playgroupsarenoplaceforchildren

“We really prefer Miss Helen’s Dance over Jamison’s Dance Academy.  Allison gets a lot more individual attention there.”  A group of my mom friends were trading tips on their kids’ activities.

Another mom added, “Well we finally got Hunter and Taylor registered for swim lessons with that private instructor you told me about,”  she pointed at the mom sitting next to me who nodded with fervent agreement.  “It was hard to work around their soccer and t-ball practices.”

I sat and listened, trying not to let the panic stricken look show on my face that I’d strategically concealed with a Stepword wife smile and glazed look.  Silently I interrogated myself.  “Why haven’t I gotten Carson and Ella involved in anything!  Have I totally crippled them as potential athletes because they are going to be way behind all of their peers in sports and dance and swimming???  How was I even supposed to know this stuff??”

My mind suddenly relived every sports related horror of my childhood.

…the time I fell in a hole on the soccer field my first day of practice when I was seven years old and the only kid who had never played before.  (I never played soccer again.)

…when I was about nine, I decided I wanted to try gymnastics and learn how to do back handsprings and was placed in a beginner’s class with preschoolers.  “MOM!  I’m with the BABIES, learning how to do somersaults!!”  (I didn’t go back, but it was the first time I was the tallest kid in class.  So there was that.)

…I was always one of the last picked for teams in kickball, softball, basketball, volleyball, and EVERY OTHER PLAYGROUND SPORT IMAGINABLE during elementary school.  (Please note I was ONE of the last, not THE last.  This is an important distinction.)

…I didn’t make cheerleading in 7th grade because I was awful.  I couldn’t do herkies or pikes or toe touches, or even remember two lines of a cheer, but whatever.

…For one season I was on my high school’s swim team, but the stress of the competition resulted in my wishing the school bus would break down on the way to the meets and/or praying for raging diarrhea so I wouldn’t have to compete.

The discussion amongst the moms continued.  “We started Chloe in soccer when she was about two and a half up at that indoor sports complex off Water Road.  It was a daddy-daughter thing and she LOVED it!”

“It’s so funny to hear you all talk about your little ones!  I remember when Chase was that young and starting to play!  It was so cute to watch all the kids chase after the balls.  Now that he’s fifteen, it’s so competitive and I have to spend nearly every waking moment on the baseball field once spring comes.”

PANIC!  My children are going to be behind and they aren’t even in elementary school!

Tate was always involved in sports, but I’m not particularly athletic.  Coordination and game rules don’t come naturally to me.  I don’t know if I would have started playing sports earlier if it would have made a difference or helped my confidence, but I do know that I don’t want my kids to be like me when it comes to sports.  Even if they aren’t the best athletes, I want them to enjoy some sort of athletic activity and I don’t want them to give up without ever giving it a chance.

My fear is that if I don’t get off my non-athletic butt and start getting them involved, they are going to be very behind their peers in sports and dance.   If most kids are starting soccer/dance/gymnastics/t-ball at two or three years old, then if I wait any longer to get them involved, they are going to be the worst players, the ones always picked almost last (or God forbid, LAST), or they are going to be the nine year olds put in the beginner groups with BABIES.

I guess now the thing I need to do is get over my phone phobia and actually call around to some places to try and register each of them for whatever it is you register kids for in the spring.

“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhood completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.” -Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

That quote has squatted in every crevice of my brain, filled every pore, and hung like a weighted vest on my shoulders ever since I read it.  It’s been several weeks since I finished reading The Five People You Meet in Heaven, the book has been returned to the library, other books have been read in an effort to white out that quote, but there it sits!  I see the quote, running over and over across my closed eyelids, like my own personal closed captioning narrating my life.

*****

Carson, for the fiftieth time, has pushed Ella or maybe he’s just touched her with his index finger, the exact offense is unimportant.  But it’s the fiftieth time that he’s done whatever he’s done and the forty-ninth time that I’ve told him to stop pestering his sister.

*****

I’ve spent all day cleaning, vacuuming, dusting, washing and folding laundry.  The children have begged to go outside for most of the day.  I finally agree even after looking in defeat outside at the mud, those brown, menacing patches, enemies among the blades of green grass.  I make the children swear that they won’t play in the mud, they won’t even look at the mud.   Carson and Ella do more than look at the mud, they wallow in it, somehow they’re completely painted in brown in the two seconds that I look away.

