Joy-filled Season

There is no denying that this has been one of the most joyful seasons in my parenting life. The fact that this has also been a season in which I have spent the least amount of time with my children is no coincidence. Make no mistake, I love spending time with my children, and I do spend plenty with them, despite this new regimen of classes and office hours and sprints back and forth to Mac Labs at 11 p.m. to set up technologies that will just make a liar out of me. But let me be honest: my children are smiling more and my Baby Girl has run through the Creation story in skit form and my Little Man has started spouting vocab words like woah, and I have had very little to do with all of this. Oh sure, I hired the outsourced care. I scoped out the school. I earn the scrilla that writes the checks. But I am very much the mama who rides in like a hero at the end of the day to hear all about the day's playground drama and what kind of cement mixer passed by our house. My capacity has been reduced. I am more than a freelancer, but less than a full-timer if we're really counting direct service hours in parentland. Of course my children are always on my mind, they are inextricably linked to my heavy heart. I enjoy their company more than I remember enjoying it and I attribute it to all the support I have right now in helping them to explore the world.

I am generally okay with it. The guilt does come in waves and sometimes, because I am in the South where mothers of small children with careers seem to be an anomaly, I feel sucked in and spit back out to shore by it all. I stand over my sleeping children, warm little pajama-clad marsupials breathing in all the peaceful molecules in our home and breathing out all the yawps of glee of the past day, and I think, Was I there enough for you today? Did I give you enough hugs and peanut butter today? Will you remember this day ten years from now as a day in which we put away the silverware together and talked about hot air balloons, or will you recall how I got all sorts of bent out of shape because you kept interrupting me reading a Mercer Mayer classic and FOR THE LOVE OF PEDRO CAN YOU PLEASE STOP SNARFING ON YOUR BROTHER'S SOCKS.

All of this enJOYment of my children comes in contrast, though. Had I not the privileged opportunity to stay home with them for months and sometimes whole years, I am not sure I would feel this way. Grateful doesn't even come close to expressing the hearty thanks I have to my husband for working all of those insane jobs (with the insane) to provide that opportunity for me, for us. The days of placating newborns through the witching hour, of wrangling toddlers who boycotted nap are a part of my past career, but the skills are transferable to my current position and the memories of the sweetness and the struggle inform all that I do now, all that I am now: Wife, mother, professor, hapless student of this joy-filled mess.

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outdoor photo credits to Lovey Loverpants

Happy Unbirthday

Okay. I have to get something off ma chest. Appropos of nothing, I just have to confess that I am not a fan of the throwing of the child birthday party. Woooooshhhooooo. I know, right? You'd have liked the courtesy of being told to sit down first before I dropped that emotional bombshell on you! GAH! This is almost on par with the Dick Whitman/Donald Draper revelation. Believe me, it hurts me more than it hurts you. So, who cares? Is that really what you're thinking? Your kids' birthdays aren't even in this vicinity of the year, Kendra. Why you trippin', gurl?

It's just that...there's this trend? In the blogosphere? Where I live A LOT, and it's a complete festival of birthday DIY awesomeosity, and I just cannot abide it. I feel so inadequate! My children have never had a birthday that their mother has thrown for them. Ohhohoho, those pictures you've seen in their fancy hanboks with the fruit sculptures? Those are all show and tell for my in-laws. There have been no handmade banners, no thematic Elmo goodie bags cum pin-the-tail-on-Elmo games, no matchy candy buffets (sourced locally, natch). I have never hit up Paper Source to craft a custom invitation nor ordered adorbs ones from tinyprints. I've had the opportunity 4 times and I've tossed up the white flag every time.

I have thought lonnnng and hard about this. And truth be told, it has nothing to do with laziness or the wherewithall to host a party or lack of creativity. It's not a campaign against milestone celebrations or a fear that my child will be the one all "it's my party and I'll cry if I want to."

It all comes down to my issue. I'm not even sure I can explain it, but I'm a writer, so let me just write to see what I'm thinking.

I think I'm anti-birthday-throwing for my kids because...because I just want to be selfish with them for the years in which I can be, n'ah mean? I sometimes feel like they grow whole inches while I am rocking them and grow two feet in the span of a night's sleep. It's not fair. I can't bear it! So when their birthdays come and they're a whole year older than they were the day before? I just want to relish in their company and not have to tuck away my inner anguish so that we can get on with the lighting of the candles, the singing in an off-key, the cutting of the cake. I know they are just a couple of years away from hog-tying me into some Fancy Nancy/Transformers shenanigans complete with those uberirritating party favors that kids blow on until the cardboard mouthpiece is all mushy. And then it's all downhill from there.

And that, ladies in gents, is why you've never been invited to a party at my house celebrating my children. Do you feel better now? I know I do. End: SuperEmo Mama Blather.

Edit: I should add that I've always used the $crilla that I would have spent on a birthday to purchase a museum membership or register my kids for a class that we can attend together. Gift that keeps on giving and all of that.

P.S. Am I the only one who feels this way? Kinda?

Think Fast

You know that moment as a child when you unwittingly ask the hot button question and your elder is clearly reaching for something sage but all she can offer you is some totally impotent answer that really leaves you still wanting to know more? Like my neighbor friend growing up. She saw her mother grabbing something out of a Kotex package on top of the toilet and she asked what was that curiously soft little envelope she was tucking into her handbag? Her mother quickly responded, "Those are for mothers." And then it was all crystal clear.

Once you awaken to the fact that you were duped, once you firmly lift that veil of wool from where it was shielding your eyes, you resolve: That will never be me. When I'm a parent? I'MA DO ONE BETTAH.

And then your Baby Girl watches as you dig through your handbag and notices that thin capsule-shaped package that is kinda the size of a candy bar? And maybe she has seen it before and yet she's not sure so she reaches in and grabs it while you are sitting in church trying to write out your offering check and she wants to know what's inside of this, mommy, and you try and keep this scene on the DL by nipping it in the bud once and for all. So you say, "Those are for mothers." And what else is there to know, really?

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