Inadvertent Exposure

Steaming Coffee by Dan Derrett

Mondays always start so clean and crisp.

There are neat stacks of white paper in rows, and a full calendar and freshly brewed coffee. There are smiling people, refreshed from the weekend, and I have to do lists and emails that are unread, waiting all clear and hopeful and new in chronological order. I’m holding a healthy sack lunch in a recycled bag in one hand as I enter the break room to greet a colleague, and there is a smiling receptionist who greets me. I make my way to my office, stack my briefcase near my coat, and lay my gym bag next to my door. It’s morning, and I’m ahead, and there’s a new list to tick off.

But by Friday the scene has changed drastically. My gym bag is overflowing with sweaty clothes and wet towels which I have neglected for two days but serves as a useful tool for keeping unwanted others out of my office. The briefcase is stuffed with crumpled drafts I took home with good intention, and the emails are half-read, half-answered, blinking angrily. I’m working on about twenty cumulative hours of sleep for the whole week, and my lunch will consist, if I remember to eat, of whatever might still be left in a vending machine or my bottom drawer stash. By 3:30 on Friday I am slumped over the slop piles at my desk, peering over the week’s morass of requests, motions, and deadlines. I’m starting to shuffle the leftover piles into “on fire” or “already smoldering” for the Monday morning charade, and my colleagues are all doing the same.

This was exactly the scene when my cell phone rang this Friday. I sprang to life believing it was from friends who wanted me to come to happy hour. Every Friday I beg and hope and will it to ring. My excitement was dashed when the caller ID blinked “school” back at me. I answered immediately, hoping it wasn’t an injury but knowing it was probably a behavior report. As I heard the patient voice of my son’s saintly teacher, I knew it was the latter. I had one hand on a pile of hand-written notes and I noticed my palm starting to sweat, melting the blue ink.

I shouldn’t sweat like a Pavlovian Mom when the teacher calls, but Coop, also known as NAFOD – which in military speak stands for “No Apparent Fear of Death” – has had trouble dealing with his world lately and it usually results in a phone call from school. Bottom line, Cooper believes he’s the world’s youngest SEAL. Everything he does is a mission, and everyone he encounters is a threat “in his world.” He actually uses that phrase: “in my world,” as if the rest of us are just spectators. And we are. When my husband was still in the desert, I attended three parent-teacher conferences in the first six weeks of Kindergarten. I reasoned the difficulty then stemmed from only getting half as much discipline. Now, with my husband home, it’s even worse: he’s now getting twice as much discipline.

The teacher’s words shocked me back to reality, breaking my train of thought on the discipline express. “I need to let you know what another parent reported to me today. I thought you’d want to know. I’m sorry.”

I looked at the piles on my desk and wondered who had the rougher week. My money was on the teacher. I didn’t try to talk. I just waited quietly until the awkward silence forced a response from her.

“He told another boy that there are places where ladies get naked and men pay to see them.”

“I  – I – he – he …”

I attempted to articulate a response but after some stuttering all I managed to say was, “thanks for letting me know. We will discuss it.” I wanted the conversation to be over so badly. I imagined my kid, in his camo, huddled football-style in a circle of six year-old boys on the playground, imparting his vast knowledge of naked ladies. This was the very definition of ring-leader. Was he really going to be that kid? I assumed he would not be invited to any sleepovers in the near future, which I thought was a good thing. I hate sleepovers.

Knowing Cooper, he told that kid. The one who had no older siblings. The one who had never seen a naked lady, not even his own mom. The one who had told his mother within two seconds of being picked up at school what men can do for money in some places.

The teacher tried to make me feel better by saying “I’m sure it was an inadvertent exposure, like something he saw on the television or the internet.” I started to agree with this sound logic until I wondered what she must think of my television and internet selections. Then, in the continuing uncomfortable silence, the actual “inadvertent exposure” came when she concluded with, “because in all my years I’ve never heard a kid his age say anything like that.”

Wonderful. I really needed that happy hour call, now.

Later as I picked up the kids we sat stoicly once everyone was loaded up, and I was very serious. I wore my very serious mom face which I reserved for very important conversations. The radio was off and I wasn’t chatting about the day. The engine was idling. There was a moment of silence. My son looked at me gravely and was uncharacteristically quiet as well, sensing that the seriousness in my demeanor should concern him. I waded into the naked lady waters with a straightforward, “I need to ask you a serious question.”

“Who me?”

These are the words of guilty man, I thought. We had been down this whole denial road before. I was skipping the part of the cross-examination where he turned the tables on me. I was going for something more direct, more pointed.

“Yes, you. Today Mrs. Hutchin called me.”

“Oh.”

“She says you told another boy something that really worried her. Do you know what that might be?”

I was giving him the chance to come clean. He looked at me and blinked. It was that moment where he was making a decision about the merits of volunteering the truth versus the risk of playing the game a moment longer. He finessed his way through the first question by using the tool I utilized for Santa Clause questions: answer a question with a question. So he tried it a second time.

“What did Mrs. Hutchin say?”

“Objection. Nonresponsive. I asked if you know what that might be.”

“I don’t.”

So there it was. This was going to be a longer conversation than I had hoped. It was going to be a conversation not just about naked ladies, but about honesty and integrity and becoming a man. And of course, it was going to be had by me, a woman, because his father was gone on a trip. Again. I sighed and took a shortcut.

“She says you told another boy about naked ladies. Know anything about that?”

I was bracing for the answer. This was the moment. The only thing standing between me and my boy’s naiveté was the weight of the words he was about to speak. It was truly the end of the innocence. I felt a tear well up in one eye.

“Well Yeah. You know, mom. Naked ladies. Dancing ones, too.”

The innocence wasn’t just gone, it had been rightly trampled upon. I wanted to gasp and let my mouth hang open and press my manicured fingertips to my chest as if I had been offended by such a statement. But he wasn’t smirking or even looking up at me. He was fiddling with a piece of paper, folding it perfectly into a precision aircraft.

