Dress Up Clothes

I hate papers lying around.  I hate it so much that my husband once asked if, by chance, I’d thrown away his law school diploma.  The diploma, after all, was a piece of paper, and therefore at risk, given my reputation as a paper chucker.  Of course, I hadn’t, but when it comes to letters sent home from my children’s schools, I’m so hasty about throwing them out I sometimes only give them a quick glance before they hit the trash.  And this has, at times, created a problem. 

Our daughter, Victoria, went to a grade school that prided itself on high achievement.  From the minute kindergartners entered its fabled hallways, there was just one question to be asked:  how much information can we cram in their little minds before summer break?   Yes, much was asked, but for those who rose to the challenge, much was rewarded, in the way of colored pencils, plastic medals, and certificates (more paper!) 

During the Christmas season (a super laid-back time of year) a letter came home with Victoria to let us know that the kindergarten awards assembly would be happening and that, rather than wearing the school uniform, Victoria, could, just for that day, wear dress-up clothes.  Right away I started wondering what costume I should dress my kindergartner in for assembly day.  Should she be a green M&M, or perhaps a kitty cat?  Decisions, decisions.

Sure, I had only glanced at the letter, but I knew what the teacher meant.  She wanted my daughter in dress-up clothes, which clearly meant a costume. Something like a gorilla or the bride of Frankenstein.  Had her teacher wanted Victoria in formal dress or Sunday dress, she would have said as much.  But she said dress-up, which made perfect sense, since even kindergartners who are pushed to the brink should be allowed to have a little fun.

In the end it came down to the green M&M or a Mexican senorita, and since the senorita was easier to buckle into the car seat, that’s what we went with.  She wore a dress we’d picked up on a trip to Tijuana, a flower in her hair, and I gave her strict instructions that when her name was called for an award that she should stand up and shout, Arriva!  We were good to go, ready for a fun-filled kindergarten award assembly, until we got there and I noticed there were no gorillas, no power rangers or princesses, just a room full of kids wearing SUNDAY clothes! 

The upside is on assembly day you want your kid to stand out, and she did.  Maybe not as much as she would have had we gone with the M&M costume, but she definitely stood out.  And what’s more, her five-year-old self felt perfectly at ease looking like a little girl in search of a mariachi band.  She rolled with it, and though an ambitious high school student today, her laid back personality still shines through, because as her phone message begins by saying, Hey, this is Victoria.

A Touch Protective

                                    

 

If worrying were a sport I’d be an Olympic contender.  Not to brag, but I’m really good at it, particularly when it comes to my kids.  I worry about them all the time, so much so I’d bubble wrap them if it wouldn’t make getting in and out of the car such a nightmare.  The problem is that while the world is a lovely place, it has its share of disease-spreading mosquitoes, rusty nails, trampolines, teachers who save their indoor voices (screaming) for when parents aren’t around, not to mention people whose big idea for the day is to try and swipe a kid.  

My first impulse is to protect my children, to guard them from this fallen world by bolting the door, shuttering the windows, and hunkering down in the front room with popcorn and sleeping bags to watch The Sound of Music until the second coming rolls around. Of course, Sam wouldn’t make it past the nuns troubleshooting in song about Maria.  He’d roll his eyes, shake his head slightly, and say with a hand on my shoulder, Lisa, we can’t stay cooped up here because you’re afraid something bad will happen to us.  It’s not healthy, and besides, I want to pick up Chipotle.

Though I want to shelter them, I know I must send them forth, and I do, but not like Richard Branson’s [Virgin Airlines] parents who when he was a young boy dropped him off far from home and told him to find his way back.  A few days later, exhausted, he stumbled through the kitchen door.  Personally I couldn’t do that, even if it guaranteed my children would grow up to be billionaires.  I’m too dedicated a worrier.  Still, I send them forth, trying--especially with the ones who at the moment are testy teenagers--to make sure I touch them before they go.

