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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Security Measures

We are officially counting down Husband’s long-anticipated return to the home front. I recently posted the days, hours, minutes and seconds as my Facebook update and I had instantaneous and constant “likes,” a virtual thumbs up from friends all across the country. It felt so good to see people cheering for us. A countdown is something people can really get behind. It’s something I can really get behind.

But oddly, the closer we get, the harder it becomes to bear his absence and think about his return. The days are creeping by so painfully slow. Though we’ve been calling it his mid-term R&R, the reality is that it is coming very late in this mobilization.

Tragically, this was by design. Together, Husband and I weighed the pros and cons. “It will be just like eating lunch late, with only a couple of hours left in the work day.” This sounded great in concept. Afterall, we did this once before on one of his PAC RIM cruises, and I traveled to Australia to meet him with only two months of cruise left to go. There was the anticipation, then the planning, then the trip itself, and then by the time I got home we were in the home stretch. This was brilliant. We were geniuses. It would be perfect.

Just like the guinea pigs.

So what if we failed to calculate some eentsy-weentsy factors? They were small things. Minor issues. Like the duration, for example. Just because that cruise was only half the time of this mobilization, it shouldn’t be statistically significant. That’s only more than double the difference. Six months, thirteen, same thing. And what about the exotic trip to Perth where I would greet my husband and spend several glorious days with him in a luxurious hotel room? So what if instead we would be at our home, with kids and bills and a house and a lawn and cars? So what if instead of preparing for a trip abroad I would be madly cleaning and upgrading and decorating and painting and repairing our previously lovely home in an effort to pretend we had not experienced the wear and tear associated with a karate-chopping preschooler and a fingernail polish-loving Sweet Pea? It’s totally the same. Absolutely no miscalculation on that brilliant plan at all.

I blame Husband for these significant oversights because, well, mostly because he’s not here. But also because statistics was the only course I got a D in at UCSD. At least, that’s the grade I was theoretically eligible to receive had I not dropped it on the last possible day. (I may have a law degree, but I’ve told you people time and time again – I don’t do math.) All of this to say, by the time Husband gets here it will be just short of ten months since we’ve seen him up close and personal. And I’m here to tell you, ten months is a long stinkin’ time.

In fact, it has been long enough that as I walk around my house, I am constantly taking inventory of all of the things that absolutely must be remedied before he gets home. You know what I’m talking about: evidence that proves we have lived without Husband for just a little bit too long.  Bad habits. Dust. Messy closets. Long grass. And maybe I’m hanging on to some things I shouldn’t. Things that have become security blankets. Things like bravado that masks insecurity; tears that mask what is rightly fear; and maybe even writing to fill the hole left behind by night-time loneliness.

But mostly, I am referring to my beloved deployment shower cap.

Now it’s true, I’m a woman who has been married to the same man for nearly 20 years, I’ve had two children with him, and it’s also true that I turned 40 this year. There isn’t much he hasn’t already seen and heard and tolerated without complaint that lets me know exactly how much he truly loves me. He has seen things like the pregnancy nursing bras, the spit up stains down my black suits, the post-baby granny panties, and other unmentionable sagging things that definitely didn’t look that way when we met.

Enter, the shower cap. My desire for constant squeaky-clean locks withered faster than my gumption to cook after Husband left. It first started when I simply wanted twenty extra minutes of precious sleep whenever the kids allowed it. But the addiction quickly developed into something more. Soon, without even noticing it, I was donning ponytails and french twists and, eventually – for a very brief period – the dreaded braids. I was eventually using dry shampoo to stretch the washings out to three days. And then, finally, came the shower cap. I now so vehemently abhor the process of washing, conditioning, spritzing, drying, diffusing, curling, and then straightening my hair that I get a mini panic attack setting my alarm clock an extra half-hour early the night before.