“No. I don’t know. Enlighten me.”

That’s when I got his attention. He heard the sarcasm and realized there was something strange going on. He rolled his eyes, as if to say that I knew very well what naked ladies were, and let the air push out of his mouth in a loud, “huhhn” before continuing. Then he took another deep breath, and he began to sing:

“There’s a place in France where the naked ladies dance. There’s a hole in the wall where the men can see it all. But they really don’t care ‘cause they’re in their underwear.”

Olivia snickered, covering her mouth as if it would somehow hide her audible laugh and smiling eyes. “Where did you hear that song!?” I demanded, looking at the snickerer. The response was his golden ticket straight out of trouble, and probably the one and only thing he could have said to form a viable defense:

“Nana taught it to me.”

My own mother. The beloved Nana. The one who has them believing in fairies, watching out the back deck for wolves to protect the Elven village presumably living in the woods behind our house because of the notes they leave us. Nana. The one who feeds them brownie mix for dinner. Nana. The one who encourages them to paint in their brand new white shirts and tells them to become Democrats despite what their parents might think. Nana. The one who lets them taste wine, “just a sip, just a sip, just to taste …”

Nana.

I’m on to you, Nana. This is not the end. I’m so totally on to you.

By the way, I’m giving Mrs. Hutchin your phone number.

Tickling Will Stunt Your Growth

Today Sweet Pea did not want to be without her daddy. Today she was done with this mobilization.  It didn’t matter to her that the countdown has dwindled into single digit months. It was no good convincing her we are only one weather season away. Today, she was just done. She wanted him home, and now.

RIGHT NOW.

And I totally get it. Some days I’m going to call up Barack and Michelle and tell them that we are done with all this mess, and to
please sign an executive order sending him home, now.

I knew we were headed for the craggy cliffs of overexuberant pre-tween pain after a rapid sequence of relatively minor events left Sweet Pea helpless against her own emotions, lying in a moaning blubbery heap in her car seat. First, she realized that she misplaced a small piece of chocolate she had earned by being quiet for some excruciatingly long period of time. Apparently this is a monumental feat for her. But hey, it’s chocolate, so I was empathetic. Sympathetic, even. But then she screamed suddenly at her brother when he pulled down on her ear buds to offer her a piece of his granola bar, causing them to pop from her ears and scare the living daylights out of me. And then she graciously provided me with a ”you’re an ancient ignoramus” look when I asked what was wrong. This innocent question of mine caused her to wax philosophical and recreate her borderline nervous breakdown which she experienced because of the callous ripping down of the sign. The sign. The piece of paper that was evidently crafted by her best friend with the utmost care, but only after having been meticulously designed and masterminded by Sweet Pea. It was a sign which bore nothing – no art, no colors, no images - except the solitary and very serious warning: “Take this sign down and DIE.” Obviously, at a daycare that contains elementary-aged boys, that’s just an invitation. In fact, it’s a dare, which makes it nearly a command. But to Sweet Pea the fact that it had been unjustifiably and with malice aforethought ripped from its place of honor was a historical, capital abomination.

I looked at the pained look on her face, and wondered whether she believed someone was indeed going to die. The Preschooler and I exchanged troubled glances in the car mirrors and we all drove home in relative silence. Once inside with some food to stabilize her blood sugar, I broached the subject:

“Hey babe, what’s really going on with you?”

“My daddy left again, he is still far away, and he’s not coming back for a long time, and I’m SAD!”

 

She was staring at me with a bitterly cold eye-lock that did not at all match the words she had just uttered. Unlike the raw emotional outburst on her birthday, this felt more like a dry prepared speech: a retort which she had been waiting to use, or maybe even one that she had used once too often. It was stale. Trite. It was locked and loaded and at the ready for just such an occasion. It was the excuse that was now driving her unreasonable penchant for self-directed drama.

I could see that it was taking on a life of its own so I tried my hardest to get to what was real. It can be painful to do that when my children are involved because it’s tough to watch them struggle. And okay, it’s also because I usually end up learning more than they do and that irks me. But this was one of those moments that called for diving straight in. It seems like I’ve been having a lot of those moments, lately.

Earlier in the day I had been reading about the various reasons litigants can’t come to agreement in negotiations, and the article concluded that it was usually fear, expressed as anger. It had me thinking. And so instead of asking what was wrong, I thought
I’d say something she wasn’t expecting. Something new and exciting …

“So, what are you afraid of?”

That question clearly resonated. The Preschooler stopped putting together the Lego Death Star and ceased breathing, waiting for her response. Her fierce laser eyes fogged over. She sat very still until her lightly sunburned cheeks were streaked with silent tears that made clean glistening trails down her dusty face. By the time she collected herself enough to actually respond, several moments of silence had passed. The Preschooler finally gasped for air.

To my surprise, she then started listing her fears.

She said she felt shy around her Daddy because he wasn’t there every day to talk. She said her heart felt empty and that seeing him wasn’t enough; she needed to be filled with his hugs and kisses. She said she was afraid that he would always wish she was still little again like when he left. She said she was afraid that he would not like the new “big girl” she had become. I put on my understanding mommy voice. This one was easy. I had this one …

“Oh honey, it’s hard for Daddy, too. It’s not the same to talk online because he’s not here but it doesn’t change how much he loves you. It probably will feel a little empty for a bit, but that will make his hugs and kisses so great when he finally comes home. And he knows you’ve grown and changed while he has gone. He still remembers. But everyone grows. He has grown, too. He loves you for who you are on the inside, no matter what.”

This list was painfully familiar. I heard my own words. Dammit! Why must this crap always end up being about me and what I need to hear myself say?