*****

After I completely lose my shit, I wonder if this is the outburst that will leave prints on my pristine children, leaving them as broken adults in a therapist’s office retelling the time I screamed at them for getting mud everywhere.  When they grow up, are they going to say that they don’t want to be the type of parent their mother had been, because I couldn’t handle that.  I just want to be the type of parent my children say they want to be themselves.  I imagine Carson and Ella as adults, lying on their pillows facing their spouses in the dark of night talking quietly after their own children have long been asleep.  Are they going to describe me as impatient, annoyed, burdened, yelling, or worse?

In a world where nothing is absolute, how can I possibly teach Carson and Ella what they need to know?  Watch out for strangers!  Strangers are dangerous!  But not all strangers, some strangers are nice.  Don’t let anyone touch you in your private areas!  Except sometimes it’s okay, like when Mommy and Daddy are giving you a bath.   Don’t yell at Mommy!  Except that you’ve learned yelling from Mommy.

I’m so paranoid about doing it all wrong.   I don’t want Carson and Ella to grow up and say that I was too lenient, that they wished I’d pushed them more, or that I was too strict and that they felt like rebelling against me was their only way out.  I just want to do it right without leaving them as the casualties of my novice parenting skills.

*****

Carson and I constantly butt heads, not literally, but the figurative is just as bothersome.  I don’t want it to be this way.  I want to be the type of parent who is patient and usually smiling, less irritated and more amused at his three-year-old antics.  I don’t want the majority of what I say to him be weighted, heavily, with the word “no.”  My tone of voice  when I talk to him is always so stern.  Where is the gentle mom that I always imagined myself to be?

*****

Instead of getting angry or yelling, sometimes I’m able to catch myself in those frustrating parenting moments and use humor to diffuse the situation.  Both of my children love being tickled, it can be the perfect deterrent.

“If you do that again,”  I’ll say in my most serious mom voice, my arms crossed over my chest and my eyebrows raised in stern indignation, “I guess I’ll just have to tickle you.  That’s right.  You heard me.  Better watch out because here come my tickle fingers!!!”   The children run screaming and laughing, taunting me to chase them.

“More, Mommy!  MORE!” Ella squeals in delight.

“No!  Don’t tickle me,” Carson pleads as he inches ever closer to my wiggling fingers.  I honor his request and don’t tickle him until he finally breaks and begs for my fingers to dance across his belly.

These are the prints, the dancing fingerprints, that I want to leave as an always learning, always changing, always striving to do better parent.  These are the prints that I pray will cover more of my children than the marred prints left by impatience and yelling.  These are the prints I can only hope will keep their little lives from becoming shattered, in pieces, and unrepairable.

I have this really strongly worded post in my drafts folder regarding my current feelings on blogging and all of my insecurities that seem like they are highlighted by blogging.  It continues to darken my drafts folder rather than my front page for several reasons, one of which being MY INSECURITIES.

I’m guessing that if you’re going to BlogHer in Chicago this summer, especially if it’s your first time, you’re probably nervous.

1.  What if nobody knows who I am?
2.  What if nobody talks to me?
3.  What am I going to wear?
4. What if I don’t get invited to any of the parties?

This will be my second time attending BlogHer and #1-3 all apply to ME, but I know, logically, that mostly my fears are just my little demon insecurities creeping in and attempting to sabotage me.   Fear number 4, though, you’re covered because you’re already invited to a party, a party that I’m helping to host.

