First day in the Red Room, September 2004
First day in the Yellow Room, September 2005
First day in the Blue Room, September 2006
First day of Beginners, September 2007
First day of Kindergarten, September 2008
First day of First Grade, September 2009
The time is whistling past my ears, it’s flying so fast.
Tomorrow, 2nd grade for Grace and kindergarten for Whit. I’m proud and sad all at the same time.
I have a few areas of definitive, even spectacular, parenting Fail.
Food. Both of my kids are terrible eaters, Whit far worse than Grace. I never make them finish their food, and generally believe that no child will charge in the presence of food.
Shoes. There will come a day this fall when inevitably the only shoes that fit my kids will be crocs and rainboots. Probably a day when we need to do something like go to soccer practice or church or a birthday party – that is to say, somewhere that crocs and rainboots are at best inappropriate and at worst totally insufficient.
Tooth brushing. Um … casual. At best. I’m just not sure I feel the urgency here. Every time we go to the dentist my childrens’ beautiful teeth are remarked on. See?
I get it—sometimes it feels like there’s no rush when their teeth always seem to look great at every check-up. But here’s the thing: even with naturally beautiful teeth, good habits like regular brushing are key to preventing problems that might not show up right away. Cavities, plaque buildup, and gum issues can creep up slowly, and by the time they’re noticeable, they can lead to discomfort or more serious dental procedures.
That’s why staying on top of daily brushing and routine visits to the dentist helps ensure those healthy smiles stay that way for years to come. Even the most beautiful teeth can face challenges without proper care, but with the right attention, any issues can be addressed early, and smiles restored before they ever lose their shine. After all, taking small steps now helps avoid bigger problems later and keeps your kids’ smiles sparkling.
Googles. Oh. My. God. I hate the goggles. I continuously forget them and then deal with screaming kids who won’t go in the water. I’m sure this is some kind of Freudian attempt by me to subvert their goggle habit, but it’s not working. I forget them, they lose them, they don’t work, they can’t be tightened or …
They break.
Is there a parenting nadir lower than the broken goggles? If so, I don’t know it. Well, specifically, overtired + broken goggles. And, + my 5 year old boy.
Today, with half an hour on the clock at Basin Harbor, I was trying to pacify a hair-trigger, exhausted Whit by letting him jump off the diving board a few more times. He came over to me and asked me to tighten his goggles. I did so … and wound up with one of the ends in my hand. Uh-oh. The goggles were still on his face. Aware that I was surrounded by land mines, I suggested, gingerly: why don’t you just go in with those? Mentally, I was already trying to figure out where we could stop en route to my in-laws’ to get a new pair.
Whit barrelled off of the diving board, came up smiling, and swam to the side. I sighed. Crisis averted.
Just as my pulse was beginning to slow, Whit was standing in front of me, goggles in hand, face awash in both pool water and tears. “They broke! Mummy, you broke my goggles! You are the Worst Mummy Ever!” he shrieked.
He handed me the goggles and the orphan piece of rubber. “I can fix them, Whit, I can,” I said urgently and began the panicky effort to thread the broken end through the (incredibly difficult, still, always, why?) fastening at one side. I tried to poke the rubber end through the small opening. Tried it in both directions. Used my teeth. Futile. Frustrated. Frantic.
The volume of Whit’s whining rose and rose. “Whit!” I hissed. “Shhhh!”
I HATE GOGGLES. Have I mentioned that?
A kind-looking woman walked over to me, holding out a pair of blue goggles. “Do you want to borrow these?” she addressed Whit directly, who set his lips and vigorously shook his head.
“No.” He said, surly, adolescent, rude.
“Let’s try them, Whit,” I smiled gratefully at her.
“Believe me, I’ve been here.” What a nice woman. The goggles didn’t work for Whit (the pickiness, also, with goggles? because they are unnecessary, children … get your face wet already). But they interrupted his rising tantrum in a way that was incredibly helpful, and the offer touched me.
Just be kind, people. We are all trying. Stranger woman, fellow mom at the pool? Thank you.
We are at the Basin Harbor Club in Vermont. This is a marvelous place for families, totally oriented towards kids. Tonight was a barbecue with all kinds of activities for the children – bouncy castle, face painting, games, prizes, hayrides, etc. Towards the end of the evening, Grace came running across the field towards me, eyes streaming, visibly crying. I was talking to a friend who coincidentally is here too, standing with her 2 year old.
“What’s wrong, Gracie?” I asked.
“Whit threw the sticker I gave him on the ground!” she sobbed, hiccuping between words. The story, as I gathered it from her broken and interrupted telling, was that she had selected a sticker for Whit for her prize and he’d rejected it. She bawled that she would have chosen something else if she knew he was going to throw it on the ground.