Let’s face it. I’m just not the same girl I was when he left. The truth is that I like being independent and overcommited. I like being sure of my parenting skills and having an excuse for being bad at it, sometimes. I like my new-found car battery-changing capabilities, and my blossoming “relationship” with my handyman who previously only responded to Husband’s phone calls. The inevitable meshing of two personalities that often happens in marriage is faint, and I’m happy with me. But what if I’m too happy? What does that mean? I can’t unmature. This wife remodel has been ten months in the making. There has been significant investment. Going back is not an option. I’ve eaten the fruit.

I heard the weight of my own words, and turned toward Sweet Pea and her sullen face. I reached for her knee, tried for a tickle, and begged her for a smile. She obliged, forced a smile, and it about broke my heart. I looked into those eyes and realized this was the smile I offered Husband while he was home. The half-sad, half-happy smile.

So I looked down at my imaginary bracelet.

I flumped down on the couch, and invited her to snuggle with me instead. I told her to close her eyes and pretend I was her Daddy, wrapping his arms around her. I laid on my back, and she rested on my tummy face up. We were stacked like a mother-daughter sandwich on the couch. I started patting her on the belly just like I’ve seen Husband do many times over. I even called her “girly-girl” and patted her little head, smoothing her hair, like he has always done since she was a baby. It was working. She was smiling with her eyes closed. And we were touching. I realized I needed it as much as she did. Touch is magic.

And then, I really don’t know what came over me, but I had an overwhelming desire to tickle her. I swear it was the magic of the bracelet combined with her exposed vulnerable belly. But I went for it. We were on the floor in no time, and I grabbed her and I tickled her under her chin, and on her cheeks (as Daddy would say), and under her arms, and on the bottoms of her dirty, stinky feet. I pinned her to the floor as she wriggled and shrieked and I poked her belly as she guffawed. I squeezed her knees and moved back and forth from one to the other, rendering her defenseless and confused, and I threatened to keep doing it until she tinkled (as Daddy would say).

“Oh, that reminds me! I have to go to the bathroom! Ah, stop! I have to go pee! I’m going to pee on you!”

“Uh-uh, I’m no sukah. I don’t fall for that trick. You’re staying right here with no hall pass!”

“Really! I do! Ha ha ha! Stop! I’m gonna pee my pants! Let me up!”

“Do I have stupid written on my forehead?” (also a Husbandism)

“Mom! Stop, that tickles! Ahhh aha ha ha!”

“It’s SUPPOSED TO TICKLE!”

Pretty soon, The Preschooler was in on the action. He’s a conniving mercenary tickle-fighter, switching from winning team to winning team at his own momentary but calculated advantage, so there was no allegiance to be expected. More than once his mini fingers found his way into my armpits, and soon we were all on the floor, breathless, happy, and really smiling this time.

I eventually sent them up to bed and I stayed there on the floor, looking at the ceiling through finger-smudged glasses. And you know, I realized I hadn’t grown so far apart from Husband, after all. I wasn’t as independent as I thought. I have been marked and changed and molded by him, and permanently so. Because the pre-Husband me would never have erupted into a tickle fight to solve sullen and troubling behavior. In fact pre-Husband solo me would have delved into the true psychological meaning behind Sweet Pea’s obvious mental and emotional breakdown, pick apart every painful childhood event, analyze the number of times I used the hot tub during pregnancy and research the potential correlation between extreme abdominal heat and fetus brain development, including the need to compare and contrast the number of times I was not available to provide physical support to my innocent needy infant because I went back to work too early, possibly causing permanent irreversible infant detachment disorder. And it would all end with several weeks of involuntary counseling and a reluctant but regularly administered onslaught of modern mood-stabilizing drugs (for me, not Sweet Pea).

So yes. I’ve changed. But really, I haven’t changed that much. The ratio just doesn’t support it. I’ve spent twenty years with him, and one year without him. There are indelible marks there that just can’t be erased. They can be added to, but not erased. Why am I so worried about change? It’s not reversion to a solo me - it’s growth. I’m building on top of what I’ve already built with him. Why was I so mad about every little thing he did (or didn’t do) while he was here?

Oh sheesh, wait. What is this? Fear, expressed as anger? Is that why I yelled at Husband during R&R? Ack. You mean I’m basically like a scared attention-seeking puh-puh-puh … plaintiff? *shivers* Barf-o-rama. Spit, spit, spit. Pah-toey! Blech. Bitter. I need bleach! Bleach! Someone get me the bleach!

So. Okay. No more of that. I emerged unscathed. I’ve been cleaned by tickle-baptism. And it’s a good thing tickling still solves everything bad in the world for my children and clears my head almost as much as a good massage. Because you can’t argue with tickling. You just can’t. Am I right?

Of course I am. Because it’s not just what Husband would do, anymore. It’s what I would do.

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A Little Dab’l Do Ya

There is a defeated, sinking feeling I get when I arrive at my desk first thing in the morning to find that I’m already exhausted. My empty-nester boss looks at me in confusion when I enter the front office with Cheerios clinging to my suit, a hot purple hand-beaded necklace that spells out the word “M-O-M” and a pair of size five cupcake pajama pants sticking out of my briefcase. My legal assistant nods knowingly and usually says something sympathetic like, “there’s coffee?”

This particular morning I flumped down in my chair and glared at my calendar over the edge of my coffee cup. Booked. All day. The light on my phone was blinking out of the corner of my eye, and I could not stare it directly in the face. I didn’t want it to smell weakness and start ringing. I clicked over from the calendar to my email inbox. 112 messages were lined up, waiting for their chance to mock me, one by one. I clicked back to the calendar in defiance.

