Petal Dust

We seem to swirl around each other in a furious dance of busyness. Time is a precious commodity of which none of us seem to have enough.  Every moment filled with thoughts, plans, and productivity.  Many mornings I awake with a “to do” list scrolling through my mind and continue at a steady pace of it until it is time for bed.  There are often days I look back on when I realize I have simply responded to all of the demands that were thrown at me, not actually being purposeful to choose how I wanted to live in that given day.  This harried way of existence not only seems to suck the Life out of life, it fails to make room for others. 

I often walk my dog on a path near my office. Many others walk this same little strip as it is near the new hospital, the new light rail and a few shops and restaurants.  It strikes me that I am often quite content to move past another without looking into their eyes or even offering a greeting. Yet, when a rare moment is taken to acknowledge the other, the stranger who is passing by, some small pleasantry, an exchange that says, “I see you”, something shifts internally for me.  Something changes.  It’s as if I have been let into the experience of another, a small interruption in their day. And that other person has been let into my day in some way. 

My husband has a favorite story that he likes to tell.   When he was attending CU Boulder as a college student he would often ride his bike to and from campus.  One day he happened to ride up behind this burly black man who was‘clipping right along’ on the bike path that runs throughout the Boulder landscape.  Something in Aaron's natural competitive spirit took hold and he decided he was going to pass this guy and beat him to the non-existent finish line.  So as he was pulling around him, out of the corner of his eye, the guy looked over with a friendly but fierce gleam in his eye and said, “Oh, no you don’t!” And thus began the sprint.  And so for the next however far, the two of them pushed their bikes and their bodies to the limit, all the while, catching glances of amusement and unspoken comradry with the other, until they both lost their breath in peals of laughter and the stranger on the bike turned off onto what Aaron supposed was his own street.  As my husband often shares the story, I have a touch of nostalgia for this man I have never met, wondering if he tells this same story to his wife and kids around the dinner table.  Secretly I even hope that someday we will all share a meal and a laugh telling of the day of the "great race".

It compels me to wonder what would happen if I could stop the running list of “to dos” for a moment and notice the life that is in front of me.  Maybe it my child who needs a little attention.  Maybe it is a homeless man panhandling for some spare change. Perhaps it is a business executive who looks important and busy. Maybe it is the one staring back at me in the mirror who says,  “ I need to be seen. Not what I can do for you or how I check off the list of what it means to matter in this life.  I need to be seen. All the cracks, breaks, and messes that I seem to make.”  I wonder what I am missing in the eyes, the handshake, the laugh of another when I fail to look, to see, to notice or touch.  Because of those five spontaneous minutes over twenty years ago, the guy on the bike and my husband's stories have somehow become linked, rubbed off on each other in some way.  Like when you bump into the petal of a lily and the powdery stuff gets knocked off leaving an orange dust on whatever it touches. Is it annoying and now I must rinse it off...or is it beauty...rubbed off onto me?

The Perpetrators

The perpetrators were apprehended and after quite an ordeal, finally secured into my back seat. I had been careful of their heads, like I had seen on Cops, to not ram them into the door as I strapped them in.  Now barreling down the road, I could see the two of them in my rear view mirror, downcast stares, the acknowledgment that they were busted. The swirl of red and blue lights lit up the contours of their soiled faces as I drove them to the drop spot.  Guilt has an odd presence. It seems to seep from pores and stream from exhaled breath.  The heaviness of it can engulf you and threaten to extinguish any light it touches.  This guilt was no different and as I felt it’s cold familiar strangling sensation, one of the guilty spoke breaking the silence.

 “Mommy? Can we unbuckle yet?  I dropped my ambulance on the floor!” It was my four year old who spoke first, the seven year old didn’t dare. He was quicker to grasp when I had had enough and that nothing good could come from any further interaction with Mom at this point.  And before I could open my mouth to answer, the four year old had wriggled out of his car seat to fetch his plastic ambulance.  These toys usually come from the grandparents or other well-meaning relatives who haven’t had kids in their backseats for at least a couple of decades.  Who don’t remember that a constant clattering of noise and flashing lights could, one day, in fact, be the catalyst that finally pushes a mother over the brink she has been teetering on into full-fledged insanity.  The ambulance’s lights were still on, the siren had a minor tone to it as the batteries were wearing out. As I turned around to shut the toy off, my older son and I briefly made eye contact.  I could discern his thoughts as if they were actually written across his face; “Just get me to the front of the carpool lane so I can get out of this car”. 

Just then, as if on cue, the door opened and the teachers scooped the children out of the backseat with a gracious smile that relayed they had had a wonderful child-free weekend of adult activity and mornings to sleep in and were thereby energized and delighted to care for my little beasts for the next 6 and a half hours. I gratefully smiled at this strange breed of human who seemed to actually enjoy the constant swirl of chaos that accompanies caring for little children. The door shut and I drove off into my freedom, briefly glancing back to see their gigantic backpacks walking up the sidewalk.  One purple, one gray. The only other body parts to be seen behind the enormous school bags were four, little legs popping out beneath, and two uncombed heads bobbing up and down, as if the backpacks, themselves had sprouted little appendages. I made a mental note to myself: when kids start riding school bus next year, get appropriate sized school bags.

