Up, up, up

You paw my face through the blue tunnel while your brother throws his elephant down the slide, slides down, retrieves it, climbs back up and launches it again.

You crawl back and forth through the blue tunnel over and over again, each time delighted and surprised by my face peeking in the hole in the side looking at you.  And each time, you stick your fat, little hand out and swat at me.  You do this for at least ten minutes, the same repetitive motion.  You learn the way and feel of the tunnel.  You figure out what your little body is capable of doing, climbing in, climbing out, climbing in, climbing out.

And I take my time just taking you in.  My seventeen-month-old, Charlie.  Climbing, climbing, climbing up on chairs, up on benches, up on the fireplace hearth, the ottoman, the couch, constantly discovering new things to hoist yourself up on and the beam of pride that follows each new little surface you conquer.  And the mischievous grin when I tell you to sit down as you repeat, “Sit dow!” like it’s the name of the game we’re playing.  And the scream and thrash of frustration when I pull you down from something far too high and unsteady for you to be sitting or standing on.

And the fear that you will fall.  Like the day at the park a week ago when I saw that you had managed to climb up to the really tall tower.  I had been too busy talking to notice that you could make it up that high.  And the sight of your legs about to dangle over the edge.  And my heart leaping out of my chest.

At seventeen months old you want a taste of everything.  A taste of the highest view, a taste of the dirt in the pots, a taste of the toilet water, a taste of the deep end of the swimming pool.  And I am always there to pull you back. 

Swat at my face all you want, bite my hand that grips yours tight, kick me when I pull you down, but I won’t let go.  Not yet.  You’re dangerous, Maverick.  And you’re also pretty gross.  So, until you start refining your tastes and growing sturdier limbs, I’m clipping your wings, little one.  You’ll fly beneath mine.

Listening

“Finny, listen to me.”

“Finny, you’re not listening.”

“Finny, I’m going to start counting if you do not listen to Mommy, right now!”

Last Monday, after no sleep combined with the stress of showing the house combined with a Finny who wanted nothing to do with anything that did not involve pure mischief, I was at my wit’s end.

I was pulling stuff off the table left and right.

“If you don’t listen on the count of three, you’ll get no shows for the rest of the day!”

By the end of the day, he had lost all shows, all treats, and all bedtime stories.  And he still wasn’t listening.  The next day was better, but still included lots of running from me when I asked him to come and lots of harassing Charlie by taking his toys or just stalking him like a Puma until he burst into tears.  Finally, by the third day of no shows, no treats, and my incessant reminders of how important it was to listen to me, he started to fall in line.  In fact, he woke up that day talking about it.

“Okay, so Mommy, I’m going to listen to you today.”

“That’s great, Finn.  Then we’ll have a really good day.”

“Okay, so since I’m listening to you, can I watch Tarzan?”

“If you do a great job of listening to me all day, you can watch Tarzan tonight while I make dinner.”

“But I want to watch it now!”

“First, you have to show me that you are going to be a good listener.”

The whole day he listened, and he pointed it out.  It reminded me a little bit of someone else I know. (“Jill, did you notice I emptied the dishwasher this morning?”  Yes, yes, pat, pat, pat.)

“Mommy, I’m listening to you!  Mommy, I’m being so helpful!”  Yes, yes, pat, pat, pat.  Kiss, kiss, kiss.  “Such good listening, Finny.  That’s helping us to have a good day today.”

He watched Tarzan that night before dinner, and since that day, he has been better at listening. 

But then, last week, he was listening so intently that it caught me off guard.

On Mother’s Day, David’s mom and I had been talking in the car about what my career would look like when the kids are all in school.  I talked about how difficult it would be to go back to teaching, but how I really wanted to figure out a way to do it part time.  Finny and Charlie were on either side of me while I was squeezed in the middle.  I thought they were watching the cars go by.

And then two days later, sitting at the kitchen table waiting for his breakfast, tears gathered in Finny’s eyes and slowly rolled down his cheeks.

He scooted around in his chair to face me as I was peanut-buttering his toast, and just as I was noticing the big tears and the sad, sad look of concern, he said, “Mommy, when you’re a teacher again, will you still be my mommy?”

I put down my knife and I scooped him up and bathed him in kisses.  “Of course, of course, of course.  I will ALWAYS be your mommy.”