I rubbed my eyes. Despite staying up until midnight, I had somehow fumbled my way down the stairs at 5 a.m.to initiate Operation Reclaim the Booty by jumping headlong into my renewed fitness routine. I have refused to come to grips with my weight delusions for the last two months until I realized Husband has been working out daily – with SEALS - while I’ve been assuaging my stress with tacos. So naturally I resolved to undo eight months in eight weeks – which is why it’s not surprising that I fell and almost knocked over my water-glass attempting to do a jab-cross-hook-uppercut. I was actually disappointed when it miraculously remained standing because of the respite it would have provided to stay down there on the floor to clean it up.

Once I recovered and showered, the rest of the morning routine with the kids was equally painful. First, there wasn’t enough motivation in the world to get The Preschooler out of bed, and Sweet Pea was having a meltdown wardrobe crisis. I was perched on the top stair inquiring whether the boy child would be wearing his clothes on his body or in a bag when Sweet Pea interrupted to announce that she “needed” me to make her a lunch. By the time we arrived at school my makeup was only half on, and I was dubbed the unknowing elderly slob that didn’t understand the power of the second grade fashion police. I was also apparently the only mom in the history of all schoolchildren who refused to accommodate last-minute lunch requests, and to make matters worse I had permanently scarred The Preschooler for having to find and put on his own shoes, making it “the worst day” in his entire life. Sweet Pea announced, “No offense Mom, but if you and Dad weren’t together … I’d go live with Dad.” No offense kid, but me too.

As I peered into the daycare doors for a source of respite with my ragtag group of whiners, I saw the sign: “Welcome! Muffins with Moms.”

Crap. I forgot. This was the Mom version of Doughnuts with Dads. I looked at my watch. I had to be at a meeting in thirty minutes. Undaunted, I shoved the second-grader toward the school doors and moved fluidly to a table in the gym, smiling, and dragging The Preschooler with shoes on the wrong feet behind me. This was not going to be anything like Doughnuts with Dads. Not even a little.

“Oh, goodie! Let’s get a treat. Come on, sweetie, let’s spend some time together. Do you want juice? Sure, I’ll get a coffee. Here’s a muffin. Shove it in your mouth. Ha ha, just kidding. Not really. Pick up the crumbs. Don’t eat the crumbs off the table. Whoops, don’t spill your juice. I’ll throw that away for you. Are you done yet? Smile for the picture. *flash* Mommy loves you so much. Hurry up, eat your muffin baby. This is so much fun. No, you don’t want another one. Okay, FINE. Let’s just take this to your classroom. Alright? Okay, hang up your backpack, then. There you go! Give me a hug and a kiss. Mommy loves you, so fun having breakfast with you now I’m leaving. Bye! Love you! Mwah! Have a super day!”

The Preschooler was standing motionless, still wondering what had happened, as I walked away. By the time I reached the parking lot I noticed that he had plastered his sad face against the window and was pathetically waiving goodbye by pressing one hand against the glass like he was the captain going down in a sinking ship, saying his final farewell. I told myself, ”he does that just to make me feel guilty.”

There was no time to dwell on the sad little face. I sped to the office, running down several people in crosswalks and spilling protein shake. And now here I was, ignoring the blinking light on the phone, staring despondently at the calendar from hell, and I was already four hours into my day with no “work” having yet been accomplished. I slugged down the coffee, and walked two blocks to my first meeting. When I returned I kept my head down, moving seamlessly from one task to another, clicking out emails at breakneck speed and slapping out the burning papers on my desk that were catching fire, one by one. I kept a watchful eye on the other piles too, particularly the ones that had already spontaneously caught fire and eventually extinguished themselves for lack of fuel, their smoldering embers threatening to reignite at any moment. I even got up the courage to douse the blinking phone light.

And then it happened. A jury trial was called off. Two afternoon meetings were cancelled. Smoking piles one, two, and three were extinguished with mere phone calls. A colleague updated me and an emergency became a theoretical second-rate advice request. I sat silently, stunned, and watched the emails and the dust settle for a moment. And I mean that literally, because for the first time that day my email wasn’t pinging, my phone wasn’t ringing, and I realized that the sun was shining. Bright shafts of light were streaming into my office, warming my desk. There was sun. In the Pacific Northwest. In the Spring.

I sat back in the chair, and with a moment to think, I recounted the morning’s events … the jolting wake-up, devoid of compassion. The breakfast bar offered as sustenance as we raced out the door. The “hurry up hurry up hurry up!” I barked as they exited the car and the “humph” of the backpack hitting the pavement, after I tossed it unexpectedly to The Preschooler, who wasn’t moving fast enough for my liking. The stunned look on his face as I guided him through the muffin whirlwind. The way he clung to me and demanded ten hugs and squeezed his eyes shut as I extricated myself from his grip and rushed out the door to make it to my very important meeting.

I actually heard my heart thunk-slop and fall down hard in my chest. What was I doing?

I looked at the desk. I looked at the calendar. I looked at the pictures just beyond the edge of my computer screen. And I resolved to somehow take advantage of the afternoon’s compassionate twist of fate.

The elation on The Preschooler’s face when I arrived at school completely erased the memory of the child pawing at the window that I had seen earlier that morning. I took him to lunch and he wiggled so much his lemonade sloshed out of the cup when he tried to take a drink. Between mouths full of chicken he smothered me with kisses so much that I was almost (almost) embarrassed. We shared a brownie and fought for bites and smiled with brown teeth and didn’t care.

After a quick tour of the office and some follow-up phone calls, we had the chance to stop at a nearby park. It was a blur of giggles and jumping and climbing and swinging. We were monkeys, and I was a monkey in a suit. It was moments of sunshine and leaping and skipping hand in hand. I was the only mom in the park in a skirt and heels, but I was also the only mom willing to get wet in the park fountain.

We finally rested for a bit near the fountain and let the sunshine and water mix with our good moods. As I watched him play in the water, I thought about the time I was taking away from the office and what a small sacrifice it was for me. In stark contrast, I compared how much these two short hours meant to The Preschooler. And frankly, how much they meant to me. I thought I was making some huge sacrifice to make him happy. But I wasn’t. It turns out this was actually for me, too. Parenting is always that way; it always ends up being more about me than the kids.

