“I was screaming at them so much that I actually got chest pains.”
“I screamed at mine so much that I was foaming at the mouth.”
“I don’t scream, I just tell them that I’m gonna get in the van and start driving and never come back.”
“Well, when I got the chest pains, I told them that they were going to kill me one day.”
“Foaming at the mouth….have you ever foamed at the mouth? I was foaming at the mouth! Can you believe that?”
This is a conversation already in progress between me and two other mothers volunteering this morning at school. We are all officers in the PTO.
Driving and never coming back.
Kids are going to eventually kill me.
Foaming at the mouth.
This was less than two minutes of conversation about how demanding parenting can be. I love these kinds of conversations because I often think that I suck at parenting when everyone else seems to pull it off so effortlessly. From there, I walked outside to wait for Hannah’s kindergarten class to come out for lunch, where I see two parents, one man and one woman, both of whom I actually know, running up with lunchboxes. The woman (Sarah…my neighbor) says to the man (shall remain un-named…)
“Glad to see I’m not the only loser who forgot her kid’s lunch.”
To which the Dad, who’s hurrying with three lunchboxes says:
“Not so much that I forgot, but, we didn’t have any food.”
“Well, that’s a better excuse than I have, not having any food is better than completely forgetting.” (I don’t know….I’d have to consult the parenting handbook on that one.)
Then she turns to me and says “It’s not like the little shit’s gonna eat it anyway… I aught to just send an empty lunchbox…”
We are now out of earshot of the Dad who’s sprinting to the lunchroom to get there before the first of his three kids.
She continues: “I know I look like shit, I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet. What are you doing up here?” I take in Sarah’s appearance. She’s wearing mismatched sweats with Keds, her hair’s a mess, no makeup, but she’s wearing a stunning ruby heart necklace, which I find odd with the ensemble, but Sarah tends to be a little eccentric, which is why I like her so much. I also like people “who don’t give a shit…” as she’d say, because I care way too much…
“Volunteering all morning, now I‘m going to kindergarten lunch.”
I just saw Lisa (another neighbor) speeding home, I called her to warn her that a cop’s sitting at the top of our street.”
Lisa’s always in a hurry. I’m also always in a hurry. This childrearing business is a tough gig. Lisa’s been volunteering all morning, too, and is now rushing home to probably, oh, I don’t know….sit there, feet up, eat some bon-bons, read a magazine, watch a soap…
Not.
She’s driving home in a hurry because she has to do laundry, empty the dishwasher, go to the grocery store, feed the dog, make the beds, plus about 20 other similar things….all before 2:30, which is when she leaves to go back to the school to pick up her kids. I know this because it’s the same thing that’s on my agenda. The difference between Lisa and me, however, is that she will actually accomplish these things and I will sit down and blog about how little time I have, which is partially because I blog.
I write and put my failures out there for all of you to see, I still don’t know why, maybe because it’s free and a therapist is a hundred dollars an hour or maybe just because for a long time, people thought I had my act together, which I do, as much as anyone can without a staff…
So, since I’m in the business of life exposed and I’m discussing the intricate and slightly mundane details of my day so far….I may as well tell you about a discussion that Frank and I had this morning while we were getting ready to leave.
I’m looking in the mirror, assessing my made-up self. I don’t often wear makeup these days, so I was looking slightly more attractive than, say…yesterday. Anyway, in the last six months or so, I’ve taken to putting my hands on my cheeks and pulling them back slightly toward my ears. I find that I look about 15 years younger when I do this. It's incredibly depressing and it makes me look sort of like an alien, but I do it anyway, kind of like morbid curiosity, I can’t help myself. I am also startled that I didn’t do this just one year ago. I fear the direction I seem to be headed. I fear jowls. I fear turkey neck. I turn and show Frank my pulled back younger, yet alien-looking face.
“Look at this, Frank, just look at this.”
“What?”
“Don’t you see?”
And, if you’ve ever read more than one of my posts, you can predict what he’s going to say here. Frank has never been afraid to walk into a marital mine field. Frank usually runs toward the direction of a matrimonial mine field, then runs all around inside it, setting off explosions all while getting plenty of exercise. It’s Frank Flynn Multi Tasking.
“Just lose some weight, it’ll go away.”
“THIS ISN’T WEIGHT!”
“Then I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“This is age. This is droop. THIS IS OLD!” (This could be expensive if I start demanding a facelift. He better tread lightly. He‘s backing out of the mine field. On tiptoes. He fears a potential hit. To his wallet.)
He says nothing. You knew he wouldn’t.
“If I lose weight, it will get worse! What is happening to me?”
“Nothing. Let go of your face.”
“I hated 40. I really hate 42. This sucks.”
“Forget it, you look fine. Does navy go with black?”
“No.”
“What about navy with a yellow and navy striped shirt?” (Ummm....)
“Yes.”
I used to watch those Oil of Olay commercials, they’d be talking about “growing old gracefully” and I’d think “What’s the BIG DEAL? So what? Everybody ages, I’m not gonna care one bit!” (I actually just made myself laugh out loud by typing that...) It was easy not to care, I was probably in my late 20’s or early 30’s. Guess what ladies?
IT’S COMING AND YOU’RE GONNA CARE!
A LOT!!
And your children will do little to help with the aging process. I now know why my father is gray. It is because he had three daughters. I’m surprised my parents are not institutionalized.
They sent three daughters to college.
They put three daughters in sororities.
They threw three weddings,
Then two divorces,
Then two more weddings, (Bonus!)
All of which they’re probably still paying for.
They’ve employed all three of us (and they had to pay us more because we had a college degree…)
They’ve employed two of five husbands.
They’ve paid for one husband to go back to college. (Bonus!)
Gray.
Aging…
Parenting…
Think I’ll call my parents and apologize for everything…even the things my sisters did…which may take a while….
Then I’m go for a ride in the van…
It may be a very long ride.....
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