During summer days we roasted on ladders, scraping and painting our little red house. My sister wore her impossibly orange bikini and basted with baby oil. I wore cutoffs and brought the radio. Never venturing beyond the first story, we must have dribbled half a gallon of stain on the driveway, but at $1 an hour, management wasn’t complaining.
At the end of our shifts, we would wrap the brushes in foil and tuck them in the freezer.
Dubbed “the eternally painted house” by the neighbors, it was perhaps only a marginal improvement over the salmon eyesore it had been.
1. Let’s say your mom has been fighting a stupid virus for five weeks now. But instead of lying in bed quaffing Dayquil, she rallied and took you to the beach. She and her pounding sinus headache ran around playing games with you. After that, she took you out for the most amazing ice cream OF YOUR LIFE. Then, while you showered and sat on your butt watching TV, she made a tasty dinner comprised of: mashed potato patties, salmon burgers with lightly curried ketchup (your favorite), cucumber slices with a drizzle of cilantro oil, and even a %*($!! sprig of parsley. When you see your plate, the correct response is:
A) What? Where’s the bruschetta? Weren’t you going to make bruschetta tonight?
Lately I’ve been experiencing a bout of nostalgia for simpler times. What happened to the good old days, filled with low expectations and mindless worksheets? I’m all for a robust education, but must we continually challenge the school community…right up until the very last day? Bring on the busywork!
I wonder how many times I’ve heard myself say, “I can’t handle my kids’ homework load.” I know how ridiculous that sounds, but I also know what broke me. The P word.
For me, the word PROJECT now sparks shortness of breath and a creeping despondency.
PROJECT means late nights, endless trips to craft stores, and insomnia for all. Honestly, providing comfort in the middle of the night is not my forté. I’m tired and cranky, too, short stuff.
PROJECT means trying not to have an anxiety attack while your child wields a box cutter in an unorthodox manner. That’s right. It’s actually scarier and waaaaaaaay more frustrating and time consuming to nag your child until she gets it done than to just whip something up yourself. Same goes for research papers, by the way.
It means stepping in blobs of clay, glue, and acrylic paint before tracking them into the living room rug–with no one to yell at but yourself.
PROJECT means not finishing the grant I have due because I am scouring a three-county area in search of blue tri-board, two-foot balsa wood planks, or tiny bells.
It means a tarp thrown over your dining table for 8 days while you sit on the floor with your plate in your lap. Or forgetting dinner altogether the night before everything is due.
It means explaining the concept of scale for the one billionth time while trying not to let the last straw show in your voice or demeanor.
When Miss 12 was in fourth grade, she embarked on the quintessential MISSION PROJECT. Four weeks later, after ruining three and a half weekends in a row and nearly ruining my marriage–not to mention having to completely ignore my other kid for twenty-seven days straight–I dropped her at school with her plywood/sugar cube/cardboard/fake plant baby. That’s when I found out that half the families had simply purchased mission kits online! Of course, kits were expressly forbidden in the teacher’s directions, but WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME THEY WERE DOING THAT ANYWAY? We could have distressed that cookie-cutter mission enough to look homemade, believe me. I didn’t go to art school for nothing.
I’m not sure what my kids have learned in the past few years, but I developed a conditioned response to PR#J@CTs: a craving for Xanax when I hear the word.
My secret fantasy: locking me and my Netflix account in my bedroom between the hours of 3:30 and 10:30 pm, Sunday through Thursday. Too late now. Maybe next year.
Addendum: Before I get any backlash, I should spell out my disclaimers. I’m all for project-based learning. I’m just…tired. It’s been a long, tough year on the homework front. It’s exhausting to have to be sitting on both my kids to yank out giant project after giant project. Sometimes, the phrase “independent work” sounds like music to my ears. And I’m not sure the project always gets at the learning one would hope. A couple days before her mission project was due, I turned to my daughter and asked, “So what is a mission?” AND SHE COULDN’T ANSWER THE QUESTION.
In addition, I think kids need time to absorb everything from the day, unwind a little, and develop other, less academic skills and interests: gymnastics, piano, drums, swimming, or just (gasp) building relationships with their peers. They need time to do what they want to do, explore their own creative realms. Please.
Full disclosure: my soul does not want chicken soup. My soul wants some time by the lake, listening to the loons; it wants to sit and watch the stars swing across the night sky. And maybe a tuna melt, though since it’s 5:40 pm, that might not be my soul talking. (illustration by Cece Bell)
To be honest, I’ve never read a chicken soup book; I can’t get past the cloying font on the covers. But I could see how a volume dedicated to the carpool driver might be useful. Gratitude is definitely not the focus of my consciousness while driving a carful of kids from here to eternity.