I’ve really been running on empty, lately and I expressed my exhaustion concerns to Husband. But after eight months in the desert his response understandably included such warrior-speak as “assessing your maximum capacity” and “refining the ability to issue direct immediate consequences against the insurgents.” Okay, got it. Well, not really.

I never remember to think of capacity as something finite. I remember being terribly concerned upon the birth of child #2 with having to divide my love between two children. But when I had that second child, my capacity for love merely multiplied. I’m constantly laboring under a false belief that if I just commit to more, it will all work out.

Let me tell you, that law does not apply to finite supplies like hours in the day, sleep, and sanity. There is just only so much to go around. But the fountain’s waters and one satisfied little face was enough to deluge my heart to overflowing. I was looking into the face of what really mattered. Moments.

“How can I keep doing all this?” I thought. “What is the point of killing myself to get all of these things done at breakneck speed? Why can’t I just be normal? Why can’t things just be the way they were before he left?”

I reluctantly announced that we had only five minutes left, and that our next destination was the dentist. The Preschooler was standing absolutely motionless and it was the first time he was still all day long.  I braced for the melt-down. But he wasn’t upset - he was smiling. I moved closer.

“What’s up, buddy?”

“Magic.”

“What? Where? What kind of magic!?”

“There.”

 

He didn’t point. He just stared. So I came around and peered from behind him to see what he was looking at. And then I saw it, too. There was that darn rainbow, again. Suprising me. Reminding me. Giving me its word. Telling me that I could do it. For at least 40 more days and nights.

I held his hand and we stood in the mist together and smiled back at it. We talked about promises. We talked about Dad. And we talked about whatever he wanted to talk about. We headed off for the car, and there was a calm satisfaction in his smooth step. It wasn’t the attitude-laden strut The Preschooler usually garnered, and it wasn’t the worn-out dejected step of a child who was blaming his mother for the lack of socks in his drawer. It was confidence, and I had it again, too. After just two hours and very little effort on my part, we were both recharged. He seemed different. He seemed a little bit more like the kid I knew before his Daddy left. So that day wasn’t just a gift for him. It was a gift for me, too.

I mean really. Have you ever seen a kid this happy on his way to the dentist?

Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be Alright

Someone asked me recently to describe the most challenging aspect of deployment from the perspective of the military family. I was on the phone at the time, and I looked out across the jungle that had become my back yard. I decided that “yard work” was probably not an acceptable response.

It took me a moment to identify something specific because the easiest way to get through something is to avoid thinking about it altogether. Deny deny deny. I looked back at the lawn and surmised that this coping mechanism may not work out very well. I made a mental note to examine just how long and lush the blades of jealousy and resentment were growing in my own heart. And I immediately decided to take care of it … later.

Most military families will tell you that events with dates attached to them – holidays, anniversaries, recognitions, and milestones – are the hardest. I often discount the importance of a particular day because Husband’s civilian job as a UPS pilot takes him away from home often and we just wait to celebrate until he gets home. But as the events cumulate and stack up against him, I can feel his guilt mounting and the childrens’ resentment building. It’s not fair to Husband, but it happens nonetheless. I seem to be able to deal with it. But the harder it gets for my children, the harder it gets for me. I willingly made the choice to marry a pilot, but they didn’t.

It’s difficult to ask a child to make a sacrifice that is not voluntary.

Case in point, one day after school Sweet Pea stared out the car window. She wasn’t just staring out the window blankly. This was not the wide-eyed wondering look of a child on a road trip without a DVD player, nor the irritated “I’m ignoring you because you’re stupid” mask that she puts on when her brother is attempting to karate-chop her homework folder from his buckled-in car seat. This was the “I’ve just lost my best friend” kind of stare. She was hurting, and she seemed a thousand miles away.

Or maybe something like 7,600 miles away.

I knew by the look in her eyes that we were about to have another conversation about sacrifice, temporary conditions, bravery, family support, patriotism, freedom, and trust in God. These are heavy subjects for a seven year-old who still draws kittens with bows and likes sparkles embedded in her clothing. But she knows them. So of course I avoided those issues completely and went directly to humor, coping mechanism of the stars. It directly follows ridiculous unadulterated denial of the obvious, so it was worth a try.

“Hey, what’s going on? Did you flunk out of second grade today?”

“Huh-uh.”

“No? Accidentally eat a vegetable at lunch?”

“No, Mom.”

 

Hm. Terse. No grin. Nothing. I resorted to some gross body humor. This always works.

 

“Toot in class?”

“Ew.”

“Get caught picking your nose?”

“Mom!”

“Oh, oh. Don’t tell me. I know – you peed your pants in P.E. Must have been totally embarrassing.”

 

Silence. Crickets. Thousand mile stare. My heart dropped. I was out of jokes.

 

“Well?”

“I just don’t want to have my birthday this year. That’s all. It’s not the same.”

 

And there it was. I slowed my car and pulled over, and as I came to a stop and turned around, Sweet Pea wasn’t looking out the window. She was looking directly at me, and she was preparing to head me off at the pass. As the daughter of a lawyer she has learned the value of pre-emptive argument and I could see the wheels turning. She leaned forward in her seat to deliver the blow, but I could see that she was fighting to maintain control. The raw emotions were welling up, forcing wet spots to form in the corners of her precious blue eyes. Her Daddy’s precious blue eyes.

“I don’t care if he will be here next year. It’s not the same. I’ll never be eight again. This is the only time. It’s just not the same without Daddy here.” Her voice finally broke and she wiped a tear, blurting out one last salvo: ”It doesn’t even feel like a birthday!”

