Sibling Revelry

Recently, a friend mentioned his brother had undergone quintuple bypass surgery.  As my eyes widened with concern, my friend tossed a hand in the air.   “He’s fine,” he grumbled, like his brother had just faked pulling a hammy. 

Sibling love is not a guarantee. 

I thought it was.  I thought that the kids I pushed into the world would automatically hand over a kidney for each other.  And I thought this despite me, as a kid, pulling out enough hair from my older sister’s head to stuff a throw pillow, and once giving my younger brother a (possibly deserved) black eye.  Scuffles with my siblings faded from memory as Rich and I started our own family.  Our family, we told ourselves, was not going to be a repeat of our childhoods. Our kids were going to love each other.

And they did love each other . . . except when they didn’t.

When the skirmishes broke out in our brood, Rich and I could have considered it a parenting fail, but instead, we took it as a sign--a sign that we should have another kid.  If they wanted to fight, we would give them more people to fight with!  Okay, I’m joking, but we did realize that parenting was going to involve brokering peace.

And while we didn’t get so good at it as to have attracted the eye of the U.N., we did have our own share of breakthroughs, and one Sunday afternoon that was exactly what I thought I was witnessing, a breakthrough.

I was in the kitchen (carefully organizing the utensil drawer) when I heard Sam say, “I love you.”  My heart fluttered with happiness.  Sam had said I love you, and before I could question to whom he was speaking, Caroline chimed in with, “I love you, too!”

Caroline and Sam were declaring their love for each other!  The words had come effortlessly!  And no one was dying!  This was progress!

We had always encouraged our kids to say I love you, and they did, saying it so often they seemed to use it like a period at the end of a sentence.  I’m going outside, love you.  Dad said to pick up milk, love you.  But that was mostly when speaking with us.  This was Sam and Caroline speaking to each other.

I’m a big believer in calling out bad behavior, so much so, that if someone were to make a Lisa robot, she’d have to be programmed to say, That is inappropriate!  But I’m also a big fan of acknowledging good behavior, and my children saying they loved each other was just the sort of thing that needed to be acknowledged.

I turned around, ready to compliment them when I realized what had just happened.  Sam and Caroline were seated at our dining room table, facing each other, and in between them was Deezsha.

They had both been talking to our dog.

So, the moment wasn’t a breakthrough, but it was a moment.  They were spending time together and were agreeing on something.  Come to think of it, it was more than a moment.

It was a win.

      

The Life Changing Magic of Not Caring

No one told me that becoming a mother would feel like running on a hamster wheel—that the dishes, the laundry, the shopping, the diapers, the lulling a kid to sleep, the cleaning, the trying to figure out what to fix for dinner would feel like a never-ending cycle.  My mother might have mentioned the hamster wheel to me as a child, but I can’t be sure.  I was too busy back then earning my PhD in The Brady Bunch to pay close attention.  Had I taken a moment to look, I might have noticed her on that wheel, running as fast as she could and feeling like she wasn’t getting anything accomplished.  I might have even helped, done the dishes without being asked.  We sent a man to the moon, so I suppose anything is possible.

Of course, the adorableness of babies is a great antidote for the monotony of the hamster wheel.  Just when you think you’re maxed out, your baby smiles or your toddler says something adorable and you keep the hamster wheel in motion:  dishes, laundry, diapers, groceries, cleaning, fixing dinner, dishes...

But one day, I don’t remember when or how many children we had at the time, the hamster wheel got to me.  The never-ending cycle was more than I could take, and the thought occurred to me while emptying the dishwasher that instead of placing the utensils in their slots, I could dump everything in the drawer.  Sure, we’d maybe have to dig a little to get what we were looking for, but this wasn’t a drawer where sharp knives were kept, so what was the harm in that?  Dumping the utensils into the drawer felt freeing.  In that moment it was as if I was transformed from a lowly hamster, a mere cog in the wheel, to an eagle, soaring in the lofty heights.  Google eagles flying—that is what it felt like to dump the utensils.

I didn’t dump them with anger.  I was neither fuming nor frustrated.  I was just…done.  Well, not done, but ready to streamline, and dumping the utensils strangely seemed the answer.  Later that day when Rich returned home from work, at some point he opened the utensil drawer to reach for, possibly, a spoon.  “Which one of our progeny put away the utensils?” he cried.  “This may sound rash, but I am fully prepared to unleash a host of punishments!”

“Um,” I said, squinting as if, suddenly, a Sahara sun was shining in the kitchen.  “I did it.”

Rich tilted his head to one side and thought this over, his eyes crinkling with amusement.  Why he thought me dumping the utensils into the drawer was hilarious when just moments ago he had been ready to reprimand our children for the same behavior, I can’t say.  We all have our faults.  But, despite having worked a long day, Rich took the state of the utensil drawer as a cry for help from his wife.  And so, with his tie still cinched around his neck, he got to work, pulling everything out and putting it in its place, an impish smile all the while playing on his lips.

I shrugged and continued folding laundry.  I had been at peace with the state of the utensil drawer, but if Rich wanted to knock himself out that was perfectly fine with me.  But more than breathing logic back into our kitchen, Rich was taking a turn on the hamster wheel, and I needed that.  It wasn’t as if he’d never done so before.  He’d spent plenty of time on the wheel.  In fact, he was the sole hamster keeping the wheel spinning at night, getting up whenever a child cried out.  Not me.  This hamster flopped into bed and stayed there.

And, of course, the kids have all taken their turn on the wheel.  Julia, Caroline, and Victoria spent so much time spinning it when the littler kids appeared on the scene, it was like having my own mommy army, which was not only helpful, but incredibly sweet.

So, is the answer to have enough children so that they can spin the wheel for you?  I don’t think so. 

I think the answer is understanding what we’re really doing when we do all the monotonous things connected to motherhood and keeping a home.  We’re not spinning a hamster wheel, always running and never getting anywhere.  As Anne Morrow Lindbergh put it, what we’re really spinning is a web.

A web of love. 

And each silky thread (putting away the utensils, folding the laundry) in this web is important.  Maybe it doesn’t appear so when viewed alone, but when seen as part of a whole, as part of something bigger, something intricate and purposeful, each little thread begins to count. 

As mommies, we toil, always spinning the silken threads, but stepping back we see…

Our work is beautiful.