Driving away, I now have the space in my mind to replay the insanity that had transpired over the first three waking hours of my Monday morning.  It had begun the moment before my eyes pried themselves open.  It was a knocking at my bedroom door by my four year-old. We’ll call him Lucifer for the purposes of this article.  Little Luci was distraught because he couldn’t seem to find a silver mixing bowl which had accompanied his kitchen set we had donated to charity over a year ago. Apparently, he desperately needed this very bowl for his Zhu Zhu pet to use as a swimming pool, this very instant, at 6:30 am. The facts: Said bowl was last spotted in the hot tub a week ago and Lucifer had been outside on the patio for the last 20 minutes working the childproof clips to open the hot tub death trap and perform the rescue of the bowl. The rescue operation had failed and now he was making it very clear that this bowl fiasco was now my problem.

This information came to me in streams of broken 4 year old commands, demands and complaints, while I was beginning the first signs of the awakening process.  I pulled the blanket up around my head and listened as the volume outside increased. The intensity of the bowl situation at my bedroom door was only to be usurped by his older brother’s louder knocks and poundings to gleefully announce that he had finally decided that he wants to have an “Extreme Challenge” birthday party in 5 and a half months when his birthday will finally arrive!  Scuffling, punches and wrestling ensued because of seven year old’s infringement on door space and general lack of concern that Momo the Zhu Zhu pet won’t have a morning swim today.  At this point, some may be wondering why the children are still outside the bedroom door…I sleep with it locked. Wouldn’t you?

My husband was nowhere in sight, probably downstairs hiding in the office.  (They can’t ask you for things if they can’t find you.) Who could blame him? As I tried to formulate a thought that would hopefully transpire into a word, above named son became irate that I was “id-knowing him” (Just sound it out phonetically…ignoring him for those less familiar with the 4 year old speech) So the pitch and tone of his whining began to rise to high f note, I think.  I only remember that this could be an F note on the musical scale as I have distinct memories of the lady at church every Christmas Eve shooting for this exact note at the end of Oh Holy Night. Afterward, my sister would comment, “She almost hit that F note this year!”

But the children are gone now, in a happy place with blocks and easels, paints and markers, kind faces and gentle reminders to use “indoor voices”.  They are truly in a better place now. Someone else is meeting their needs and caring for their little minds.  So I will drink coffee and clean up the breakfast mess.  I will fold laundry and catch up on e-mails. My heart rate has slowed, brain patterns will soon return to normal, my own thoughts can re-enter, not crowded out by irrational demands like, “Mommy, can you make it Easter today please?”  By lunchtime I will most likely change their names back to the originals and yes, by 3:00 maybe even be excited to see their little smiling faces when I pick them up at school.  But for now, I will cherish the mind space that has been freed up to put toward other things like write about, talk about and think about them!

Here’s to Do-Overs

We were all in a puddle of tears this morning by the time the carpool

van showed up in our driveway at 8:30.  How can so much damage be done in such a short amount of time?  It is the sixth full day of school and since the last 5 mornings have been rocky, to say the least, I figured I would try a new tactic this morning.  Instead of having the kids get up and come out to an empty living room full of potential mischief to be had until Mom is finally dragged from her slumber,  I decided to get up BEFORE them, ready to meet their sweet little groggy faces when they came out of their rooms.  I wrapped myself in my fluffy robe, grabbed my cup of coffee and sat down to hear all about Tate’s dreams from last night.  Zach enters, bed head, tired voice, “Morning Mom”.  The beginnings of a wonderful morning. 

I sighed.  Thankful for my children today.  Last night had been Back to School night so they were up later than usual and incredibly cantankerous as I threatened them with spankings into their beds. So as the sun came up, this was a welcomed change.  Steam from my coffee cup twirled into the air. Fleece lined slippers whispered to my toes that we were celebrating the first signs of fall.  Maybe I will make homemade cinnamon apple oatmeal I thought.  The puppy climbed up sleepily into my welcoming lap.

And then, as if on cue, sensing that I might be too contentedly comfortable, the room shifted.  The crazy look crossed Tate’s face and he began traumatizing the puppy. It starts with a few shrieks, giggles and other unidentifiable yelp-like sounds and explodes quickly into a raucous symphony of swirling hurricane deafening chaos.  Legos are spilled in one sweeping toss onto the ground, objects begin flying through the air, and somehow the living room furniture becomes playground equipment.

