Oh No You Didn't

After nearly 12 hours traveling, including a three hour delay in one of the most chaotic airport hubs in the country (hollaback Atlanta), we landed (with a serious ass thud and a skidding screech to a halt about which the flight attendant announced, "well, we made it") at almost 10pm.

Since thousands of flying dollars gets you about twelve peanuts, a half a diet coke and a seat, I had thoughtfully nourished my children beforehand with healthy airport fare (ie: greasy pizza and cranberry juice), kept them moving through Terminal B as well as I could (jumping jacks, mobile I Spy, "walks") and out of the way of weary travelers. We didn't even sit in the seats at the gate but instead camped out on the floor where their card games and cars would be less of a "nuisance." I gave the evil eye to the restless Giant Four Year old when he dared kick the seat in front of him once. I pointed my finger (from across the aisle) and added a stern "no more of that please mister" when he did it twice. On the third time, the scolding piss-off from the lady so offended by his fidgeting shamed that poor dude into submission.

I wanted to pour my stale bottle of water on her head. Could she not see we were doing the very best we could here? Could she not handle two harmless little jolts? Three?

There were no more kicks, no screaming, no fights. There were a couple of misfires in the bathroom (it was bumpy) but all in all, I would travel with those three shorties any day and I dare anyone who traveled with us to seriously complain: white-haired lady in seat 27E, I'm talking to you. Even when I was a kidless grrl flying across the country with black nail polish and a hangover, I never once glared at some frustrated kid or his stressed out parents. I didn't even want kids then and was pretty sure I was too cool to have any, but I never thought to feel anything but I guess pity and a touch of embaressment for the poor people dripping in sweat trying to wrestle some exhausted kid into silence.

So when I got off the plane, a little sweat drenched myself, I navigated us four through the crowds to baggage claim and nearly lost it when I saw this:



I used to be "just a mom" but now I am "just a mom with the bullhorn-headed kids." Seriously, fuck you. Next time, I'm gonna let 'em run the aisles, I'm gonna let 'em sing Scooby Doo songs at the top of their lungs and I'm gonna drink a forty from a brown paper bag with my own noise canceling headphones. 27E? She will long for the day when he harmlessly kicked the back of her chair three freaking times. LONG for it.

So there.

Everyone Can Touch Our Noodle

Vacation day three. Or is it four? Whatevs.

The kids have been mostly great but the fancy-pants pool club has me kinda stressed out. I am doing that awesome whisper/scream (the kind that implies you are calm yet stern) with a rapid fire list of demands kids hate: no running, don't drink the pool water, don't blow your nose in the pool, your dolphin noises are wonderful but could you please make them quieter, pull up your pants BEFORE you leave the bathroom, no more fart jokes, no more throwing flip flops at your brother.

Ah, the brother. The Giant Four Year Old is like a soaking wet bull in an elitist country club shop. His favorite holler in the pool, despite my nearly constant protests (for obvious reasons) is "help me I can't breathe I'm dying" about which I have now twice said to concerned onlookers, "he's ok, he just has an active imagination."

Mostly he just monitors the use of our pool toys. Should any poor kid dare touch our prescious crap, he alerts them (and everyone else in ear shot) that THOSE ARE OURS! And so I find myself in the awkward position of whisper-screaming unfortunate statements like the one referenced in the title. Because in case these strangers don't know, we are nothing if not good sharers.

Don't Cry For Me 2

This is Part 2, of two parts.
You will be better served to start with part one.

Don't Cry For Me, Part Two

We were expected at a baby shower on Sunday in Connecticut. By “we”, I mean the girls and me. This struck me from the beginning as odd: kids at a baby shower? Why?

I am old school I guess and also, truth be told, pretty much despise all these rites of passage. My mother was happy to make my own shower a simple event – it was small and fast. It was a gesture, a loving one, and nothing else.

Things have changed since then. Things are bigger now. Even unwed, unemployed, overeducated 33-year-old sisters in law who choose to get pregnant can enjoy the windfall of a baby shower. It's a major big deal; they wanted my kids there. In some ways, it was less important that I attended, and more important that I attended with my kids. I don't really understand that but I obliged.

So the girls and me climbed into the car. We stopped to rent movies; I downloaded a great book. This ride would be amazing. And it was. Until…

The breakdown. What a beat down. We were stuck at the gas station for 3+ hours. There were no tow trucks that could haul the kids and me too. We eventually got a cab to an airport (40 minutes away and out of the way) and rented a car. We were fueled by peanut M&Ms and lemonade, but we got to my sister’s eventually. Got there at 7:30. Left my house at noon. It should have been a three hour trip.

But wait! It gets better. Upon arriving at my sisters, we discovered that R has lice. (Should I capitalize that word: LICE?)

The last time we were at my sister’s house – it was Xmas night – the Giant Three Year Old puked all over the guest room. My sister, she never bats an eye, never freaks out, just lends a hand, throws a load in the wash, cracks open beers for us. She was the one scoping through R’s head and applying the olive oil. She was the one who took care of it all.

