Mama Berenstain

Every morning, usually before I’ve even had a sip of coffee, I’m given my role for the day and then I’m promptly notified if and when that role changes.

“Mommy,” says Finny as he carefully descends the stairs into the kitchen, blankie in one hand, teddy in the other, and hair pointing in fifteen different directions, “You be Kitty Softpaws, I be Puss, and Charlie bees Humpty, okay?”

And we’re off.  He’s a strict director too.  If I start to sound too much like Mommy and not enough like Kitty, he is quick to yell CUT!  “No, Mommy, I thought you were Kitty Softpaws?”

And we try again. 

“Mommy, you better get Humpty off the couch.  He’s jumping around and he might crack.”

When David comes home, we usually switch gears to Jungle Book because David specializes in Baloo the Bear and he calls Finny “Little Britches,” or “Little B,” which always makes him smile.

“Mommy, I be Mowgli, you be Shanti, Daddy bees Baloo and Charlie bees Ranjan.”  We don’t play Jungle Book I.  We play Jungle Book II.  We’re sophisticated like that.

Today, I have already been Puss, Shanti, and now after an episode of Clifford the Big Red Dog before lunch, I am Emily Elizabeth.  I had to wipe my face when I left his room at nap time after being licked three times.  I promised him a bone for snack.

But I have to say that lately my favorite role is that of Mama Bear from The Berenstain Bears.

I be Mama Bear, Finny bees Brother Bear, Daddy bees Papa Bear, and Charlie bees Honey Bear, and we live in a tree house in Bear Country. 

And it’s such a lovely place to be that I find myself seeking out more ways to spend time in Bear Country.  We got books from the library and the bookstore, and I’ve just reserved some of the cartoons, and every day at naptime and bedtime, I practically beg Finny to let me read him another Berenstain Bear book.

So, I started to wonder why.  Why do I look forward to reading these simple little stories about this stereotypical family of bears?

And now I think I know. 

It’s Mama.  I love her.  She’s my girl.  I wish she lived next door and I could run over and borrow a pot of honey and we could talk bear-to-bear about the trouble with chores and too much TV and the scary babysitter, Miss Grizz.  We could commiserate over how our little bears aren’t sleeping because of bad dreams and being afraid of the dark.  We could sip coffee and share common values.  She’s a sista I could count on.

She could also probably use a little time with me too.  The turquoise polka-dotted nightgown and nightcap she wears all day, everyday could use a good trip to the Salvation Army, and I could probably pull her away from flower arranging and quilting club to really let loose with a half-price bottle of wine somewhere.  But beyond those minor, little…oh, delays in her evolution…, I think she and I actually have a lot in common:  we want our children (and our husbands) to behave and help out.

Don’t get me wrong, David is not exactly Papa Bear, who all too often gets lumped in with the kids when they’re not doing what they should.  David is a great help to me and our family and he would not be caught dead in those Jordache overalls, nor would he ever use a push reel lawnmower.  But, I can relate to the idea that Papa Bear, can never completely understand what it’s like to be Mama, and I must admit that I enjoy the fact that the stories always end with the WHOLE bear family realizing that Mama is, in fact, right…about everything…no exceptions.

I guess these books are outdated, I guess they do a poor job of depicting the “modern family,” and there is no doubt they are overly stereotypical in their definition of what it is to be a Mama, a Papa, a Brother, a Sister, a Baby.

But I find comfort in their simplicity, I like what they are teaching my son, and I can relate to all the little troubles, worries, and concerns that affect their little bear world.

I might still be Emily Elizabeth at bed time, but I hope Finny lets me read The Berenstain Bears Show Some Respect.  Looks like someone in the bear family has really ruffled her nightcap in that one and I can't wait to see how she gets all her cubs in line.

Yu-Cky

That’s what I thought when we first turned the key to the new, old house.  Eww.  Uh-oh.  What have we done?  A thick layer of dirt and dust everywhere I looked.  The floors, the blinds, the cabinets, the stairs, the porch.  Dirty.  And I guess I did not do a great job of concealing my disgust.

“This is a yucky house, Mommy.”

“No, no, Finn.  It just needs a little cleaning,” I said.  Cleaning that should have been done before I got here, I thought.  “Let’s go down to the basement.”