 

 

 

 

                                                     

 

 

At the start touching them is effortless.  When they’re babes in arms their fuzzy heads are at an easy distance for kissing, and once they begin toddling we hold their hands to keep them upright and safe.  But as the years progress (along with their acuity to sass us) our touches can grow sparse. Yes, they’re around us less, but it doesn’t help that sometimes talking to a teenager is like tap dancing for the lions at the zoo—no matter how hard you try, they yawn, look away disinterestedly, and gnaw on whoever is next to them.  But sassy or not, they need their mothers to reach out in love and touch them.

I don’t wait for the mood to strike me, a wave of love catapulting me, arms open, toward them.  My approach is far more deliberate, and if it doesn’t happen any other time, it happens during family prayer.  While we stand or kneel in a circle, while their eyes are closed, I reach for them.  It’s a simple thing, and I can’t vouch for what it means to them, but it means something to me.  My hand on their arm as we pray is my way of saying, You are mine, and I love you.  Well, either that or One false move and I’ll dig my nails into your skin.  Depends on the day.  But then I hug them, tell them I love them and send them off into a world that bumps, pushes, and provides plenty of hard knocks, with the faith that often what makes the most impact is a mother’s touch.

 

 

 

The Tripping Point

It’s vague, but I remember as a child once being removed from a violin concert by my hair. The concert was at our church, I was seven, and like most seven year olds, had pressing business to discuss.  My mother had tried everything to get me to stop talking:  the snap and point, angry glares, plenty of shushing.  But it was 1971, Nixon was in office, and violin solo or not, certain things needed to be said.  I thought I was being discreet, thought I was carefully modulating my decibel level.  In fact, that is exactly what went through my mind as my mother grabbed hold of one of my braids and bolted for the exit. 

According to Malcolm Gladwell there’s a tipping point, and according to me there’s a tripping point, at least when it comes to motherhood.  This is the moment an otherwise level-headed mother is so mortified by her off spring that she loses it.   Of course, though I believe in the tripping point, my children have never driven me to it.  Flown kamikaze style past its border, yes.  Driven, no.   They’re all fairly expert at it, but if I’m taking a “trip” down memory lane, there’s one child in particular who needs mentioning, and that is Julia.

Born at the advent of our law school days, Julia was (still is) the epitome of joy.  We called her our little lamb because she bleated like one, but somewhere along the way to toddlerhood she swapped fluffy-fleece-covered-animal for fierce, and she never looked back.  She was two when her daddy put on a cap and gown and filed into the old Provo tabernacle with the rest of the J. Reuben Clark graduating class of 1996 to receive their diplomas.  This was a momentous occasion, a huge accomplishment, and something I decided our children should witness.

So I dressed Julia in her Sunday best and took her, along with her older brother, Sam, and baby sister, Caroline to the tabernacle, found a pew near the back and waited for the dean to hand Rich his diploma.  Of course, Pomp and his friend, Ceremony, cannot be rushed.  You don’t just dole out diplomas like a big order of burritos at Taco Bell.  First, prayers must be said, poems and lengthy speeches read, songs sung, candles lit, cannons fired, doves released…  I may be remembering a few details incorrectly, but my point is the ceremony was long and soon my children were restless. 

Though grandparents were on hand to help, Julia and Sam proved an unstoppable team, squirming, talking too loud (where’d they get that from?) and getting out of their seats.  It was stressful, but I was getting along well enough scurrying after them in my high heels until they decided to divide and conquer.  I took my eyes off of Sam for just a minute, and seizing the opportunity, he rushed up a spiral staircase at the back of the building. Like any good mother, I chased after him and when I emerged from the staircase, gripping Sam by his forearm, Julia was on the stage at the front, traipsing back and forth as the dean of the law school attempted to give his speech.