The real problem started shortly after Husband deployed and I purchased a small, very thin, very transparent and very demure little shower cap. Within one short month The Preschooler decided he would convert this relatively undetectable cap into a much more useful tool: a frog-catcher. This apparently requires that multiple holes be poked into it (with the sharpest knife in the house) so that water can, ironically, flow right through it.

"Can I keep it, Mom?"

In a panic at the grocery store over my ever-increasing dependence upon the cap that had unwittingly become a strategic amphibian kill-capture mechanism, I breathed a sigh of relief as I approached the beauty aisle to discover the very last lonely shower cap. And let me tell you, it was most definitely a thing of beauty. It must have been a historical replica of the cap Mrs. Jefferson wore when she was a movin’ on up. It was powder-puff pink with garish white and purple polka-dots and an extra-long elasticized rim that protruded somewhat like a bonnet, ala Holly Hobby. The woman on the package cover with matching pink lipstick (in the shower?) was likely the understudy to June Cleaver and was probably now dead. I remember standing in the grocery aisle staring at it, contemplating the gravity of what I was about to do. I spoke out loud. “It’s temporary,” I said, as I looked up and down the aisle. Nobody was looking. “It’s just until I can find another thin, clear one.” I turned to glare at The Preschooler who merely shrugged, and then I looked back to the package suspiciously, wondering what idiotic man at Goody Hair Supply decided that women wanted to take a shower looking like a cupcake with multicolored sprinkles. I put it into the cart, and my fate was sealed. The grocery clerk, smartly and possibly from experience, said nothing as he rung it up.

Sadly, to this day, it has yet to be replaced. It’s just too indestructible. It still has that fresh, durable vinyl smell. And the elastic has just now relaxed from brain-pinching taut to comfortably blood-constricting. I was going along just fine, blissfully enjoying the extraordinary value of my $1.69 shower cap right up until last week. It was morning, The Preschooler was wailing somewhere about the injustice of having to put his own clothes on, and Sweet Pea was getting dressed and using my brush and my mirror and possibly my lip gloss as I bathed. She poked her head into the shower to ask me a question and her mouth went gaping open. Then she put her hands on her hips. She squinted like she couldn’t see very well.

“Really, mom? Really?”

“Huh? What? I didn’t even say anything! What?”

“Seriously?” She pointed at my head.

“Oh. You, uh … you don’t like it?” I put one hand on my hip and one on my head like a fashion model. A naked one.

“Totally embarrassing, Mom. I can’t even talk to you right now. Nevermind.” And she was gone.

 

I stood there frozen in my shower cap pose for a moment with the water beating down on me and looked in confusion at the empty space that was previously my sweet daughter. I poked my head out of the shower, but she was already gone. I turned, and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. “Aaaah!” I screamed. I thought I was an intruder. I looked just like someone I had seen on the website People of Wal-Mart. But slightly younger and paler and more drippy and with runnier mascara.

“FINE! I’ll throw it away,” I shouted to Sweet Pea, who was trying on her third pair of skinny jeans in my walk-in closet.

But after I got out of the shower, I looked around, and with nobody looking I surreptitiously hung my cap to dry between two towels. I hung it up right next to  my bravado. And my secret tears. And my and writing. Because really, I’ve come to depend on it, all of it, this past ten months. Why should I give it up now? It’s always been there for me. No matter the time of day or night, no matter my mood or situation, it has always been there to enable and comfort me. And I’m not sure what to do without it.

What? Oh sure, I can do without it. I can do without it whenever I want. I can stop using it any time. In fact, I’ve definitely resolved to ditch the shower cap before Husband comes home. Which is later, by the way. It’ll be tossed into the trash any day now. I mean, probably not today because I still might need it this week. And well, it doesn’t have to be seen by anyone who cares. I can just continue to use it in private for a little while longer. Afterall, I paid good money for it. No use in wasting a perfectly good shower cap by throwing it away.

I’ll just hang on to it. You know. A little while longer.

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?