And she was right. Husband has this way of making everything lighter and happier. He may be an officer in the United States Navy and he may wear a uniform and have people salute him at work, but at home he’s a goofy guy with a soft spot for tickle fights and a talent for unique flatulence timing. It’s my job to roll my eyes while the kids giggle and blame me while fake-fanning my rear end.

So I just agreed with her. I told her it wasn’t the same. Inside it hurt that I couldn’t make it all better, but I realized there was value in learning that sometimes you can’t fix things. I realized that learning how to feel and move on was crucial to growth. So I told her it was OK to feel bad and that I appreciated how angry she was about it. I told her that nobody expected her to pretend everything was just fine when it wasn’t. And I told her I felt the same way sometimes. She attempted to level me with a final sucker-punch to the gut:

“But you don’t know, Mom! You don’t know what it’s like not having your daddy home for your birthday!”

And I smiled. Because I did know. I remembered my own eighth birthday in Jacksonville, Florida when my dad was deployed on the USS America and I put my knee into a red ant hill. I remembered that birthday.

“Honey, my daddy was in the Navy too, remember? And Papa missed lots of holidays when I was a little girl. In fact, he even missed my eighth birthday. So I do know. I know exactly what it feels like.”

It stunned her into silence and we just stared at each other for a moment. Uncomfortable, I turned around, put the car back in gear, and started moving the car forward. I was unsatisfied with what felt like emotional one-upmanship.

But then I remembered something that saved us so many times before. Husband sings a song … “Don’t worry, about a thing. ‘Cause every little thing is gonna be alright.” And he sings it, and sings it, and sings it again, until the grumpy moping child relents and sings along. And it works. It actually works.

So I did it. I started singing. I sang quietly at first, almost to myself, and I watched the kids in the mirror. They were watching quietly, suspiciously, but not joining in. I could feel my heart rising as I anticipated the eventual response and I continued undaunted with a smirk on my face. I opened the windows a crack, even though it was drizzling outside, so the wind could blow through our hair. Each stanza was progressively louder and more annoying and the setting sun blasted through the trees, their shadows beating out a strobe-like effect on our faces as we picked up speed. By the time we hit the freeway I was bobbing back and forth beating the steering wheel for rhythm, singing like a midnight karaoke idiot. Both kids (and the occupants of several other cars) were staring at me now in disbelief but I continued, undeterred by their looks of horror. I shouted, “altogether now!” between stanzas, and The Preschooler timidly joined in. I barked out my command to sing along “louder!” if they wanted me to stop, and Sweet Pea finally participated in protest. We sang it again and again until I saw her eye rolls transition into a smile. And within minutes we were screaming down the highway with the windows all the way down in the rain, both kids’ flailing and bouncing in the back seat, raising their chins and happily declaring “every little thing is gonna be alright!”

We laughed. And as we sang I captured their faces in my memory. I had an overwhelming feeling that we really were going to make it. I had learned a lesson once before - that there was value in saying things out loud - and it was serving me well to remember it now. I believed it. We all believed it.

The next day we did our best to make Sweet Pea’s birthday a special event. But I wasn’t completely sure how she felt about it until I saw the words that she wrote out as we were making a welcome home message for her Daddy on the sliding glass doors later that night:

“Dear Dad, I missed you very very much. I’m glad your home with us. I cryed much times when you where gone. I was trying to be as strong as I could … I am very very proud of you for protecting our country. I’m soooooooo glad your home! We will have so much fun together. I love you a lot Daddy. I’m sad you missed my birthday butt you had to do your good Navy stuff … I could never say how proud I am of you. The hole family missed you butt we where brave because we trust in God to protect and provied for you and your Navy friends!”

I looked through her words on the glass doors back out onto the lawn in my dark back yard. I realized it was time to act on my mental note to take an honest inventory of my own bad feelings about this deployment and see just how long the weeds there had become. I’m a little ashamed to say that I didn’t really like what I found there.

I found resentment, jealousy, and a sense of abandonment. I found anger for being the one left behind to deal with the bills and the doctors appointments and the boo-boos and the mortgage, and the laundry and the floors and the toilets. And then I found guilt for feeling that way. I found exhaustion. I found the loneliness of living without him that I often ignored. On holidays. On weekdays. On weekends. In the mornings. And late at night.

But I looked back at the words written by my little girl, and it struck me. I realized all of these things were okay. I thought of my own sage advice to admit defeat and look your feelings in the face. And I realized I didn’t have to laugh my way out of them. I didn’t have to deny they existed. And I didn’t have to feel like I was the only one.

I stepped out onto the deck where the kids couldn’t see me, and I stared out into the darkness for a moment. This year would be over soon. This feeling would be a memory. I closed my eyes, and I sang softly under my breath, imagining it was him standing behind me, whispering in my ear: “Don’t worry … about a thing. ’Cause every little thing is gonna be alright.”

And it was gonna be alright. It wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t have to be. It was real, and it wasn’t going to be there forever, and there would be time for it to heal. So I didn’t have to worry. Not any more.

Filling in The Doughnut Hole

“Mom, what is h*ly sh*t?”

This was the boundary he decided to push today? Cursing? We’ve been over this. It was really just a test marker to see whether I was being mild-mannered reasonable mom or rip your socks off freak-out mom. As luck would have it, for him at least, I was relatively docile. Perhaps the question was simply meant to test whether yesterday’s rules still applied. (They did.)

These are the kinds of behaviors that are slowly creeping into The Preschooler’s “test it at home” repertoire: back-talking, ignoring, public high-decibel belching, a mild version of cursing, a less mild version of physical violence, and verbal whining tantrums. Some days I’m good at handling it, and other days I just lose it and mimic the whining.

By the way, that will just escalate the violence. You know, in case you were wondering.