And when a big smile appeared on his face and he wiped his wet cheeks, I put him down to eat his breakfast.

But as I went back to the kitchen sink, I was marveling at him.  At the thoughts in his brain.  This kid takes a half an hour to pee because on his way to flushing the toilet, he gets distracted by a toy lion on the ground.  I’ll pop my head in five minutes later to see him standing on his stool, pants around his ankles, bathing his toy lion in the sink.  This kid won’t put his shoes on when I ask, never leaves the park when I call, and dips his hand in his milk cup even though I’ve begged him not to a thousand times.

And before I could finish marveling over his worry about me going back to teaching, a few days later, as I was just fastening his sandals to head out the door to Aunt Laurie’s house, he says,

“Mommy, I don’t want you to die for a long, long time.”

“Oh, Finny, I don’t want to die for a long, long time either.”

“Because I love you so, so, so much and I just don’t want you to die.  But everybody dies, right?”

“Well, yes, everybody does die someday.”

“But nobody wants to die, right?”

“No, nobody really wants to.  I guess everybody really likes to be alive.”
“Yeah, like Evy and Jane and everybody wants to be alive.”

“Yeah…”

“But we all have to die because we made Jesus die, right?”

“Finny, has someone been talking to you about dying?  Why are you thinking about this?”

I asked this as I put him down, shoes fastened, and he ran off to make his toy lion attack his toy gazelle.

And again I was left to puzzle at him.  Three years old.  Ponders life and death in one moment.  Launches plastic jungle animals off the couch the next.  Three years old.  Trying to understand Christ’s crucifixion in one moment.  Begging for Goldfish crackers the next.

He might not be obeying me.  But he is listening.  And he is processing.  And he is worrying.   About stuff I didn’t even know he could understand.  And so maybe I’m the one who needs to start listening…to the thoughts in his brain…which seem too big for a three year old to carry with him out the door to a play date.

Which is why he leaves them with me, I guess.  Lets them settle into my brain…while he goes off to chase Charlie around the room with a baby dinosaur in one hand and the letter z in the other.

Moving to Minneapolis

When I tell people we’re moving to Minneapolis, my favorite people are the ones who immediately tell me how wonderful it will be.  The best response was from my friend, Wendy, who immediately rattled off at least seven positive things that made Minneapolis suddenly shimmer bright and green and beautiful for me like the Emerald City of Oz.

“I just found out we’re moving to Minneapolis for two years and my head is spinning,” I said.

“Oh, that’s great, Jill!  Minneapolis is a great city.  Everyone raves about Minneapolis.  It’s supposedly really beautiful with all the lakes, really active, great place to live.  What a wonderful adventure for your family!  And what a perfect time to go!  Your boys won’t even be in school yet.  And it’s only two years.  I think you’re really going to love it, Jill.”

Immediately, I was filled with joy.  Yes, an adventure, I thought.  A great adventure for my family, and I clung to that word and am still clinging to it.  Because I like adventure.

After college, I was positively itching for it.  When it looked like my Peace Corps application was going to fall through the fall after I graduated, I panicked.  But I was supposed to have this great character building adventure!  I thought.  I was going to really challenge myself to live outside my comfort zone, to think outside my box, to be on my own, far away, learning to live in a different way, changing my worldview, really, really seeing the world beyond the Midwest.  I regrouped fast and got on a plane to Poland a month later.  And I did it.  I had my adventure.  I learned to teach, travel, hike, rock climb, eat mushrooms (the non-magical kind), use a map, speak Polish, ski, hitch-hike, walk in the snow in tall boots, take the train, the bus, the tramwaj.  I learned how to get along with all different kinds of people and I learned how to techno dance.  Badly.  I challenged myself.  I changed my worldview.  I was A-D-V-E-N-T-U-R-E-S-O-M-E.

And then a few years later, I embarked on a different kind of adventure.  I had a family.  Now, I live on a cul-de-sac in the suburbs with my husband, my two boys and my two-car garage.  I’m in a book club and a mom’s group and I belong to a health club.  I go to birthday parties and cookouts and frequently find mulch in my shoes from the playground.  I find myself admiring other people’s mini-vans and asking them how they like their double strollers.  I talk about weeds and crock-pot recipes way more than I ever imagined I would and I have a box of diapers delivered to my door every month.  And I’m excited about it.