“This basement is poison, Mommy.”

“Posion, huh?” I said, but I did not disagree with him.  The cement walls and floor chipping away, dark rooms, old junk, rusty pipes, a toilet caked in…something…brown.  Poison was a real possibility.

But the kids found the fun.  Big, empty house with lots of doorways, lots of stairs, lots of room to run and chase and laugh after a long car ride.  So they laughed as I cringed at the dust cloud that formed when they banged on the blinds, at the many wooden stairs they would now have access to and would no doubt be tumbling down head-first, at the hive of yellow jackets between the window panes in Finny’s room.

When we went out to the front yard, the yard of weeds and a rotting old stump, I laid it on thick in my discussion of the street.

“Finny, you must never, never, never go into this street.  The cars will come very fast.  And we must always watch Charlie and if you ever see him going into the street, you call to Mommy and you bring him back.  Do you understand?”

And he did understand because he repeated this to me at least eight times over the next four days.

When we got back into the car, I bit my lip to keep from crying and told David to call the movers to move it back a day, so that I could clean, clean, clean.

And then I had to pull it together because they read me like a book, especially Finny, paying attention to every last worry that crosses my face and recording every last word I try to utter in confidence.  My fears easily became his fears.

And the newness was frightening to him too.  The first few nights, he trembled and screamed in his bed at what he imagined was a bug moving around in a spot on the wall where the window frame was pulling away from the wall.  Bugs for Finny were suddenly everywhere he looked.  Crumbs, fuzzers, spots in the hardwood.  Bugs attacking him from all angles.

But we adjusted.  We moved in.  I wiped down the floors and cabinets and dusted the radiators, David filled in the hole where the window was pulling away from the wall, and my mom dusted every blind she could in the short time she was here.  Slowly, but surely we are making it our home.  We are putting things away and hanging things up and finding our favorite spots to sip coffee and eat Cheerios and build towers out of blocks and put together puzzles.  Even the poison basement, with a carpet runner, a big Windex wipe down, and the door shut tight on the yucky old toilet, is not so poisonous after all.

The house, it turns out, is actually quite lovely.  Stained glass windows, beautiful woodwork, big front porch, a view of Lake Calhoun from Finny’s bedroom window.  Now that we’ve cleared away the dust, the charm is shining through, and our rented house on Irving Avenue is actually a pretty cool place to settle in for a while.  Even despite a few new fears and worries.

A couple days ago before my mom left town, she noticed we had an ant problem in the dining room.  After dropping her off at the airport, our big adventure for the day was to find a Home Depot and buy some bug spray.  When we successfully found the Home Depot after a few detours, Finny told me I had won ten gold doubloons and we went home to put them in our team treasure chest.

But a few minutes later, Charlie wandered into the kitchen with a new word in tow.  “Yu-Cky. 

Yu-Cky.  Yu-Cky,” he kept repeating as he backed into the kitchen away from the dining room.

“What’s yucky, Charlie?”  And he led me to a spot on the dining room floor where an innocent old brownie crumb was hanging out.  When I picked it up and put it my hand, he ran away from me in tears, “Yu-Cky!  Yu-Cky!” 

I laughed out loud.  Charlie who drinks toilet water, Charlie who eats bird poop, Charlie who sticks his tongue in any dog bowl he happens upon is now grossed out by a brownie crumb?

We are teaching these little boys a lot of things and fear is one of the trickiest lessons.  We have to get it just right.  I want them to get over their fear of bugs, but not their fear of the street.  I want them to learn to use the toilet, but not drink from it.  I want them to be afraid of the water, but I want them to learn to swim.  I don’t want them to fear the jungle gym, but I do want them fear the gaping holes at the top that they are not yet big enough to maneuver.

I want them to be full of fear…and then I want them to learn to overcome it.

And the best way to learn this is by trying something new. 

By moving to Minneapolis. 

By finding what’s yucky and scary and different…

and making it clean and fun and our own.

The Napping House

In a tiny stretch of walkway from the family room to the living room, I realized just now as I flung the blanket off my lap from my nap time tradition of coffee and good book, that this is really the last day in my Cincinnati home with my three-year-old and my one-year-old fast asleep in their bedrooms.

