Objectivity

Elan's last day of school was on Tuesday. In fact, they had 10:30 AM dismissal that day, which means that he had exactly two hours of school - I suppose for maximum insurance that each parent, between dropping the kids off and picking them up, would get absolutely nothing done that morning. Thanks, school.

So he's been home with me most of the week, I've had to actively parent and entertain the kiddies, which leaves me working at night, after they're asleep, and which is why I've had considerably less time to blog. Yes, I've also started Cardio Kickboxing in the evenings - how did you guess? So that's taking up precious more of my freetime, but at least I got my ass moving, right?

When you have two toddlers, active parenting means taking the kids on daytrips, unless you like to plan structured, at-home activities, and I've never been that good at the whole art-project thing. Don't get me wrong - I am AMAZING at doing art projects - I can twist a pipecleaner into a flower like nobody's business. But I'm terrible at planning them, getting the materials, etc. I'd rather just throw the boys into the car and take them somewhere stimulating where they can run free. Or play soccer or tag with them. You get the idea.

As to what happens when I inactively parent, right now, for instance, Ariel is wearing a pot of lip balm. He's happy. Cleanup will be a bitch.

Yesterday, after an unbelievably aggravating morning involving trying to get airline tickets to Chicago, an idiot customer service rep at the credit card company, and a client giving me an unappreciated earful, I called my sister-in-law, the lovely RacLA, and asked her to come with me to a children's museum in the city. I not-so-subtly bribed her with pizza, so she was game.

We put her baby and my two monsters, side-by-side in their respective car seats in the back of Tory, two diaper bags and a stroller in the trunk, and headed for the canyon. By the time we got moving, however, my niece decided she'd had ENOUGH OF THIS CRAP and began to wail. And sob. And scream. And generally let us know that she wasn't planning to stop. As long as we were in the car. ALL DAY.

RacLA was reasonably distraught. Baby HH did sound like she was suffering, though we knew she was rested, fed, dry, and being entertained by her two cousins. She was, in other words, fine in that her basic, most primitive needs were met. But she's a girl, and we girlies tend to get dramatic, and babies don't often like the car at her age unless you are moving fast and steady - no small feat in Los Angeles traffic.

I understood all of this, and to be honest, the crying didn't bother me in the least. The boys didn't mind either. I was happy to put on music and coo to her and otherwise kind of ignore it all. But my sis was visibly upset, and the look on her face brought me back to EVERY SINGLE incident of Ariel and Elan as babies, screaming uncontrollably for no apparent reason on lengthy car rides. I remember how upsetting it was for me, though my mother was always telling me, "He's fine, don't worry, he'll fall asleep soon, there's nothing you can do, just drive."

And I would promtly ignore her, pull the car over, lift the kid out of the seatbelt, and stick him under my shirt to nurse. Which would work for about five minutes. But as soon as they were back in their seats, the tears would resume.

I told RacLA that I'd be happy to pull over whenever she wanted, but she stuck it out till HH eventually nodded off. And while I felt sorry for the little pup, didn't want her to be miserable as she was, I was able, for once, to just not worry about it. Not because her mother was there, and it wasn't on me to resolve the situation, but because I just naturally wasn't worried. For the first time, I felt I was able to be objective about baby-raising, to look at it from the outside-in, and not agonize over those awful gasps and choking sobs the way I had, endlessly, in the past.

Ok, I'll admit. There was also a teeny, tiny bit of "Not my problem," in there. But it was more like, "Not my problem! Oh my gosh! For once, it isn't MY kid!" Which made me realize that I am SO not ready to add to my litter just yet. I was relieved to be in the toddler stage, when the kids can actually tell you what's wrong, and yes, with the talking comes talking back, but overall you are able to reason with toddlers, and that alone is of infinite value.

I finally understood how my own mom must feel when I call her in tears, needing fast and direct advice for a mothering setback I'm having, feeling like the biggest failure to have ever attempted raising children, certain that no other mothers are going through the same thing. She always soothes and tut-tuts, sympathetic in tone, offers suggestions. But I'm never satisfied because when I call all frantic like that, I want her to give me hard and fast answers. I want her to tell me what to do. And she always tells me there are no hard and fast answers, that every kid is different, that I'm a great mom and she knows I'll figure it out. I usually hang up with my frustration with my own shortcomings re-directed at her, but now I realize that she's just able to feel that level of objectivity. That she's been through this with five different kids herself, and she knows that both the kids and I are really okay. That we would get through this bad day and countless others in the future. And maybe a little piece of her, as the grandmother now, and not the mother, gleefully thinks, "It's not on me." Who can blame her?

Yesterday wasn't the first time that I've felt relief at not having a little baby right now. I was at a meeting with the parents of the children attending the backyard camp my boys will be starting on Monday, and I was the ONLY ONE THERE who didn't have a baby under six months old at home. One clung to its mother's breast right there at the table; the others had been left home with their fathers, mommies in equal measures relieved for the break and panicked over what they might find when they got back. They walked into the house like living zombies, caring little about the details of the camp. Instead, they spoke incessantly of severe sleep-deprivation, a bit of depression, how their weight-loss had stagnated, their views on Mendel vs. Ferber.

And I, who'd left the boys tucked under their covers at home, felt - for the first time in awhile - that I had it easy. That despite my struggle to manage both work and mommyhood, while most of these women weren't trying to work, that in a way, I was out of the woods. The MAJOR unknowns of babyhood were behind me - at least until the next one, please G-d, came along. And I sat back, listening to everyone talk, completely able to relate, yet from a small distance. I smiled, popping slices of watermelon in my mouth, and thought, "Not my problem."

No, my problem, right now, is coping with the capes.