And it’s a character builder.  For sure.  Oh yes, I’ve learned more about my character than I ever wanted to know.  I did not have to walk deep into the jungles of Africa to find my Heart of Darkness.  I found it right here in the comfort of my own home on any morning when I was expected to care for my young children after being up all night caring for my young children.  And I don’t have to dig deep to find it either.  Show up at my house around 7:45 p.m. when I’m trying to wrestle both boys into a bath and bed by myself and you will see the Heart of Darkness.  It’s wearing a T-shirt from the Gap that is covered in bath water and probably some pee-pee.

And now we’re moving to Minneapolis.  A new city.  A new house.  A new adventure.  And that too will be a character builder. 

Because the last time, I travelled, I travelled light.  A suitcase, a backpack, and me.  This time, I am packing up a house, a family and a life. 

The last time I traveled, I was fiercely independent and I wanted something big and far away and all my own.  This time, I want to pack my entire extended family up in a box and bring them with me.  This time, I admit, I am shamelessly dependent on my mom, my dad, my sister.  It takes a village and my village is in Cincinnati, a phone call away, a drive away from a little relief, from a little help.

When my kids were babies, there were a few mornings after sleepless nights when I called my mom at 7 a.m. and expected her to time travel to be at my door at 7:02 a.m.  It was agonizing if she had to actually wake up and take a shower before she could come over, felt like an eternity if she couldn’t show up until 10 a.m.  I JUST WANTED TO GET SOME SLEEP! 

And now, she’ll be much farther.  Her trip will cost money and take time and planning.  And so, I’ll have to figure it out.  I’ll have to figure out what to do when everyone’s sick and nobody’s sleeping and everyone’s crying and David has to go to work and I’m by myself and the good old Heart of Darkness shows up ready to hurl sippy cups across the kitchen. 

I’ll have to figure it out.  Because that’s part of the adventure.  The growth part.  The struggle part.  If your muscles don’t ache at the end of a long hike, well then, you didn’t go very far.

So, I’m building muscle this year.   Some big Minnesota guns to fit underneath my big poofy parka.  And we’re all gonna grow together, as a family.

And when we’re sick of growing together as a family, well, thank God for Aunt Celeste.  She’s only thirty minutes away in Chanhassen and she’s itching for some grandkids.  I am only too happy to scratch that itch.

“Mama, when will all the days be over?”

“Mama, when will all the days be over?”  Finny asks me this question on an almost daily basis these days.  I know he’s trying to understand time, how the calendar works, but still the question always sits deep within me, a reminder of his innocence, like gold.

“Mama, when will all the days be over?”  He wants to know because we’ll be talking about our schedule.  We’ll be talking about what’s coming up.  “Tomorrow you’ll go to school and then after nap, Grandma and Pop-Pop are coming over.  Then the next day, we are going to the zoo, and then two days later, on Sunday, we are going to Julia’s birthday party.”

“But, Mama,” he insists, “When will all the days be over?”  And I’m not quite sure what he’s asking.  It’s such an existential question from such a tiny little voice.  The days keep coming, the calendar pages keep flipping.  There’s nap, then there’s what comes after nap.  There’s bedtime, then there’s what comes after bedtime.  He knows there is a tomorrow and a yesterday, but he has no sense of what all the days look like all lined up and packaged into weeks and months and years.  And he wants to know…what?  When we’ll rest?  When we’ll stop planning stuff to do and people to see?

“Mama, when will all the days be over?”  That’s the question, and my answer is always the same, “I don’t know, Finn.  Hopefully, not for a long, long time.”  Because, I continue on in my head, I like the days.  I like all the days.  Even the really tough ones.  And I want more and more and more time with you, time with Charlie, time with Daddy, time with everyone we love.

And today, he asked, “Mama, when will we all die?”  And at three years old, he’s trying to understand something that’s impossible to understand.  And I see what’s coming for him… the beginning of fear.  Monsters and bugs and worms and dark rooms—they’re all jumping out to get him now.  And he wants to understand something about life, death and time that I can’t explain. 

