, which doesn’t sit well with anxiety and OCD, since we have to be rigidly careful about food exposures, and there’s a lot of hand washing involved in moving around the world.  A perfect storm.

So I was sitting and listening to the usual assortment of strange noises issuing from behind the closed door of Dr. Abrams’s office, and ignoring my 4-year-old boy Nick because he had the iPad and didn’t need me.  Jesse puts on good demos, giving Dr. Abrams an accurate glimpse of the type of ululating, whining, noisy complaining, and yelling that accompany this little tortured soul through her days.  I spied a book on the coffee table, Love for no Reason, said cover of which references a prequel, Happy for no Reason. I peered at the photo of the author, Marci Shimoff, trying to take my mind off the Sounds of Jesse.  Airbrushed, made-up, plucked, perfect white smile, the works.  Marci’s eyebrows seemed to be sitting unnaturally high, in a way that said “botox” to me.  I flipped through the Love book and quickly identified the seven love chakras I need to open so I can love for no reason.  I began to seethe about Marci’s no-reason lifestyle, as I continued to hear Jesse sounding off to Dr. Abrams.  What really would help me, I thought, is a book called Grumpy for no Reason.  (Hence this blog.)

I couldn’t get those stupid no-reason books out of my head.  I visited the web page for the no-reason lady.  I discovered that she’s the bestselling author of a series of books about chicken soup.  Very famous and rich, speaking tours, etc.  I’ve never heard of her.  I’m a little out of touch.  But now I know what she’s selling, because it says so in big red letters on her webpage.  “Be happy, wealthy, and well…Learn the secret to getting what you want.”  This made me seethe even more.  She’s not happy or loving for no reason.  She does it for money.  Love and happiness are profit-making enterprises.

If it was me, I would choose a different motto. This is my motto:  “be grumpy, cheeky and well… Learn the secret to living with what you’ve got.”  It ought to be enough.

Recently I was extremely grumpy with the kids in the evening; I snapped and grumbled and yelled my way through our evening routine.

Oh wait, that’s almost every night.

Anyway, on this particular evening, we snuggled up in bed together (aka, they smothered me with their tiny little bodies).  Through the muff of their hair, I mumbled these words.  “You guys have really irritated me today.  I’m grumpy.  But I love you, and I’m so happy to be here with you, even though you drive me crazy.  I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”  We hugged all over each other and went to sleep content.

I’m thinking I’ve got the no-reason thing going on.