We made it to the Shower, though R’s hair was still soaked in grease we couldn’t get out and she hardly looked the showpiece. I cannot imagine what all the relatives thought of her or me. So much for parading your kids…

When we returned home (well after bedtime), I bathed R again: three times in vinegar, and then in the shower for a regular shampoo, and finally with the CVS shampoo that would nix it all.

When it was done, I tucked that little trooper in her bed at last, and he and I shook out our own psychosomatic itchies. Satisfied and exhausted, we plunked down on the couch for what was left: the news.

A woman my age and two tiny children suffered car troubles. No one knows what happened next or why, but each was hit and killed by oncoming traffic. I cried when I heard the news, when I saw their faces on the television, when I listened to the Gramma so much in shock that she was eloquent – her pain so poignant, it was unknowable even to her.

It reminds me to remind you:

Don’t cry for me.

Home Sweet Home

I can’t figure out how to tell this story from the start so I am opting for the middle, or some part of the middle, somewhere in between where my head fell off and where it exploded.

After eight hours in various cramped planes and stale-air airports, K, barely 3, shouted to the acid space, “Okay, my back hurts! I want to get off this place, okay? My back hurrrrrtttttssss and now I am ready to go!” For emphasis and to make it clear that “off” was what he wanted, he added the magic word: “Please. Please? Please!”

It was mournful. I could not grant his wish. We were countless of thousands of feet in the sky and as much as I wanted to, I could not ditch him there. Instead, I said loudly enough so maybe the other weary passengers might hear, and then absolve him, and me: “I want to get off this place too. Please.”

(I am not ever sure who I feel worse for when my kids are at their end: me or everyone who has to listen to them.)

There is no better birth control then traveling with kids. We wrangled them through the parking lot, and then through a mass of bodies to security (shoes off, shoes on) and when we passed through (and they’d taken all our lighters), we had entered the 7th ring of air travel: delays leading to missed connections and no one giving a crap. If they had taped us dealing with the person telling us we were basically stranded and that they MIGHT be able to put us all on a bus for two hours -- to take us to another airport that may or may not get us to Denver -- when we need to go to Boston, it would have shown like a PSA for abstinence.

It would have made a killer commercial, and the notes would have read like this:

“Mother of three, wife to one, stuck in the middle of some timeless, spaceless place must make three children live on mini pretzels and little else. At the same time, she must negotiate the fury of the husband, who is taking his anxiety out on the shrimpy, polyestered employee. She figures his hulking size is a minus here as he appears minutes away from spending the night in the joint. She must do this while lugging ridiculous carry-ons filled with old candy and coloring books and half-eaten crayons. She must also carry three straw-topped cups of blue juice that might be the only post-x-ray fluids her kids can get. She grabs their hands. She wrings her own neck. She swears she will never have sex again.”

Cut. Done. It’s a wrap.

But I digress.

Truth be told: it was a wonderful vacation. My father and his wife spoiled us. Their home is a movie-set of perfection, with idyllic sidewalks and lawns and pools empty but for us. I cooked once in ten days. I did our laundry, collected our debris but for those ten days, I gave up my life and it was delicious.

That furious husband of mine – the one, who by the way, strolls even after getting almost booted from the airport, who strolls even when we have THREE MINUTES to make the next plane (the one that will finally get us home) – that man -- he entered a new realm of “relaxed” while we were away. He was with us for real and it was good.

I used to have such anxiety about flying. There was a time when I worried I would never get on a plane again. I even feared ones I wasn’t on. Every plane flying over our house was a weapon. It was a missile aimed for me that would strike and ruin everything I loved. I leapt to the window with each jet engine sound, flinging back the covers of my sleep in some perverse and terror stricken version of “Twas the Night Before…”

I am happy to report that this plane anxiety is lost to me now.

I doubt my itty-bitty enormous is at the top of any body’s hit-list. And even if it were (and maybe it is), I couldn’t do anything about it. Can I stop the plane with my flabby arms from my window? Can I save the world (and us too) just by paying attention?

Control and security live in two different houses, in two different countries really. I know now that one does not beget the other. I get on planes, with my posse in tow, I gather up the supplies we need, and I don’t grab the armrest at a turbulent lurch anymore. I know I can’t save them when the thing goes down, just as I can’t stop that kid from whining or wiggling because frankly I wanted to do the same. This is how it is being barely three on a plane, being me on plane with him, and the rest, my sweet girls so concerned and worried and my giant husband, laying his head on my shoulder when the twelfth hour of this nightmare was winding down, just laying it there, on me.

I started in the middle but I’ll finish at the end. We got home safely.
I thought my oldest daughter, always observant and honest, might view our un-gated, non-manicured, paint-peeling ‘hood with some kind of disdain. But she didn’t.

She said, “It’s exciting to be home. I missed it here.” And then she fell asleep for the whole night, and I did too.