Mom, where are you?

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Nicki

Floating in the warmest water, surrounded by tiny bubbles, a sky of swirling gray peeking through a redwood canopy while raindrops steadily splash on my upturned face… in our newly-installed hot tub. At 11.15am. On a Wednesday.

We’ve wanted a hot tub in the backyard for years. There’s a corner that’s just perfect for it. Tucked up against the fence, under the giant redwood tree – the perfect alcove of peace and quiet. And steam and bubbles. And soon bunches of pre-teen boys making inappropriate jokes, and wild whooping four-year-olds spilling apple juice and eating soggy Ritz crackers…

But not yet! It’s still tranquil, serene, bliss.

I’m not sure that’s where I was supposed to be before noon on a Wednesday morning.

I’ve been a Stay-At-Home-Mom (SAHM) for about ten years. I realize what a blessing this is, to be present and available for my kids all day. To not have to scramble for childcare when one of them is sick. They know I’ll bring the homework they left on the kitchen counter. I’m able to chaperone field-trips without rearranging my schedule, to help in the classroom and “spy” on the social dynamics of my daughter, or to see for myself if my son’s occupational therapy is really working. But it doesn’t necessarily mean a soak in the hot tub whenever I want!

I can exercise while the kids are at school, pick up the dry cleaning, take Pretzel the dachshund to the vet and myself to the dentist, prepare dinner, stock up on the boxes of frozen waffles we never seem to have enough of – all between drop-off and pick-up. My working friends often do a Target run after the kids are in bed, they have to arrange last-minute pick-ups in between meetings, grocery shopping happens on the weekend – life seems much more complicated logistically as a working parent, not to mention the emotional toll it takes.

So I don’t take the privilege of being an SAHM lightly. I am incredibly thankful for it.

But after a decade it has started to feel a little less fulfilling. Mundane. Isolating, even as I’m surrounded by dozens of little faces singing Sevivon Sof Sof at the lunchtime Chanukah concert. There is no separation between me – and me.

When I pick Jed’s friend up for preschool, and see his mom dressed in heels, a beautiful blouse and lipstick, I want to beg her to take me with to her office in the City, to her meetings, and meaningful interactions with adults (not “grown-ups”) about policies and contracts.

From my vantage point at home, if I stand on my tippy-toes and lean all the way to the side, I can just make out the tips of the Bay Bridge, leading the way into glittering San Francisco. While my working friends in the Financial District barely notice the sparkling blue of the Bay and the majestic spans of the Bridge laid out in front of them. The view is always more beautiful from the other side. I know.

As I helped my little guy brush his teeth this morning, he started whining and yelling at me (only four-year-olds can do both simultaneously producing a grating whell of a sound): something about a Spongebob toothbrush and Monsters University toothpaste, and then he started crying… and I started crying. I couldn’t remember what Monsters University was and I thought he said Angry Birds toothbrush. No separation between me and me.

The kids come home from school, hungry, cranky, bursting with stories, wanting something from someone – mostly me. I roll with it, a smile on my face and a song in my voice (the smile is a little strained and the song is Linkin Park’s A Light that Never Comes). Snack for you, 8×7=56 for you, tie your hair back for ballet, listen to your barmitzvah lesson for ten minutes, all of you wash your hands, with soap. Just enough to fit into half an hour before it’s back in the car for the rest of the afternoon.

(As an aside SAHM is a misnomer – at least the SAH part. It should be NAH – Never At Home, and also nah, as in not gonna schlep around today).

Somewhere between chairing the preschool parents committee, and serving lunch at the middle school, I seem to have lost myself. My daughter used to tell her teachers that my job was volunteering in the library at her school (actually, I wouldn’t mind working in a library). I can’t find the space between Mom Nicki, and Nicki.

So this Wednesday morning, as I walked from the car toward the house in the relentless rain, laden with boxes of frozen waffles, I glanced toward the new hot tub. Sitting quietly in its corner.

HotTub

The rain gently pattered down on me and the redwood tree stretched majestically into the gray sky, the steamy mist danced mystically above the water, and the bubbles floated around me – it was magical.

I felt the whisper of a space between me, and me.

What I learned today in second grade

Posted on November 12, 2013 by Nicki

She could’ve been talking about her spelling test, she described the story to me so matter-of-factly, her little face betraying no sadness or hurt. “At recess, Mom, she said I was too small to play. So I just sat on the stairs and watched.” It was the third day in a row that she’d been told she wasn’t wanted, for one reason or another. She was used to it.