It’s not usually the kids that give me an aneurysm, though. The main problem with the carpool is the driving.
And the traffic.
And the idiots.
It’s the construction detours and backups.
It’s the sitting, the endless sitting.
It’s the feeling that my life is passing me by while I lurch from red light to red light.
It’s the premonition that if and when I finally arrive, a posse of hormonally-agitated tweens will roll their eyes and say welcoming things such as, “what took you so long?”
It’s the fact that, after ninety minutes in my gas-guzzling butt-breaker, I am unable to exit the vehicle without hoisting myself up with the car door. Apparently I have developed some sort of Saturday night palsy of the left hip. No doubt AARP is lurking in the shadows, waiting to enroll an early-adopter.
And…did I mention the sitting?
I am thankful that the carpool exists, of course. Otherwise I would be doing three times the driving. In fact, since it’s physically impossible to be two places at one time, one or both of my kids would be standing around unchaperoned on a curb somewhere. I am therefore forever indebted to those lovely parents who have teamed with me.
A carpool is a beautiful and delicate balance, thrown easily by one member making a team, or being cast in a play, or needing a retainer, or feverish. Do not sit next to me or my kids if you have a cold. You could screw up the logistics of my parenting life for the next two weeks, and my carpool buddies wouldn’t thank you, either.
I do try to combat my bad-itude. I bring snacks, a special ergonomic back pillow, and loud music of the passengers’ choosing. I’ve developed an audiobook habit for the solo runs, which helps mask the fact that I waste a shocking proportion of my waking hours behind the wheel–only to arrive exactly where I began.
Despite all of that…I f#%@ing hate it. I do.
I’m not alone, either. Carpool driving is on the shit list of parents everywhere, right next to stomach viruses, fundraising, and lunchroom duty. We are ripe for some spiritual guidance. So where is our chicken soup book?
There are 250 soup books. No lie. They have editions specifically targeting:
dieters
golfers
parents of twins
hockey lovers, and
country music listeners.
There are fourteen different soup books about the wisdom we can gain from our furry friends. There is even one volume mysteriously entitled, “O, Canada.”
Surely the size and desperation of the group keening for some carpool inspiration warrants the 251st book.
Once upon a time, we had a lovely dining room table.
Then, we had a couple of kids.
They stuck their gooey hands all over it. They spilled Campbell’s chicken soup and milk and Elmer’s glue. They pressed into its shiny top with crayons and their fat pencils, carving lurching letters and smiley faces and names and dates and numbers. Granted, there was a piece of paper between the lead point and the table below, but still.
The finish wore off here and there in large, sticky, unappetizing patches. These I pretended not to notice for as long as humanly possible.
Eventually, the kids grew older–old enough to dream of our table from days of yore. For your edification, I here include a glimpse into our household refinishing process.
How to Refinish a Table in 43 Easy Steps:
Think about doing this project for a couple of years.
Realize that the table project would be preferable to fixing a leaky basement or cleaning out the garage.
Drag the gigantic table outside and sand it down to the bare wood.
Drag it back inside.
Think about finding some stain.
Eat sitting on the floor at the coffee table for several weeks.
Apply water-based stain.
Gasp at its hideous appearance.
Sulk.
Drag it outside to sand down again.
Do some research.
Buy a lovely espresso-colored oil-based stain.
Apply.
Be disappointed in its overall rough and uneven appearance.
Sand it down.
Do more research.
Use mineral spirits in an attempt to remove the former wax finish, which has apparently sequestered deep into the grain.
Sand more.
Stain again.
And again.
And again.
Decide you can live with the mottled appearance. Decide to call this “character” or “visual interest” rather than “egregious error.”
Apply a high-end polyurethane and cross fingers.
Watch it bubble up like a fourth grade science project.
Consider weeping.
Sand the crap out of it.
Add a little stain to hide the worst of the bare patches.
Reapply poly.
Watch it bubble.
Pick out hairs and try not to weep.
Sand more.
Poly more.
Pick out hairs.
Lower expectations further.
Apply fourth and final coat of poly and pray.
Be pleasantly surprised.
Go out for a celebratory glass of wine.
Receive phone call from spouse: fat, hairy, horrible cat has been meandering around on the final, tacky coat of poly.
from hotmeme.com
Consider “doctoring” kitty’s food.
Order another glass of wine instead. And cheese.