As she expertly dodged the cloaked dignitaries on the stand swooping at her like old crows after a spry mouse, mortification settled around my ankles like quick-hardening concrete, making it impossible to move.  I didn’t know what to do; she was too far from me to grab by the hair, and I couldn’t (wouldn’t) go up there.   In the mean time, up in the balcony, sitting serenely amongst his peers was Rich.  Warren, a single guy with impeccable grooming skills and a fondness for serenity gardens clucked his tongue in disgust, leaned toward Rich and said, “Whose kid is that!”

Smiling, Rich watched our daughter zig as one of his law professors zagged.  “She’s mine,” he said, “and she’s wonderful.”

She’s is wonderful, and eighteen years later, thinking about this story, I’m smiling too.  That’s the funny about the tripping point—what once made you crazy, in time will make you laugh.  And that laughter is better than Botox at keeping you young.  So give them a hug.  Every time they send you past the tripping point they’re doing you a favor.  Happy (eventually) parenting.

  

The Dog Ate Your Baby Book

When my children were born without a glue gun clenched in their tiny fists, I took it as a sign, a sign that motherhood had nothing to do with scrap booking their precious milestones, and  that I was free to enjoy their childhoods without documenting like a scientist observing lab rats, every new thing they did.  Tooth development, motor skill gains, verbal advancements--it was enough just to applaud it.  I didn’t have to keep a faithful record.  Whew!  I should have been relieved, should have stuck to my story, but I didn’t.  Cuteness made me falter.

Swept away with love for my first baby, a slightly pre-mature five pound boy we named Samuel, it didn't

matter to me that I was off the hook as far as baby books were concerned, and so without hesitation, I bought a blue book, put on my lab coat, and started scrutinizing everything he did.  First tooth, first time rolling over, first word, first wobbly step—all of it was cataloged, because that’s what adoring mothers do, right?  They write down every detail…until they’re pooped.

I didn’t take the time to preserve for history’s sake the number of diapers I changed for Samuel, but it was a lot.  And just about the time he got the hang of going potty in the toilet, Julia was born, and before she was two, Caroline followed, and before she was launched, Victoria made her appearance.  And somewhere along the way I took off my lab coat, threw it on top of the laundry pile, and stopped writing down their every milestone.  I applauded, I hugged, I kissed, I twirled them around, but the day Victoria’s incisors poked through her pink gums is lost forever, as is the minute Caroline let go of my fingers and despite her iffy balance took a step toward her coaxing daddy.

There’s a seven year gap between Victoria and Charlotte, a big enough lull that the baby book flames were fanned, a pink book was purchased, entries were made, and I was on a roll until just as Charlotte turned fifteen months, Scarlett, her little partner in crime, was born.  Having six children is a bit like the Alamo—your survival hinges on understanding that you’re out numbered, so the sooner you turn your lab coat into a flag of surrender, the better.  A pink book wasn’t purchased for Scarlett, and there are things I wish I knew--her first sentence, what made her laugh as a baby, and what she said when we told her she was going to be a big sister to a baby boy we named Peter.

There are times I wish I would have found a way to keep wearing my lab coat and that on our book shelf, stacked one beside the other, were seven baby books chock full with precious information. And Madame Guilt, my old friend, whispers there should be.  What was my problem? What the heck was the matter with me anyway?  Sure seven kids is a lot, but other mothers with big families somehow succeeded at doing it.  Michelle Duggar probably has nineteen perfect baby books chronicling her children’s childhoods, each one, no doubt edged with ruffles she glue gunned into place.

   

I should have done more, tried harder.  Those priceless memories of tiny fingers caught in my hair, of milky breath, and toothless smiles—though it spanned twenty years (we like to stretch things out) it was a whirlwind.  Some of the memories are gone now, but some still swirl inside me, and this blog is my attempt to catch them and press them between pages, as well as share my thoughts on this thing called motherhood that is my life’s work.  No more excuses, no more saying the dog ate your baby book.  It’s time to get busy and make a new kind of baby book.  So here we go.