There’s always a Queen Bee, buzzing busily in the circles of female friendships. Her role is subtle in younger years, she hasn’t yet been crowned. But by the age of six, there she is her Royal Highness, cape flowing regally from her narrow shoulders, sparkling crown planted on her head – giving her free reign to determine who gets to be friends with whom, what games they will play at recess, whether your new boots are hot or not. If you are in her favor, you are golden. She casts her royal glow on you, and you feel that you are walking on air, that the chariot the two of you ride together will actually sprout wings and soar above all the lowly subjects on the playground. There is nothing you can’t do together. There is nothing you can’t do alone! Until you are no longer in her favor – one day you’re in, the next you’re OUT. Yes Your Majesty. Curtsey. Exit.

Nobody dares to unseat the Queen. It’s as much the order of things on the playground as it is in the beehive. The perception is that without the Queen – this Queen – it would all fall apart. And the industrious second grade she-bees need hierarchy and order as they buzz about their busy days of school, recess, hip-hop, birthday parties, sleepovers.

“Sage,” I say in a barely-controlled pseudo-calm voice, “why didn’t you tell her she can’t say you can’t play, and that she hurts your feelings?”

“Mom,” again so deadpan, expressionless, “you know I have a hard time saying that. I wanted to, but I just can’t get those words out.”

Ugh. Yes, I do know. I know exactly how she feels. I know how uncomfortable confrontation makes me. I know she’s worried that if she speaks up, expresses her indignation and hurt at being excluded, Queenie might alienate all the other bees from her, and she’ll be all alone at recess with no prospect of a buddy to walk with to hip-hop and no hope of a sleepover ever.

My heart breaks into sharp shards as I look into her no-longer-innocent green eyes. I imagine picking up one of those shards and piercing Queen Bee’s fuzzy little body with it. You can’t say you can’t play! Preschool 101.

Worst of all, my little bee is afraid to buzz.

Every day there is another exclusionary incident. She wouldn’t let Sage tell a story. She sneakily lured Sage’s friend away from her at lunchtime. She told Sage she wasn’t good at basketball.

Sage and I role-play: what would she say next time QB told her she couldn’t play? You don’t get to tell me I can’t play. What would she say when QB told her to stop telling her story? That hurts my feelings.

I encourage Sage to eat lunch with different girls, to share her stories with somebody else. I imagine her little heart beating loudly in her chest while she tries to muster the courage to speak up to QB, to tell her that the things she says don’t feel good – because, 32 years after being in second grade, my own heart pounds in my throat when I try to do the same. Do we ever really leave the playground?

I stop hearing about QB for a while. Sage seems happy, talks about school and friends, no drama, no incidents. On parent-teacher day, I sit down at the little desk, and there screaming up at me from the self-assessment each child writes, in her still-developing-but-perfectly-formed-no-2-pencil letters, are the words: One friend is mean to me all the time.

There are those shards, so real and sharp I make a fist around one. I look up into her teacher’s kind, unwavering gaze. “Do you know what that’s about?” It bubbles out of me, unfiltered, heated, sticky. I hear myself say, over and over, “She just doesn’t want to tell her how it makes her feel. She’s scared she’ll be alienated from all the other girls.”

Wonderful Teacher quietly nods. She knows exactly what I’m talking about (of course, she’s not a second grade teacher for nothing). “It’s important to teach the children that if being around a friend doesn’t make them feel good, that’s not a friend.” I simply stare at her. I feel like she is my second grade teacher. “Friends are people you want to be around, and who want to be around you. If it feels bad, it’s not a friendship.”

The bees start buzzing excitedly. Life 101.

Sage spent the next weekend with a different friend, an awesome friend. All weekend. Back-to-back sleepovers. Smiling faces for 48 hours. They were inseparable, happy, busy, together-bees.

I’m never too old to learn the lessons taught in second grade.

Back on the playground, QB looks anxiously about for a few new subjects.

I hate Halloween… omg did I say that out loud?

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Nicki

I’ve been dreading today. Like one dreads a visit to the dentist. You know what’s coming – a lydocaine shot in your gum, that awful drilling sound into your tooth, lying with your mouth open, getting a cramp in your jaw and needing to swallow. It’s bearable, but definitely not enjoyable. You do not look forward to the appointment. That’s how I feel about Halloween.