Arrive home and view carnage. Worse than imagined.
Sulk.
Realize it’s time to repeat the whole fun-filled cycle.
My mother arrives in a couple of days. I wonder if she will prefer eating on the floor or standing over the kitchen counter?
It sounded like someone sawing a hole in the cabin—which was, in fact, the case. The corner outside my parents’ bedroom was the tastiest.
“Art,” my mother would say, interrupting his snoring. “They’re back.” She’d toss on a robe and march outside, waving the vacuum hose, my father right behind her.
“There’s only one way to negotiate with porcupines,”our neighbor finally said, sliding a cigar box across our table like the scene from a movie.
But no one used the gun.
Instead, we continued to sic mom on them in hopes they would soon tire of the Hoover.
For years, my mother kept a button exactly like the one pictured above tucked in a secretary desk in her bedroom. The desk was quite small and finished in country white, with an old-fashioned brass keyhole which was never locked. I would sneak into the room and unfold the desk, revealing all its odd treasures. My mother’s address book was kept there, bulging with notes and corners torn from Christmas card envelopes–so many that she held it shut with an oversized rubber band. There were also cubbies filled with neat little piles of precious papers, an empty jelly jar of dull pencils…and that button.
I looked at the button a lot. I remember its exact size and weight, the sharp barb of the pin. It was not the safety pin sort, but the kind that always protrudes, stabbing mindlessly at curious fingers.
When I consider it now, it is strange how much attention I paid to the little knick-knack. I suppose it looks impossibly mundane, but I loved it. You do gotta have art, I knew. We all knew. Between four siblings, we have studied modern dance, ballet, and theater, violin, piano, painting, photography, string bass, electric bass, viola, clarinet, drums. We got that message. And I loved the pun–“you gotta have heart”–another message taught repeatedly. But the pin’s motto had yet another layer for our family; my father’s name is Art.
We needed art and heart and Art.
I’ve been thinking about that button because my father would have been 85 today, and it is the first birthday to pass without him. As expected, I still need him.
I was a little tender already, then, when I took our three ailing foster kittens in for yet another vet appointment this morning. They have giardia, and though medicated, it’s not improving. One has eye infections, and one started bleeding. Caring for them has been nerve-wracking–they are so tiny, so fragile–and a pain in the neck. I never knew that diarrhea could be tracked up walls, on sinks, floors, doors, cabinets. Up the sides of the cat carrier. Matted in furry tails and feet and backs. How do you get poop on your back, my wee pals? Consequently, we’ve been laundering and bleaching the downstairs three times a day, and still can’t keep up. I shouldn’t have been surprised when the vet told me they would keep the kittens at the shelter instead of sending them back home with me. I should have been relieved.
Instead, I was shocked. My anxiety and love for the kittens, plus the frustration that I couldn’t help them, suddenly got confused with my overwhelming grief for my father, and I stood there, eyes welling over the exam table.
The vet smiled and closed the cat carrier. “Say goodbye to the kitties,” she said. “Nice and quick like a bandaid.” And that was it.
I walked out to the parking lot and sat in the car until I could see well enough to drive.
But unlike the proverbial bandaid, the sting has lingered all day.
In honor of the upcoming holiday, I wanted to take a moment to think about gratitude.
If that sentence gave you the heebie jeebies, join the club. For some unknown reason, I have a deep-seated repulsion for Chicken Soup-y type aphorisms and daily meditations.
Perhaps it is accentuated by the cliché art and bad fonts which typically accompany such things.
Don’t get me wrong. I love sunsets. In fact, I would be thrilled to be present for the moment depicted above. But what’s great about the setting sun over the lake is definitely not the cloying overscript on a two-dimensional reproduction.
Moreover, just because I won’t hang that poster doesn’t mean I have a beef with fostering gratitude. On the contrary! Gratitude is essential. I’m working on this often, striving to be a better person, and I certainly don’t want my kids to grow up to be selfish brutes. So…presenting…
A brief discussion of gratitude in a sans serif style.
Semi-recent articles in the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, the Atlantic Monthly, and Family Circle once again outline that teaching gratitude to your kids is important. Do it.
Why? Fostering gratitude doesn’t just make more tolerable people; it makes happier people. Jeffrey Froh (PsyD) did a study with middle schoolers. He asked one group to list up to five things for which they were grateful everyday for two weeks. Another group listed hassles, and the last group filled out surveys. The first group showed a marked jump in optimism and overall well-being that extended for a while, even after the study was completed. Those students also had a more positive attitude about school in general. Feeling grateful boosts happiness, gives people better perspective in life, and improves relationships at home, school, and work.