I take a deep breath and calmly remind them to “use their indoor voices”, which, to date, has NEVER worked.  It sounds like something that should work.  It logically makes so much sense to give them a contrast to understand the appropriateness or lack thereof for a given scenario.  But it is as if I haven’t even spoken.  My voice is drowned out in a cacophony of school boy energy and sound.  In fact, I cannot actually hear my own voice as I remind them again to not use the coffee table as a springboard onto the couch.  My physical cues come first, shortness of breath, quickening pulse, a heavy un-nameable sensation around my neck, like fingers tightening their grip to begin a slow strangling process.  There is a dull ache in the forefront of my cerebrum, as if it is fighting to control my emotional response to this imminent threat I am feeling.
I fight to tap into my yoga breathing, pep talking myself into staying calm, being in the eye of the hurricane and modeling for my children a beacon of tranquility and centeredness.  “Namaste”.  I repeat it over and over again.  What does that mean again?  I am searching for the definition, clawing at my memory to bring it up for me, I can’t remember, I can’t hear, no thoughts can enter in save for the myriad of ways I could silence the thunderous commotion swirling around me.  Heart pounds.  I get a brief disjointed vision of machine gun shells raining down on me.  A squeal escapes from one of their mouths that actually assaults my auditory processing.  I hear the familiar loud ring in my ear that my husband has informed me is actually a cilium, a tiny microscopic organism in my ear, dying.  The realization that the clamor of my children is actually destroying parts of my body now leaves me feeling truly violated.  Reflexively, my mouth opens in fight or flight response and I scream the first thing that comes.

“TATE!” (my four-year-old’s name) The vicious cry of a warrior heading out for the fight.  The room is suddenly silent.  Void of motion, breath, or thought.  The fear crosses his face like a time lapse picture of clouds covering a previously sun-lit sky. All eyes are on me, a Lego falls, breaking the deafening silence.  Still watching.  Awaiting what I have to say.  It is clear by their faces they were completely caught off guard, no warning signal that Mom was about to erupt.  Like a lightning strike on a clear day.  They stare at me stunned.  Even my husband peaks his head out of the kitchen as if to see what the trouble may be. Equally as stunned as they are, though not by the eruption, but rather the silence, I stare back at them. Rational thought begins to re-enter. I have control of the room.  I have to say something.  I must maintain this new ground I have just acquired.  Quickly.  Before it is taken back.  “Go to your room!” I scream, with powerful, if not equal intensity as the previous screech .  Shock and confusion crosses over his little face as tears well up and he picks up his little yellow Lego and walks, head down into his room. Tear streaming down his cheek. Door closes.  Room still silent.

The look of fear and disappointment crosses my seven year old’s face as his playmate was just dismissed to solitary confinement.  Why do I all of a sudden feel like the irrational one?  Doubt enters in, as the storm has momentarily subsided, I wonder, did all of that just happen?  As if coming out of shock, the blood re-enters and begins to re-circulate. Re-gathering myself I glance around, the room verifies my memory; overturned chair, strewn Legos, misplaced pillows and cowering dog under the table.  Yes, all the evidence points to the storm being real.  I did what I had to, didn’t I?  The situation had gotten out of control, hadn’t it?  Then why do I feel so bad?  Why am I near tears for yelling at my kid? Wasn’t I the rational one? Hadn’t I responded appropriately? Logic cries a resounding “yes”. Emotion sends me to the bathroom sobbing.

Now that was my husband’s cue to mobilize troops and minimize fall-out. Stop the leak before it floods the house.  He, in deft allegiance to the bawling woman in the bathroom briskly executes his paternal strength while displaying the solidarity between us.  He storms into my son’s room at worst communicating, “Now look what you have done to your mother”, and at best, completing the disciplinary task I had left unfinished in my sudden onset of acute post traumatic stress disorder. In the kitchen my seven year old is left to the role of “scape-goat”, a term they refer to in psychology, to the one acting out the family dysfunction. Which in layman’s terms means, “This whole scene is so screwed up I don’t what to do.  It has to be someone’s fault.  I’ll do something bad to take the heat and blow this whole thing up.”

Foregoing painstaking details of the scene that ensued, it will suffice to say that a half hour later, after more reckless disciplinary disaster, a pile of crumpled Kleenexes, with half eaten breakfast, and red swollen eyes the two boys and I ended piled on the couch with my husband, still a bit shell shocked sitting across from us with a look, mirroring mine, that said, “What just happened?”

            “I’m sorry this was a bad morning mom”, says my seven-year-old.

            “I’m sorry I was a jerk”, I say.

            “I’m so-wee too Mama.” the four-year-old buries his head in my bathrobe.

We were all jerks this morning in one way or another and I truly wish I could rest knowing we learned a valuable lesson on how to not repeat this scene again.  But I have attended the parenting classes and groups.  I have read the books on parenting with love and logic.  I have all the theories in the world on how to remain calm and centered and give natural consequences while not letting your anger punish your children.  I can honestly say I never ever want to lose my temper with my children as long as I live.  But, in the words of one of my favorite children’s book authors, “Sometimes it happens, just like that.”  And as the van pulled away, my boys and I promised each other something that will never wear out… “There is always a do-over”.