Tomorrow, as everything we own gets packed up, we will be on our way to the next chapter.  New routines, new traditions, new city, new house, new life.

In two years, we will come back to this old place as new people.  A five-year-old, a three-year-old.  And who will be napping?  Maybe someone new?

Two years.  Not so long.  But long enough that I feel the ache of nostalgia as I wave goodbye.  Because it’s not really the house that is missed, but the life that is lived here right now, at this moment in time, when I am surrounded by the soft cheeks of my two little boys, who are growing, growing, growing, fast, fast, fast.

But it’s just a twinge.  And it will pass.  Only a moment to think while everyone is quiet.  When the noise begins again, there will be no time to be sad about the end, only full throttle concentration on what’s happening and what’s beginning.

Screams in the Night

At 1:30 a.m. last night, I heard children screaming and playing outside.  It was hard to hear above the fast whir of the ceiling fan and the attic fan in the hallway rumbling through the house, so I kept on snoozing, not really paying attention to why they were out so late in the street.  And then as I came to a bit more, I recognized that what I thought was playful screaming, sounded more like frantic cries for help coming from the street below.  There were children outside who needed help, and it finally occurred to me that I needed to help them.  I bolted out of bed and started heading down the hallway for the stairs when I realized that the child who was screaming frantically in need of help was in my house at the end of the hall.  When I threw open his door, there was Finny lying in bed, kicking at his sheets, screaming and panicked.

“There’s a snake in my bed!  THERE’S A SNAKE IN MY BEEEEEEDDD!”

When I scooped him up, he was shaking from head to toe.  I turned on the lights and I flipped back his sheets.  No snakes.  I got down on all fours and I flipped up the bedskirt.  No snakes.

“It was just a bad dream, Finn.  No snakes can get into our house.”

But as we walked down the hall hand-in-hand to our bedroom dragging his blankie and teddy, he said, “I hope that snake doesn’t get my baby.”

And despite the fact that I know rationally and reasonably that he had had a bad dream, that there had never been a snake, I still had terrifying visions of finding Charlie in the morning strangled in black coils.

Imagination.

Finny’s imagination is one of the greatest pleasures of my day.  It is constant and delightful and it takes us places everyday that bring us out of the confines of our brick and mortar.

I have been Kitty Softpaws (the heroine of Puss in Boots) for three days in a row now.  If I ever fail to address Finny as Puss, he gently and sometimes not so gently reminds me that he is Puss and that we are still playing the game.  On Wednesday morning, I opened the door to his room to get him up and there he was kneeling on his bed in the dark, whispering, “Kitty Softpaws, come here.  I have something in my hand.”

As I approached, he held out his clenched fist and said, “Open it.”

When I opened his little fingers, he looked deep into my eyes and with a gleam and a smile, purred, “It’s the magic beans.”  And so our day began.  I knew my role.  I had gotten my cue.  And we were off in search of the perfect spot to plant our beanstalk.

Charlie had been assigned the role of Humpty Alexander Dumpty, and after breakfast when I was yelling at Charlie to get down off the kitchen table, which he is now fond of climbing up on, Finny’s concern for Charlie was clear, “Yes, Kitty, get Humpty down, or else he might crack.”

Some days I’m Serabi from The Lion King.  Other days I’m Shanti from The Jungle Book and David is Baloo the Bear. 

Mommy, today we are playing Fire-Breathing Dragons.  Mommy, today we are playing Hippopotamuses Eat Mice.  Mommy, today we are playing Octopuses Eat Jellyfish.

Finny’s imagination is captivating and I enjoy the days he has planned for us.  Two sticks at the park become boyfriend and girlfriend.  The playground is a pirate ship.  His bread crust is a bridge for an army of grapes.  And at any moment, his fingers can become spider legs and crawl across the table.

His narrative is always writing new chapters so I should not be surprised when it follows him into his dreams and awakens there looking real and terrifying in the shape of a cobra in his bed.

All I can do is be there for him to remind him of what’s real and what’s imagined when the nightmares come. 

And then say a prayer and convince myself that I’m right.  That snakes can’t get into our house…not even through the air ducts…nope, not possible…

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.