The People’s Party 2009
open-invite pre-BlogHer party
Thursday, July 23, 2009
8:30-11pm
Sheraton Chicago X (“Ten”)

~~~

Hosted by:

The Bloggess
Green Mom Review/ IzzyMom
Motherbumper
Mrs. Fussypants
Playgroups Are No Place For Children
Velveteen Mind

A private performance by Chris Mann, Share the love on his Fan Page!

The People’s Party is aptly named because it is for EVERYONE.  I hope that when you read “everyone” you realize that “everyone” includes YOU.  And you.  And YoU.  And yOU.  It’s the perfect place to meet people, so that you’re not just sitting in your room, alone, watching p()rn in your PJ’s, scratching your butt, and eating an overpriced hamburger you ordered from room service.

What I need for you to do now, is go over to Megan’s place, and RSVP that you ARE coming to the Party, when you get back, we can chat about insecurities #1-3 (listed above.)  Hurry back!

Did you RSVP??

Okay!  {clap, clap}  Let’s talk about our feeeeeeelings.

1.  What if nobody knows who I am?

I’m SWEAR I’m not trying to scare you, but many of the people you’ll meet will have never heard of you, or your blog, or your Twitter name.  That’s okay, though.  I’d never heard of Amy in Ohio or Mommy Bits and they hadn’t heard of me until last BlogHer and now this year, I’m driving from Tennessee to Cincinnati and driving with them the rest of the way to Chicago.    It’s like, we all became friends or something.  Weird.  I know.

If someone hasn’t heard of you, it doesn’t mean you’re not worth knowing. Introduce yourself to people and don’t be offended when they have no idea who you are.

2.  What if nobody talks to me?

Okay, I swear AGAIN that I’m not trying to scare you, but you *might* have to talk to people first.  I know it’s scary and all your insecurities start bubbling up in your throat and choking you at the mere thought of walking up to someone, sticking out your hand, and saying, “Hi.  I’m Jennifer from Playgroups are no Place for Children.”  The thing is, though, if you’re standing alone in the corner, it’s not very likely that someone is going to just come up and talk to you out of the goodness of their heart.  That’s just not how it works.

Every year after BlogHer, there is a backlash against the “cliques.”  With THAT many women (especially women), who rarely get to see one another, there are bound to be groups that form.   Many of the so-called cliques are groups of women who’ve known each other for years, send one another Christmas and birthday cards, call one another on the phone.  In other words, they have a HISTORY together.  It’s natural for people to hang out with the people they already know, and usually they aren’t purposely leaving anyone out.

I promise you, though, that if you go up to people, introduce yourself, ask them questions about their blog and where they’re from, most people will AMAZINGLY talk to you.  If you’re with a group who decides to go to dinner, say, “hey, mind if I come, too?”  If they are not complete a-holes, they’ll say, “Of course you can!”

Something that I did last year with a group of people was to form a sort of support group and exchange cell numbers before leaving for the conference.  That way I ALWAYS had someone to call if I was suddenly feeling like I had nobody to eat lunch with or to go to the free swag suites.

Remember that if you don’t make an effort, you will SO regret it when you get home.  Take the chance, it will be worth it.

3.  What am I going to wear?

Go read this post by OHMommy.

During the conference, I’ll probably be wearing simple tanks, t-shirts, jeans, and possibly a casual, flowy skirt.  In the evenings, I’ll probably go fancier with a dress and some cute wedges.  Last year, I felt TOTALLY underdressed at all the cocktail parties.  I won’t be making the same mistake this year.

Anymore fears that I didn’t cover?  Any questions??  I hope that you have RSVP’d by now for the People’s Party!!   See you in Chicago.

People have moved into my house in Indiana.

I don’t know if they bought my house or if they are renters, really, it shouldn’t matter.  I mean if they bought my house, hopefully they’ll care for it and love it as much as I did.  But if they’re renters they might not love it as much if they don’t own it.

I feel like I need to whisper this next part.  It’s embarrassing to admit.  And sad.

As long as my house was still for sale, still uninhabited, I had this hope that maybe, maybe circumstances would work such that we’d get to move back to Indiana and slip right back into our old life, have our old friends, and just forget this whole move to Tennessee.

Those people, living in my house, I don’t even know them, but oh how I resent them.  I feel so angry at them, for taking MY house, for taking my friends, for getting to live the life I want to live.  They will be able to walk across the street for a cup of sugar only to end up staying for dinner.  I probably won’t get to even see my neighbors again, likely ever, but they will.  They will get to vacuum my frise carpet and bake in my double ovens and wash their vegetables in the vegetable sink in the island.

I don’t want to know if they have children.  I don’t want to think of THEIR children sleeping my in MY children’s bedrooms, I don’t want to think of them taking my children’s place at the neighborhood get togethers.

This is so ridiculous, I know, but what I don’t know is how to get past all this anger about the move.  It’s been months and it still feels as unfair as it did in September.  Why did this have to happen?  WHY??  I don’t want to be angry at those people who are living in my house, because I KNOW that it’s not MY house and hasn’t been since we sold it to the relocation company in November.

I guess it’s just that those people took the maybe away.

I can hear him screaming over the monitor.  Angrily I roll over to check the time on the clock.  5:48.  Seething, I get out of bed, forgetting to stop and pee and march upstairs in the dark to his room.