I only know there’s something about this question that I like.  It could be the way his sweet blue eyes blink at me, just waiting for me to deliver a simple answer as he chews up the last bits of his grilled cheese.  It could be the way it makes me stop in my tracks and notice him, notice the room, notice the fleeting moment we’re in, me with my dish towel, Charlie with his teething ring, and Finny gulp, gulp, gulping his cup of milk until he’s exhausted from its refreshment.  It could simply be that it’s such a dark, sad question, but coming from Finny it just seems so practical and matter of fact.

“Mama, when will all the days be over?”  I don’t know, Finn.  And I like it that way.  Keep chewing your grilled cheese.  And I hang the dish towel up and give him a kiss.  A big one.

A Letter to Charlie at 15 Months Old

Dear Charlie,

I write you letters in my head all the time.  All day long it seems you are giving me reason to compose sentences about your fat, little perfection.  I take little word snapshots throughout the day that I know I should stop and capture in a notebook, but instead I choose to simply run to the sink to rinse the peanut butter off my hands.  This is the truth of my days.  I want to be a master historian for my boys, snapping, cropping, and mounting photos of lunchtime giggles, unexpected car-seat naps, and the days when that one ringlet in the center of your head has extra, extra bounce to it.  But more often than not, rather than sit down to the word processor, or the photo editor, I either collapse in a heap on the couch, or I hurry to bread the chicken nuggets before dinner.

And now you’re one.  Well, almost fifteen months old, actually, and the storm is moving in.  So, I better hurry, right?  I  better hurry up and write it all down while I feel a sense of quiet and rest because there’s a rumble beneath my feet that tells me the ground beneath them is about to give way.  Hurry up and write it all down before everything that is normal is all squished up and packed away with a coat of bubble wrap and a strip of packer’s tape.

So before I forget, before I turn around and you are eighteen months old and then twenty months old, and I realize I have never told you about what you are like when you are simply just one, let me whisper in your ear, just this one little thing, Charlie:  I love watching you eat a sliced banana.

I try to make the slices small, but sometimes they’re a little too thick and you pick them up in your fat, little bear paws and stuff the whole big slice into your mouth at once.  And I watch.  With tremendous joy.  As you puff out your cheeks and pucker your lips and chew and mash and chew that sweet, soft banana to a nice slippery state, so that you can gulp and smile and put your paw back out to do it all over again. 

I love that.  I love that like I love just about everything you do.  You should know though that I love so much of who you are right now mainly because you’re fat.  If you were skinny, I’d probably only kind of like you as one likes a casual acquaintance.  I’d give you forced smiles, but I wouldn’t razz your belly as much.  Because it wouldn’t be fat enough for me to really get in there.

[Side note:  I just realized that this point is totally without truth or merit because your brother Finny has always been a skinny little thing, and I would swallow him whole if I could.  Man, I’m getting hungry.  Must take a pretzel break, so that I don’t eat my sleeping children.  End side note.]

You are in many ways like the late, great Chris Farley, minus the cocaine and all the other tragic stuff.  The main similarities are that you are fat and funny and that you can’t help but stick your gut waaaaaay out when you waddle across the kitchen looking for a refrigerator magnet to chew on.

Right now, at the tender age of fifteen months, you have six little hilarious teeth that pop out when your big duck lips curl up.  And you have the best baby fat calves on the planet, which I am only now getting to really, fully appreciate because you wear these ridiculous baby shorts.

But here I am beating around the bush, when the point is, the real heart of the matter is:  I love you for your hair.  Any man off the street could walk up to me right now and say, “Excuse me, Ma’m, I’d like to offer you this truckload of gold bars, I’ll drop it off next to the grass here, if you’d just give me the curls off your one-year-old’s head,” and I’d slam the door in his face.

Because A:  What a weirdo.

And because B:  It is one of the great highlights of my little day to walk into your room in the morning and discover how your hair has ended up after a full night’s sleep.

[Sidenote:  If you have not had a full night’s sleep, like last night when you decided to party from 12:30-2 a.m., I am slightly less interested in your hairstyle and a little more interested in getting back that hour and a half of sleep you robbed from me.]