“Hey, Grace, what if you gave the sticker to Bodhi?” I nodded towards the 2 year old, who was watching Grace, transfixed.
She immediately stilled. Considered the idea. She shrugged and proffered the Star Wars sticker to the little guy, who took it from her hand with a huge smile. He leaned in towards her shoulder and kissed it. “Fank you, Gwace,” he murmured.
I thanked my friend, grateful for the kindness of her son. Grace tugged at my hand, face paint streaked with tears, dragging me towards the ice cream line. My friend and her son came with us, and introduced us to her father, standing behind us. They then drifted away. As Grace and I stood in line, her tears came again. She reiterated that Whit had hurt her feelings.
“Grace, there are going to be a lot of hurt feelings in your life.” she looked at me, chin trembling. “I can only promise you this: most people don’t mean to hurt your feelings. Remember that,” I wiped a tear away from her cheek, coming away with black and orange paint on my finger.
“And there will be lots and lots of wonderful feelings too,” chimed in my friend’s dad with a rueful smile. “Lots.”
Yes, there will, Gracie girl. Lots of hurt and tons more joy.
And lighten up, Lindsey!
Right now my head and heart are running dry. I feel exhausted in a bone-deep way. The words are eluding me.
But this kid? Well, he’s priceless. He can be serious, but usually, he’s not. The material keeps on coming.
****
He didn’t fall asleep last night until 9:30, and for about half an hour before that lay in bed singing California Gurls to himself. Grace somehow can tune him out, which is a skill that I’m pretty sure she’s had to develop to survive. Then he got up at 5:30 and started talking. At 7:20, as we walked into breakfast, I think it’s possible that my normally impenetrably calm, Zen, mother-of-the-year facade cracked slightly. Responding to this, he stopped in his tracks. He sighed, resignedly, and said, “OK, Mummy, how about I give you a break from questions for a while?”
Sounds good, Whit.
****
The other day Whit was short-circuiting from being tired and overwrought and generally falling apart. He was half-whining, half-crying, dragging his feet as we walked home from the camp bus. He finally burst out, “Mummy! I’m hungry! I’m tired! I am thirsty!” He sobbed. “I don’t know what I am, but I’m something!”
That’s a feeling I know.
****
Apropos of absolutely nothing, on the long airplane ride home from Legoland, Whit elbowed me urgently.
“What?”
“Do you know what the problem with turtles is, Mummy?”
“What??”
“The problem is they have short legs so when they flip over onto their backs they can’t get back over.”
I tell you, spending an hour inside his head would be comedy.
****
Last week, after dinner, when I was trying to wrestle Whit into the submission of sleep, he began agitating that he was hungry.
I glimpsed a pretzel from a couple of hours earlier on the floor. I scooped it up without his noticing (I thought) and handed it to him. “Here, eat this.”
We walked upstairs towards the bath. Through his mouthful, Whit asked me, “Did you just give me food from the floor?”
“Yes, Whitty, I did,” I sighed. “That’s just the kind of mum I am.”
“That’s the kind of awesome you are!” he exclaimed.
This has been a marvelous summer in many ways. I’ve really let myself sink into life at home with Grace and Whit, and I’ve been fortunate to do some special things with them that I hope they will always remember. They have each commented to me that they like having me around more, a comment which delights and saddens me at the same time (I am going back to work in a few weeks). The kids seem taller by the day, both are tanned, relaxed, and happy, and their relationship is developing into a true friendship (though of course the non-stop fighting has not changed).
It’s also been a strange and somewhat sad summer, an interval of time suspended between two realities, between the known and the unknown. Newness and change hover on the horizon, and as we move towards the end of August the shadows they throw grow ever longer. The summer always feels a bit apart from regular life, and that has been even more true than usual this year. There’s something safe about that knowledge, but also something sorrowful. This special time draws to an end and I feel its closing in my bones, like the sudden chill in the evenings and the infinitessimally different angle of the sun.
We still have three weeks left, but a part of me is already lunging towards the fall, wishing the changes would just come already rather than continue to lurk around the corners of my days. I’ve begun to feel that preemptive anxiety that always robs me of the riches of today. I wish I could push the insistent awareness of what is coming out of my field of vision, so that I could purely inhabit the days that still lie between me and that future. I’ve never been good at that, though.
Today is my birthday, signaling the clanging shut of another year, and the promise of another (oh the blessing it is that this is so – I know it, I do). Mid August seems to be when peoples’ attentions shifts towards fall, despite the fact that we are still deep in long hot summer days. A perfect analogy for me, I think, and the way I exist both here, now, but also in the future (and the past) in a way that sometimes occludes the radiance of my ordinary life.
“What will be will be well, for what is is well.” (Walt Whitman, thank you to Glenda Burgess for the reference).
Onward. Into the unknown – and the unknowable. Towards the radiance.