To sum up what I’ve learned…most experts recommend:
Model gratitude. Big surprise. Thank your kids. Thank your significant other. Thank friends, cashiers, relatives, teachers, baristas, maybe even the DMV clerk. After all, it must be a sucky job.
Give positive reinforcement. Even just “hey, thanks for noticing.” or “I appreciate your comment,” can help the set a pattern of behavior.
Give them less. Have kids work toward something they want, do chores, earn money. Let them know the value of an item. I could buy you those shoes, but then we can’t order pizza tonight. Lost a backpack? Help earn a new one. Talk about how work hours translate into garbage pick up, electricity, gasoline, vacation. Read aloud Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. In addition to being a humorous and vivid story, it discusses hard work, chores, about wasting nothing. There is also a great discussion about the value of a silver dollar that Almanzo would like to spend at the fair. Another book recommendation: Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Long Winter. If that doesn’t make you appreciate having heat and food on the table, I don’t know what will. Amazing.
Volunteer as a family. We’ve started very small. We collect our change and bring it to CoinStar periodically, which allows us to select a charity and send it electronically. What could be simpler? It teaches them that even pennies and nickels can add up to something significant. We’ve also baked cookies and given them out to homeless people, sold cupcakes to raise money for charities, and currently we foster kittens for the SPCA.
Coach when appropriate. I often have my kids make their own purchases, even when they are using my money. I remind them to say thank you (before or after the transaction, not during. I try to avoid barking at them while they are mid-transaction) and ask them to leave a tip when appropriate. They need little nudges along the way. “I was disappointed that you didn’t seem more grateful after I helped you with your homework. I could have been doing other things.” Reminding them of opportunities to be aware and thankful is not cheating.
Structure a moment of gratitude into the day. Practice, practice, practice! Gratitude is a muscle that needs exercising. Examining life for the positive helps lay new pathways in the brain, creating a positive mindset. That explains why Jeffrey Froh’s experiment had such an impact. This is big! I grew up saying grace at the table, so it feels natural to ask my kids, “What are you thankful about today?” when we sit down to eat dinner. I answer the question, too.
I highly recommend Shawn Achor’s TED talk on Happiness. Don’t be put off by its title: “The Happy Secret to Better Work.” It actually includes the happy secret to better life. There are amazing nuggets tucked in amongst some amusing anecdotes. Among them: “90% of your longterm happiness is predicted not by the external world, but by the way your brain processes the world.” In other words, by your MINDSET. Further study has shown that increasing positivity increases creativity, energy, and intelligence, because the dopamine released not only makes us feel happiness, it turns on the learning centers of our brains.
In the last two minutes of his talk, he outlines five quick and easy ways to increase happiness–based on research and not hopeful speculation. Guess what comes in at number one? Write down three new gratitudes each day for 21 days in a row. That is why I now have a gratitude journal, though I can’t call it that, of course. The phrase “Gratitude Journal” makes me gag a little. I have a crass name which I can’t repeat here, but which makes me laugh every time I take it out. I figure that makes me happier, too.
Kinney. Not pictured: the other half of the hopelessly incontinent duo–Sleater.
It was a crappity day for everyone under my roof.
I counted four meltdowns in our house today, and one of them was mine. I was sending memorial flowers from my family today when I remembered I could not put my Dad’s name on the card–I’ve been a little raw ever since. Though he died in May, I am still trying to wrap my head around the new reality. Evidently grief is neither a smooth nor predictable process.
I also spent 4 1/2 hours driving today–mostly carpool and after school activities–and was consequently unable to finish two crucial projects that are due tomorrow afternoon at the very latest. I am hosed.
Meanwhile, Miss 11 failed a math test, which she had to bring home for me to sign. She has a major project due tomorrow–still unfinished–and a test to study for. Miss 9’s after school activities kept her busy until we arrived home at 6 pm. At that point, she was too tired to approach her long division and decimals without a flood of tears and a complete cranial shutdown.
Luckily, at about 6:15, the spouse got home with a new crop of therapy fuzzballs. We’ve been fostering kittens on and off all fall, which is pretty great unless they have diarrhea or persistent confusion about the litter box. Constantly scrubbing everything with bleach and enzymatic cleaner is less gratifying than petting and snuggling and playing. This batch seems pretty well adjusted, however.
While I cooked dinner, I sentenced the girls to mandatory kitten time, and after dinner, I made myself go down there as well.
I’d write more, but I could use a little more purring.
Bad Parenting 101 