Much like your brother, you are a friendly little guy.  I’ve struggled all through toddlerhood to keep both of you out of strangers’ laps at the library and the park, and last week at the grocery store, after learning what it means to say, “Hi!” you greeted everyone who came within earshot with a, “Hi!  Hiya!  Hi!”  And of course, everyone who passed fell to pieces over your head of carrot-top curls and your friendly little teeth.

You say other things too, not so much words as your own adorable sounds.  These include such gems as:  “Bidoh, biday.”  “A-bee, a-bee, a-bee, a-bee.”  “Meea, meea, meea.” And our personal favorite, “NnnnnnnnnnnAAAHHH!!!”  You really rev up for that one and it’s always a sure hit.

You say, “DA-DAHHHH!!” with the fervor of one who is not greeting his daddy, but rather his old fraternity brother who used to dance with Christmas trees after keg stands.

And you say, “Ma-ma” in the sweetest, most delicious, most genuine way that I blush every time and then devour your cheeks with kisses.

You should also know that you are not just my baby.  You are not just Daddy’s baby.  You are Finny’s baby too.  He pushes you over a lot.  He takes toys from you.  He hits you.  And sometimes even if you are minding your own business, he seeks out ways to taunt and torment you.  But, he also loves you.  He looks out for you.  He hugs you.  He delights in making you laugh.  And he talks to you a lot.  Even though you can’t understand him, he is often explaining to you about how he will save you from the whale that's going to swallow you whole or making sure that you know that the purple Hot Wheel is the red Hot Wheel's wife.  He is a good big brother and he can’t wait until you’re just a little bigger and can really play with him, you know, without trying to eat the sidewalk chalk.

You are still a bit of a puzzle though, Charlie.  There is no doubt you are a mama’s boy right now. (My aching back is testimony to how often you want to be picked up and held these days.)  But, even though, you want to be held, you are a tough guy to console when you’re unhappy.  I can still charm Finny into a trance with a gentle sweeping of the hair across his forehead, but you, sir, are a different story.  When you’re unhappy, you don’t want to be held, but you don’t want to be put down.  You don’t want to sit or lay or rock or eat.  You will toss your milk cup across the room and you will thrash and kick and cry, cry, cry, and you want nothing to do with anything.  So, at a loss, we all just sort of hide under the kitchen table and pull our knees to our chest until you decide to simmer down and join the civilized again.

I guess you think you’re a tough guy.  A tough guy who looooooves his mommy.

I could write about you all day long, about everything from your toes to your great delight in throwing the yellow ball across the room, but you’re awake now and I have to go get you.

Know this, Charlie:  There are people who bring the fun and people who wait for the fun to arrive.  People are going to be waiting for you, Charlie VanHimbergen, and they’re never going to want you to leave.

I love you and I’m going to climb the stairs right now and eat you up.

Love,

Mommy

A Letter to Finny at Three Years Old

Dear Finny,

Wednesday afternoon you would not go down for your nap.  You kept knocking on the door, saying, “Mom, I can’t sleep!” over and over again.  You just started calling me “Mom” on Wednesday.  Before that, it has always been “Mama” and “Mommy.”  Please don’t grow up so fast. 

So, I went up and told you to try to sleep because I knew you would be tired if you didn’t and because I need to rest too at nap time.  Finally, I went up at 3 p.m. to get you and when I saw how tired you seemed, I asked you if we could snuggle together for just a few minutes before we went downstairs.  You were asleep within just a few minutes, snoring beside me, so I stayed and stared at your face.  There was a little sunlight that kept peeking in from the blown shade of the open window and it laid across you and danced a bit across the bridge of your nose.  You looked so little, so perfect.  It occurred to me that at three and a half years old, that makes you the longest job I’ve ever had.  And I wondered, how did you get to be three?

They say this time flies, they say blink and you’ll miss it, they say they’ll be grown up before you know it.  I believe them.  I believe that I will find myself suddenly staring at my grown boys towering above me and wonder how it happened so fast.  But I also know that right now, with a three-year-old and a one-year-old, sometimes time seems to be ticking by at a snail’s pace and I’ll dream of a day when I can sleep in again, when I can write again, when I can clean multiple rooms in my house in one sitting, when I can some day feel like a productive, put-together, showered human being.  But as soon as I start wishing for all the time in the world, I realize how quiet my day will be without you and I miss you.