We didn’t celebrate Halloween in South Africa when I was growing up. It was something I knew about only from watching The Cosby Show and Three’s Company. It looked like a lot of fun, I will admit – dressing up, trick-or-treating with friends, candy, spooky smoke, hilarious mishaps. Fun but completely foreign. American. Definitely not Jewish. Something I would never have the opportunity to participate in. And yet here I am, three decades later, living the Halloween dream.

It starts on October 1 in my house. “What should I be for Halloween, Mom?” For someone who really prefers spontaneous to planned out, this is like hearing the whine of that drill on my tooth enamel.

“Can we talk about costumes closer to the time? Why don’t you think about it in the meantime, and we can discuss in a few weeks.” And please, please don’t ask me again until then, I silently pray.

But they do. They ask me every few days. They come up with all sorts of ideas that involve me going to Target, or to that Spirit Halloween store that suddenly pops on every corner as soon as school starts in August. Catalogs arrive with glossy photos of elaborate knights and fairies, Skylanders and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They beg for costumes that cost over fifty dollars, and when they realize that is definitely not happening, they start looking on Amazon for the versions that are sixteen dollars.

We have bins full of costumes – in all sizes and for all genders. We’ve been celebrating Halloween for almost a decade with two, three and finally four kids. I announce that I am not buying anybody a costume this year – find a costume from what we have, or make one I declare. I feel quite proud of myself actually. I am encouraging them to be resourceful and creative! They’re a little disappointed, but they realize I’m serious.

I loved it the first few years – when there were two kids to dress up, and we could go trick-or-treating early in the evening because they had to be in bed by 7pm. When they were too young to know about carving pumpkins. We would ooh and aah at our neighbors’ amazing jack o’lanterns, and scary Halloween decorations. We would collect a little bit of candy, but the oldest didn’t like candy, and the youngest was too young to eat it. It was low-maintenance, easy, something we watched more than did.

But ten years and an additional two kids later, it’s a full-blown, all-consuming, month-long planned operation. And I have to execute it all. The costumes are just the start. “When are you going to buy candy, Mom?” This was two weeks ago. Again, too far away to think about. “When are we going to the pumpkin patch, Mom?” Umm, I can’t even figure out today’s schedule, so how about let’s not?

The emails from school and after-school are relentless. “Your child may dress up for school on Halloween.” Read: your child must be in costume on Halloween, or else he/she will be the only child not in costume. Can’t have that.

“Your child may attend ballet in her costume.” Really? Revision: “Actually, we’re not having ballet the day of Halloween.” Really?

“Your child can wear his costume to the soccer game on Sunday.” What?? Who can play soccer dressed as Rafael the Ninja Turtle?

“Please parents, come to the Halloween party our class is having” – as if they’re not going to eat enough sugar today – “and stay for the hour-long parade around school” (reschedule the vet appointment, and definitely that dentist appointment, and anything else you may have had planned for today), “and don’t forget, all today’s after-school activities and homework clubs are canceled.” It’s Halloween!

Okaaay, I decided yesterday – something’s gotta give. It may as well be me. Orange is actually my favorite color. And I adore pumpkins – they’re quirky, and lovely to look at and to touch. My husband carved them with the kids while I was out of town. At the next request for candy, I climbed up on a chair and found two huge bags in the pantry – yes, they’re from last year. Listen, candy is candy and the nagging stopped. (But I do understand if you don’t want your kids to come trick-or-treating at my house). My hopes of staying home and sitting on the porch handing out my stale candy were dashed, when every one of my kids looked at me with wide eyes and asked if I was also going trick-or-treating this evening. Yes of course, I replied, we’re all going.

My little girl improvised from top to toe, and went from being a vampire to a biker and back to a vampire. One son used the other son’s costume from last year and is a banana – he really didn’t want to be a banana but he made it work with good cheer and excitement. The school parade was adorable – every child had an incredible costume and a huge smile! There was even a fifth grade flash mob to Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

Halloween

This morning, my daughter announced that she couldn’t sleep last night.

“Why couldn’t you sleep, Sage?”

“I was just so excited, Mommy. I can never sleep when I’m excited about something.”

The sun is shining, clear sky, California Fall at its best (it always rains the day after Halloween in the Bay Area) – and who doesn’t love orange velvet cupcakes decorated with black frosted spiderwebs? Let’s just be excited!