Yesterday morning was truly terrible. Not the kind of terrible where someone spills milk or forgets their lunch in the car. I mean the kind of terrible that has your friend one province over text out of the blue to see if you’re okay because she all of a sudden got the sense that something wasn’t right.
*pausing to say we are all physically fine*
There was yelling, screaming, swearing, sobbing. It was bad. At one point, my eldest suggested we implement a Swear Jar. For me.
I started looking to the universe for answers. Full moon? Nope, that’s next week. Mercury in retrograde… AGAIN? Nope, but that’s coming. What could it possibly be? Oh. Right… It’s September.
Of course, when I look back on the details, it all seems a ridiculous waste of angst. We were running late. No one’s bag was packed. No one’s breakfast was eaten. Someone decided to put a jacket on the dog, who proceeded to walk into a wall. All the while my friend who’d been visiting was trying to make a clean exit for the airport without getting sucked into our quickly expanding black hole.
At first, it seemed to be all my daughter’s fault. She is our family scape goat. It pains me to say it, but we all know it’s true. When things go awry, all fingers point to the E on our compass. Sometimes it’s justified, sometimes not, but it’s a chicken and egg game trying to figure it out. She’s just so good at creating arguments where none need to be had. Right from the very moment before birth, when she decided she wanted to come out one way and someone had to go in and say no, that’s actually not how it’s done. She was not pleased.
My problem is, I always get sucked in. Like, ALWAYS. Even while these interactions are happening, I feel their futility. It reminds me the scene from The Princess Bride where Vizzini cautions Westley not to get into a game of wits with a Sicilian when death is on the line. I know I’m not going to win, whatever victory even means when you’re fighting with an under-developed prefrontal cortex. I mean, seriously, why am I even trying? She’s a child who literally does not have the capacity to reason, yet I continually lend my sanity to the argument. So, whose fault is it, really?
It all came down to wanting to be on time for school, which is mostly important to E. In an effort to make this happen, I kept encouraging her to eat and/or pack her bag. Pick one, didn’t matter, just move in the name of progress. She argued that was exactly what she WAS doing, despite the fact she was not physically doing either. Perhaps she was honing her telekinesis. Who knows. Either way, we argue the point like a top-level tennis match until I eventually go all John McEnroe and pull out the parenting trump card.
“Upstairs! Now!”
“But I need to eat!”
“Take it with you!”
I put her plate of eggs on the stairs then direct her towards her room. She stomps off, leaving the eggs behind.
At this point, my friend’s cab arrives. She gives me a quick hug, JR as well, and runs upstairs to say bye to E. She is not making this last any longer than it has to. In all the commotion, the dog, who had been assessing the situation like a baseball player hoping to steal second, frantically starts gobbling the plate of eggs on the stairs. Gah!
Many expletives later, my friend is gone, the dog is in the kennel, the remaining eggs are in the compost, and everyone without a Y chromosome is bawling. Yes, even me. Especially me. I’m in a full-blown ugly cry in front of the kids. We are very late for school.
I go sit on the couch. Judah follows me, always needing to offer hugs as if they will crazy-glue generations of mother-daughter conflict back together. He tells me, “I wish you could give her a hug.” The impact on him is never lost on me. Who am I damaging more? Her or him? I wonder why the universe even allowed them to come into my life (it took two years for it to eventually concede to our pleas). I feel unfit, ashamed, incapable, and wrong in every way. I feel the weight of my own problems thrown on their little shoulders and wonder if I’ll ever get it right.
I call her to me in all her fight-mode fragility and wrap my arms around her teenaged-size frame. What it must be like to be a child in a body that’s beating down the doors of maturity. Meanwhile, Judah runs around gathering tissues for our tears and stuffies for our hearts. He tells her a funny story and she offers a conciliatory laugh. He lobs a hopeful trial balloon.
“You know what? This feels like a mental healthy day!”
Nice try, buddy, but you’re going to school. It’s a growing pain. A transition hurdle. They happen ever year. And yet, for some reason, I always forget. Mid-August rolls around and I immediately start dreaming of September and all its structure and routine. I imagine cozy sweaters and corduroy and smoothly executed lunches, kids happily running off to school and peaceful days of doing my own form of work. I tell myself there will be menu plans and batch cooks, early morning meditations and exercise I actually enjoy. By October, my pants will fit.
None of this ever comes true. I don’t even have any historical experience to look back on that would lead me to believe any of this is possible. And yet, every year, I blindly skip into Fall expecting to stick a pumpkin spice landing. One might think I would eventually learn. Potentially even implement an Autumn Manifesto. It would go something like this:
Enjoy August for all that it is, but be smart about it. By this, I mean, don’t play dumb to the reality that uniform pants sell out faster than toilet paper did in March 2020.
Don’t reinvent the wheel. Now is not the time to research new recipes or hope your children will miraculously start eating lentils. Just buy the sliced ham and Wonder Bread and call it a day.
Make soup. It can have lentils. It’s for you. You can’t live off coffee and popcorn.
Feeding children dinner at 4:45 pm isn’t crazy it’s fucking brilliant.
And finally…
They’re no longer swimming all day, so they will actually need to bathe.
Sending love and hope,
Alison