I love being your mommy.  And you love being my little boy.  Early in the day, around lunch time, you are already putting in your request that I read you your bedtime story.  At first, I would resist this because it’s helpful to me when Daddy puts you to bed; then I can get a few things done.  But, lately, I don’t resist because I love it.  You fill the house with chatter and imagination all day long.  You can pick up any two objects and begin a story.  Often times it’s your crust of bread and your apple peels, which leads to a looooong breakfast or lunch.  You never want to stick around for dinner.  Thursday morning I heard you putting one of your toys in time-out using the exact dialogue that you and I had had when I put you in time-out the day before.  It was hilarious.

You spend a lot of time in time-out these days.  Mainly because you don’t listen to me when I ask you to do or stop doing something.  Mainly because you knock Charlie over a lot.  Earlier in the week, I thought you and Charlie were playing nicely on the rug, until I looked over and you were furiously trying to close the sliding glass door as fast as you could and lock it.  When I went over to see what was going on, there was Charlie, sitting underneath the patio table looking in at us. 

Charlie adores you and as he gets older and more playful, I think you are starting to like him too.  I love hearing you try to explain things to Charlie as if he has any idea what you are saying.  You get pretty frustrated with him sometimes because he wants to play with you but he doesn’t understand the rules.  I guess that’s why I get frustrated with you sometimes too.  We both need to be gentler with those who love us who are littler than us.

A few days ago as I was strapping you into your car seat, you looked at me and said, “Mommy, you’re my best friend.”  I loved that.  There are certain things about you right now that I would bottle up and keep forever if I could so that some day when you’re grown up, I could just pull them down off the shelf and experience them again.  I’d keep your little legs.  You’re such a skinny, wiry little thing.  I’d keep your big-mouthed laugh and your contagious tummy tickling giggle.  I’d keep your mischief.  I’d keep your forehead, so that I could rub my hand across it.  I’d even keep some tears to wipe off your soft, little cheeks.  I’d keep you singing Michael Jackson in the car.  I’d keep you doing Zizzer Zazzer Zuz somersaults in your bed.  I’d keep your little butt when you pull down your pants to pee in the most inappropriate places (i.e. outside church).  I’d keep the conversations you have with your circus elephant and the little voice you’ve decided your elephant likely has.  I’d keep you punching the tigers at the circus, sitting on my lap, your hand in the popcorn box.  I’d keep you in the fort, laughing with Charlie.  I’d keep every last question you ask me.  I’d keep all these things and I’d get them all down and I’d snuggle with them and I’d laugh with them and I’d hug them as tight as I could to my heart.

But I’d just want this jar for visiting from time to time.  You, Finny, my little boy, you, I want to grow.  Keep growing.  Keep learning.  Keep doing more and more exciting things.  I want to experience them.

It’s hard to put into words how much I love you.  But I have to try.  Because even when I’m a mean, nasty, tired, grouchy, frustrated mommy, even then, there is nothing more precious to me in this world than your little face looking back at me.  Even when you’re lying about the fact that you did indeed just push Charlie over.

I love you, my Finn.  Always.  Always.  Always.

Mommy

For always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself…and occasionally they will outshine you on their valentine making.

From Disney Family Fun website:  Way cooler than my dinosaur valentines.

I sent Finny to school today with lame valentines.  I know they were lame because he came home with a bag full of valentines and all the other ones were way cooler than his.  Jessica’s mom gave out Frisch’s Big Boy certificates, April’s mom gave a Frisch’s Big Boy certificate and a lollipop, Jacob’s mom gave out Fun Dip, Adam’s mom gave out a sucker and a sticker, Megan’s mom gave out little toys, and Frank’s mom, the cutest of them all, took a picture of Frank holding a piece of PVC, and then she stuck a Blow-Pop inside so it looks like he’s holding a giant sucker.  Pretty Awesome.

Finny’s mom just sent teeny little cards with dinosaurs on them that say clever valentine dinosaur things like “You’re Tops!” next to the picture of the Triceratops.  Yesterday, we thought they were so cool because they are holograms and if you tilt them, they turn into dinosaur skeletons.  Finny carried them all around the house organizing and re-organizing them and showing me and Charlie and Daddy their skeletons.  Pretty cool.  Until today…today compared to all the other valentines, they looked like Finny’s mom cheaped out in the valentine department.  What’s the matter, Finny’s Mom?   I imagined all the other moms thinking when they got home to look through the Valentine bags, Don’t have time to be a little creative?  Couldn’t attach a Rolo or something?  Couldn’t muster up some homemade stationery and a couple of Hot Wheels?