But I knew our time without Husband reached critical mass on Thursday when The Preschooler’s response to my nearly rhetorical “what do you say?” was a perfect belchese pronunciation of the burped-out words “par-don-me.” At least it made me laugh instead of contemplating the various ways to end any possibility of a future lineage through my second-born child.

By the way, that will just escalate the belching. You know, in case you were wondering.

We just need more boy time around here, that’s all. When male adult friends come over, The Preschooler goes through a little ritual. He watches them, then talks to them, then insults them (which apparently has something to do with normal male communication and bonding). Next he wrestles or roughs them up, and finally he climbs up on their lap.

His real need for male affirmation was crystallized for me this weekend when we were at the park and a horde of six and seven year-old boys arrived post birthday party. The Preschooler was immediately engaged. I lost him in the flurry of sneakers and balls and frisbees for a while, until I noticed him perched at the edge of a basketball game.

He was sitting alone on the black top, watching a dad teach his two young girls how to play basketball. He was just waiting quietly at the fringe for an opportunity.

As we walked home he explained, “The ball accidentally bounced toward me, and I reached for it, and that guy said I had fast hands. He said I had quick timing!”

Despite never having been invited to participate in the basketball lessons, The Preschooler beamed. A sharp jab made me suck in a quick breath of air, in an effort to hold my heart intact. One man’s momentary attention and those sparse words of admiration were gold to The Preschooler’s ears. I could have said those words a million times over, and they would have meant precious little in comparison.

That’s why the school’s annual “Doughnuts for Dads” breakfast was going to be a particular challenge. Sometimes making arrangements for a surrogate dad just bolds, underlines, and draws huge circles around the missing father in a child’s life. But I had an idea – one good thing about an 8am doughnut time was that it would be 7pm in Husband’s part of the world. And that wasn’t a bad time at all to try to Skype.

On the way to school that day, I spent a few minutes convincing The Preschooler that I was going to be his Dad at the breakfast that day, and have some one-on-one time with him and a doughnut. “You’re not a Dad,” The Preschooler protested. “But I’m kinda like a mom and a dad this year.” He seemed to buy it. As I premeditated the logistics of the set-up, the kids explored various morphed names for me from the back seat of the car. One of the first blends of MOM and DAD was “MAD,”  and though I didn’t like the connotation I quickly (more quickly than them) figured out that “DAM” was next in the line of succession to the throne. Based on The Preschooler’s propensity for cursing I decided to adopt MAD as a peaceful and marginally less offensive alternative.

I sent The Preschooler to class and made a bee-line for the gym to set up my computer.

The gym was full of smiling tender dads and their own preschoolers. I’m sure there were a few little girls in the room, but I couldn’t really see them. I saw boys. I saw little boys, and I saw their fathers and/or grandfathers and/or step fathers. The dads weren’t talking to each other about sports or making plans for hunting trips or discussing work. They were talking to their kids, serving them food, and negotiating and laughing over the number of doughnuts to be consumed. They were dads that were focused on their children, which always warms my heart.

But at the same moment, I felt like I had invaded some sacred place. And so did they. I felt their eyes lazer down on me as I entered the gym. Surrogate Dads are one thing. Grandfather substitutes are acceptable. But moms? In an attempt to justify my existence I pulled the mini netbook out from its pursed camouflage. My face grew hot and my fingers flew as I entered passwords and logged in and adjusted speakers and tested the sound. There he was, his big smiling face filling the screen. And he was in his uniform. I knew he did that for The Preschooler. I knew he didn’t want to be in his uniform at 7pm on a Friday night after a 100 degree day. But he was. It made my heart swell a little.

I looked up, and I saw the faces of the men around change.  I left Husband in the gym, and I took a deep breath and walked down the hall to retrieve his son.

As we returned to the gym, word of the kid whose deployed Dad was appearing via Skype had spread. Staff from all over the preschool were lurching around us like the Paparazzi with cameras and cell phones. The Preschooler looked a little bewildered as we entered the gym, until he saw his dad, sitting at a table, waiting to eat a doughnut with him. They both smiled and his dad greeted him with the familiar, “Hey Snoop Doggie-Dog!”

In no time at all the rest of the room disappeared for them, and my boys were doing what they usually do on Skype – making weird faces and noises at each other. The Preschooler fed him a doughnut or four, “helping” with bites to simulate dad’s presence. We talked pretty regularly this way so I started to think that this was just another Skype session for The Preschooler.

But then there was a moment – a moment where realization set in. The Preschooler looked around the room. He looked at the other dads, and he looked at me, and he looked at his dad. And he smiled.

One by one, The Preschooler’s friends (and their dads) came by. The shortest ones stared and jumped and waved as he introduced them. He raised one eyebrow and gave a wink to his Dad when he introduced Jillian. Obviously, they’ve discussed this “friend” before. He smiled at me, and there were deep happy creases in the corners of his eyes. I got up from the table in search of some coffee as father and son continued their conversation and introductions.

As I walked back toward the table another dad put his hand on my back to slow me down. I wasn’t expecting to talk with anyone, and when I turned he looked straight into my eyes. It was the same look that appears on the face of every person who learns my husband is deployed. I wasn’t ready for that either.  He just stopped and swallowed and said, “Thankyou. Just thankyou.”

I swallowed hard, too.

I wish I had done or said something different. Something intelligent. Something touching. But I just nodded my head and walked on, because at that moment it was all I could manage. But it was such a beautiful thing to say: thank you. I wished Husband had heard it. I wished Husband had felt it. But I knew he did, more than I ever would, without anyone ever saying the words.

I glanced around the room, and I realized that many of the Dads were watching the little computer show. Some were quietly remembering. Some were appreciating and thinking of their fathers. Many were whispering to their children, telling them about bravery and sacrifice and protection.

It was a Fathers’ Appreciation Day we will never forget.