I don’t know if I can do this again today.

“Mommy!” he screams.  “Please don’t leave.  Sit right here on the floor, beside me,” he pleads after I tell him that it’s not 7:00 yet and that Mommy is very, very tired and want to go back to bed.

I sit down wearily beside his crib, cursing inside.  I wonder if he’s truly scared or if he’s just manipulating me.  Also, I have to pee.

I promise him that I’m just leaving for a moment so that I can pee.  “I’ll leave your door open.  I’m just going right across the hall to the bathroom.”  He starts to scream as I leave.

I turn to him and in my angriest voice, which surprises even me, I tell him to shut up and that I’ll be right back.

I only feel slightly bad that I told him to shut up.  I hope he didn’t notice.

After he’s finally settled I go back to sleep for what seems like ten seconds, but rather it’s about 40 minutes.  6:58 is what I see on the clock as I hear Carson screaming for me again.  Just to spite him, I want to let him scream for two more minutes until 7:00.  Or to spite him, I want to go up to his room and scream at him to please just shut up and wait for f*cking 7:00.

I go in, scoop him out of his crib, saying nothing.  The day begins.

*******

I look around the kitchen and notice the crumbs and fruit flies.  My floor looks as if I haven’t swept or mopped since ever, despite having done both just two days prior.

There is a pile of dirty dish towels, in desperate need of washing and smelling like spoiled milk.

My washing machine is broken, full of water and wet towels.

*******

“Uh oh!” Ella squeals as she tosses her sippy cup, full of milk over the edge of her chair.

The cup is no longer full of milk.

It’s empty, the white milk in a puddle on the floor.  Splashes of white milk dot the cupboards.

It doesn’t matter.  The floor is already dirty.

*******

“You don’t even like me anymore.  I can’t even joke around with you anymore.”  In one respect, I hear Tate’s words and I feel badly that he could even think this.  Of COURSE I like him.  Of COURSE he can joke around with me, but after days of little sleep and constant battles, I need adult interaction.  I need HIM to listen to ME.

Immediately his words make my heart harden and I feel my face redden with anger.  “How dare he,” I think silently to myself.  “All I do every minute of everyday is GIVE.  What about me?  What about thinking of MY feelings.”  I say nothing.

*******

Ella is almost walking.  She takes two or three hesitant steps, her arms out in front of her body for balance before she falls on her bottom.  Over and over she stands up and tries again.

I smile at her and want nothing more than to swoop her up and feel her soft skin against my face and smother her sweet little neck with kisses.

In an instant I can go from feeling such rage to giggling in spite of myself.

*******

He asks if I need a break, just to get away.  “Go for a walk,” he tells me.  I can hear the annoyance in his voice and I want to shout back at him, “you have NO idea what it’s like to be home everyday with these kids.  I do EVERYTHING for them.  You have NO idea.”

I do need a break.  I do want to get away.

NO.  I want to RUN away.

“It’s too hot to go for a walk,” I say instead.

********

I consider not hitting publish.

But I do it anyway.

(Haven’t I written this post about a hundred times before?)

This situation of which I’m going to describe is PURELY hypothetical.  Not one ounce of truth to it, no siree.  None whatsoever.  *fingers crossed behind my back*

So tell me, what would you do if, say, you were on a walk with your (two) kids in an adjoining neighborhood and you suddenly had the most terrible, all-consuming itch.

The itch is in the upper crotch region, not to be confused with the lower crotch region-which obviously if you’re itching “down there” you might want to see a DOCTOR.

Anyway, this upper crotch region itch is a really, really itchy itch.  It itches so much you can barely walk.  It itches so much you feel like if you don’t scratch it, you’ll lose your mind.

Keep this in mind, you’re not in your neighborhood.  It’s highly unlikely that you’ll see anyone you know.  Even if you did see someone, most likely you’d never see them again.  Also, it’s early in the morning, but not so early that there are lots of people driving by heading for work, kids have already left for school.  Basically, it looks as if nobody even knows you’re there.

But also keep in mind the fact that it’s your CROTCH that itches and to scratch it looks incredibly nasty to the average Joe who happens to witness such an act.

Do you get in there and scratch away, right there on the street, trying to act like nothing’s amiss as you attempt to continue pushing your double stroller while getting after that itch?

Or do you suck it up and continue walking while thinking non-itchy and non-scratchy thoughts?

WHAT do you DO????

I’m just curious in case this ever happens to me.  Also, I’m just collecting this information for a book I’m writing on survival skills in the suburbs.  Um.  Yeah.

I KNOW that the “experts” say we shouldn’t reward our children with food.  They’ll end up with messed up ways of thinking about food and eventually be morbidly obese and probably prematurely bald or something.

So in the interest of following the advice of “experts” and not royally screwing him up, I didn’t actually reward Carson’s surprisingly AWESOME school behavior with pudding.  Rather, I rewarded him with MAKING pudding.  That’s totally different.

Any kids that sits in circle time AND sings AND likes it, totally deserves some pudding.  I mean, they deserve to MAKE some pudding.

Poor Carson with the cheap Mommy. Maybe someday I’ll make enough off my ads to by real Nilla Wafers.

Now if I can just get him to wait until after dinner to eat it…then the pudding would be dessert and NOT a reward!  TOTALLY.  DIFFERENT.