And then I started kicking myself.  Not for buying lame valentines.  But for caring whether or not my three-year-old’s valentines were lame.  I’m such a cave woman.  So unevolved.  So far from Jamie Lee Curtis and Jane Fonda. When I’ve seen these women interviewed in their “older” age, they seem to exude humor, charm, and confidence, and a sort of peace about who they are at this point in their lives.  They always talk about this road they’ve been on to learn to love themselves, and how these years, these older years in their fifties, sixties, seventies are the best ones yet.  They talk about how insecure they were in their twenties and thirties and how they were always worried about what other people thought about them.  But now, it’s all behind them.  They have finally, finally accepted themselves.  I, on the other hand, am still a cave woman.

A friend told me recently that she’s no longer on Facebook.  She closed her account.  GASP!  Why?  Her answer:  Because it was making me unhappy.  Because I was constantly comparing myself to others and wondering why I wasn’t doing all the cool things other people seem to be doing.

Another friend told me that she just started staying home more with her kids because she too found that she was getting stressed and unhappy when she discovered that she was constantly comparing herself to other moms and comparing her kids to other kids.  So she’s staying home to just be with her family and just do things as she wants to do them without wondering all the time whether or not she’s doing it right.

Hmm, I thought, how wise.  And then…I wish I could be wise like that.

On the other hand, you can’t totally shut out the outside world and what the others lurking out there may or may not think about you.  This is what happens when you leave your home—you interact with other human beings and they teach you things about yourself.  Sometimes they teach you how shallow you are—that lady has no business wearing a top that tight.  They teach you how impatient you are—Finny, if you can’t share the trains with the other kids at the library, we’re leaving.  Okay, that’s it.  We’re leaving.  And they teach you some awesome ideas about how to amp up your valentines for next year—next year, we’re going sucker and homemade pencil holder AND free hot chocolates from Starbucks—beat that, Frank’s mom!  PVC?  Anyone can get their kid to hold PVC and put a sucker in it!  (So awesome, Frank’s mom.  Can I steal it?) 

I’m not gonna keep Finny home from school to avoid comparing him or myself with others.  I think pre-school is a neat and important experience for him.  And I’m not a homeschooler (clearly this kid would never learn how to make a proper valentine).  But, I’m finding that school is not just going to be a learning experience for Finny.  It’s still full of lessons for me too.

Ever since Finny started pre-school this year, I’ve wondered, How’s he doing in there?  What do the teachers think?  How does he compare to the other kids?  I find myself anxious to receive reports about him, wanting to hear that he’s normal, that he fits in, and at the same time wanting to hear that he’s exceptional too.  Whatever you’re doing at home, Mrs. V, you just keep on doing it, Finny is a tiny genious.  I mean just look at the placement of that googly eye on the clothespin butterfly.  Well, we’ve just never seen anything like that.  Gifted.

But that’s not what Miss S. told me when she pulled me into the classroom a few weeks ago to talk.   She told me Finny was not listening to her and that he’s making funny faces during circle time when he should be paying attention.

This wasn’t exactly shocking information.  Lord knows I’ve got sticker charts, and piggy banks and bags of lollipops all perched and ready to bribe Finny into listening to and cooperating with me.  But somehow hearing it from someone else was the tiniest bit disconcerting.  I mean weren’t the other kids having a hard time listening too?  Uh-oh, do I allow too much silliness in our house?  Will I mess up his ability to sit still and pay attention?

So, I called my sixty-two-year-old mother, who reminded me that everyone, including Finny, has their days.  It was like Jane Fonda was right there in the room with me—sans leotard.

One of my very favorite quotes of all time is from the Desiderata:  If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

And so it is with valentines and parenting and most other things in life.  I tell this to myself as I try to evolve into the content, self-accepting human being I yearn to be.

And then in the next breath, I think, Those lollipops weren’t even organic or sugar- free.

Still on the road.  Still have a ways to go.  Still trying to see the sunlight through the deep, dark mouth of the cave.