We eventually said goodbye and packed up the computer and cleaned up our crumbs and headed for the rest of the “regular” morning routine. I knelt down, in a hurry to get off to a doctor’s appointment, and I gave The Preschooler the obligatory goodbye hug. But he would not let me hurry; he grabbed my neck, and he squeezed, and he held on. Tight. He buried his face in my neck and he held me there, giving me a big whole-body squeeze and clamping on. I really think he was closing his eyes, and hugging a little piece of his daddy. When he finally detached from me he sprung to life and found himself amidst four boys who were precariously stacking wooden blocks for a round of impromptu car-crash bowling, probably at the expense of someone’s new matchbox car.

I watched him for just a moment longer, and I thought about the challenges we’ve had during parts of this journey. Although it would have been special to have Husband around to do ”Doughnuts with Dads” in person, it was a pretty incredible moment for us, and I think it was an important moment for all of the fathers and children who witnessed it, too. I hope that memory was imprinted on their lives, and that they cherished their time with their children just a little bit more at this years’ Father Appreciation event because of it. I know I did.

Now, I’m going to need to remember that love and appreciation – especially the love part - because I’m back to finding the remedy for five year-olds with a curse word perseveration. I’m considering charging 25 cents each.

I could be rich by Friday.

Three Walls, Three Hurdlers

The kids were finally asleep. I know that there should be respite in silence at the end of a long day, but when the bickering comes to an abrupt end and the “thud” of kung-fu masters at work on the floor above ceases, I find myself wondering whether a child has stopped breathing, or escaped, or leapt out the third floor window into the water feature far, far below. I resisted the illogical urge to check on them and finished the drudgery … dishes, bills, phone calls, and emails.  There was the nightly tradition of collecting the various articles of laundry strewn about, followed closely by the equally scintillating ritual of sifting through homework, permission slips, and book orders …

My feet were hurting. I looked down and realized I was still in my suit and heels, and there was a big fat run in my stockings. I checked out my reflection, and my eyeliner was smeared. I could easily have been mistaken for a truck stop whore. This day was over. The rest of the mess would have to wait for another day.

I peeled the shoes away from my feet, and lifted my lead weights up the stairs to make sure the lights were out and all brains under 39 had gone far along into the place where children’s brains go after reading about magical flying horse-fairies and dinosaurs looking for their long-lost blankets. I love these moments because I come up the stairs completely wiped out and in just a few moments a sleeping child wipes away all the grime of my day.

A muffled cry greeted me instead, and as I ascended I could tell it was coming from Sweet Pea’s room. She often talks and walks and runs and hits and laughs and sings and snorts and sighs in her sleep. But I had never heard her cry in her sleep.

When I arrived in her doorway I immediately felt the push of guilt for not overriding my motherly instincts and checking on the kids one hour ago. She appeared to have been crying a very long time, and her tiny hands were drawn up to her eyes as she sobbed. They were the loud “ah hah whah” laments punctuated by a quivery deep, sorrowful breath. Yet this wasn’t the kind of cry that kids do for attention or sympathy. She didn’t even know I was standing there. This was real and deep and raw. The push in my chest berated me again for not hearing it earlier, and for not coming to her rescue sooner.

She was snuggled in with the little brown lamb her Daddy sent her for Christmas, the ”Me and My Daddy” book she made when she was four, and an old picture of her and her Daddy snuggling on the couch:

Based on the pile of evidence I knew right away that she had been torturing herself with the memorabilia and undoubtedly her own memories. I was transported back to a broken heart I once had, including the entire 24 hour period I spent lying around my dorm room surrounded by a boyfriend’s shirt and some pictures, crying until my eyes swelled shut. My particular song of self-inflicted choice was Sinead O’Conner’s “Nothing Compares to You.” What a gut-wrenching feeling I still get when I hear that song on the radio.

And then I was transported back to my own Dad’s deployments. I remembered a time when I laid in my bed, listening to his voice on  tape. He was reading me a bedtime story for about the tenth time, and I was staring at the white roll-up shades on my bedroom windows. I stared at those white shades and I tried and I tried to remember what his face looked like when he spoke. I tried to remember his smile. And I tried to remember how he looked when he moved, not the one-dimensional dad that lived in photographs around the house. I remember catching a glimpse of him for just a moment, and then I would lose the clarity of the image, and it would be gone. I was afraid I was forgetting him. More than that, I was afraid he was forgetting me.

I approached her slowly, lifting her face, and after just a moment of catching her breath she fell into me. I wrapped my arms all the way around her by default, and held her tightly. We rocked, just a little, until she lifted her own face and blurted out, ”I MISS MY DADDY!” She was sobbing now directly on me, using me as her snot rag, taking deep breaths between laments and clenching my shirt like it would turn into His. I had been there. The Preschooler had been there. I guess it was Sweet Pea’s turn.

But this time words didn’t come for me. There wasn’t really a question. Even if there was, there wasn’t an answer – not a good one, anyway. She had long grown weary of my pat response, “I miss him, too.” There was just holding. And rocking. And silence. And prayers.

She fell asleep there in my arms after a very long time. My second grade child, the one who no longer fits in my lap, hasn’t fallen asleep in my arms in a very very long time. She needs space when she sleeps, and I like to give it to her: she kicks and squirms and flails and flops like a fish at night. Our tangled-up mess of limbs and hugs was a rarity, and so I savored that moment even though my back hurt from leaning back and her feet stunk a little too much and the bed wasn’t big enough for the two of us.

I felt the prick every parent feels when their child suffers in even the smallest of ways, but it wasn’t debilitating. This was Sweet Pea’s wall. The Preschooler hit it first, and I had the strength to give him the words he needed. I hit it next, and My Rainbow reminded me of promises and hope and change. And now, as Sweet Pea hit it, I had compassion for her, and clarity for myself. I fell asleep knowing that the joy for all of us would be coming right around the bend.

Yep. We feel it. For sure. Joy. Here it comes. Any minute now …