The Important Work, Part I

Last week was a big week, professionally speaking. I spent early mornings, workdays, lunch hours, evenings and late nights preparing for a deposition of a plaintiff in arguably the biggest case of my career. Not big money-wise. Big pain in the butt-wise. The case has produced nearly 18,000 pages of discovery to date, all of which had to be reviewed and filtered and prioritized. We also had digital copies of emails dating back to 2003, which is enough to choke, gag, and drown a horse.

Now I’m not a big-time firm lawyer with a discovery associate hinged at the neck to bob his head up and down while saying “yes, ma’am!” I don’t have a fancy tab-placing color-coating document preparation service that flags important juicy smoking-gun documents. And I certainly don’t have research clerks who run back and forth from my office to a stuffy law library hoping to find the perfect case for “the sun always rises in the east” when I know the rule is “the sun always sets in the west.” Nope, it’s just me and my trusty should-be lawyer legal assistant. The good news is there’s nobody that knows the case like we do. In fact, I’m pretty sure we know it better than the plaintiff. The bad news is, well, there’s nobody that knows the case like we do. So when it comes to a deposition like this, I’m the show.

I’ll spare you to gory whorey details.

But by the time the deposition was over at 6pm on Friday, I was ready for bed. I had pulled an all-nighter, probably the only time since law school finals over ten years ago, and was up early the day before. With only 4 hours of sleep under my belt in 48 hours, a questionable amount of quality food consumption, and the caffiene detox shakes, I was ready for home in a way I have not felt in a very long time.

When I got there, I couldn’t wait to walk in the door to find the smiling faces of reality: two little kids that were just happy to see their mommy. One was already asleep in bed and I woke her just to get a kiss. It was mean, but I couldn’t help it. I had missed her contagious smile. It was like I had been completely absent for a week. The other was watching television, and I could tell he was studying me for a moment. I understood his trepidation after one entire week of dealing with “stressed out mommy.” But the Preschooler leaped into my arms with complete trust, and the week was erased in a moment.

He proudly presented me with a note he had written with the assistance of Nana:

The Real Thing

As I looked at the note, I thought about all the support they had given me during the week. I thought about the fact that my poor children spent an entire week without a home-cooked meal. In fact, the only hot food they got at all was the cafeteria lunch at school. They were up early for morning daycare all week, and were the last lollipops to be picked up every single night.

“How do you know I did a good job?” I said. “I don’t,” said The Preschooler with authority. “But it doesn’t matter.”

Boy was he right about that one. There was no senior partner here at my home congratulating me on a job well done. There was no defendant slapping me on the back to tell me how glad he was that I had been his lawyer. There wasn’t a big fat bonus or promotion awaiting me. Hell, there wasn’t even a wife with my slippers and a cold drink.

Right about the time I was feeling sappy about their sacrifices, unconditional love and innocence, I peered through the fog of sap and saw my own kitchen floor. There was a layer of something on the floor. Not a spot. Not dirt. An entire layer. It was grime. It was guinea pigs. It was gross. Against my better judgment, I raised my eyes up slowly, as if looking at the horror scene you know is coming because a young girl in a bikini top is curiously wandering through a thick, wooded brush to see what the strange chainsaw noise is all about. I had to come to grips with the squalor that had so easily overtaken my home.

I immediately focused on the overflowing kitchen sink. “How can so many dishes accumulate without any cooked meals!?” The Preschooler looked at me and blinked. I was clearly wrong. I couldn’t bear it. I turned away. I literally turned my back by executing a perfect “about face,” and headed toward the bed.

So I ended my legal victory for the day by lugging the big one out of her bed into mine, and carrying the little one up the stairs to my room. As they slept I laid awake for one more minute, thinking about lawsuits and emails and emotional distress. I slipped downstairs in the dark to send myself one more little email note for Monday morning, so that I would be able to overcome the possibility of insomnia. I left the lights off mostly so I wouldn’t have to see the condition of the rest of the house.

And that’s when I found a note from Sweet Pea near my computer. Sadly, I guess she thought that was the best place to put something so that I’d see it right away. Sadly, she was right.

Bersting Forth with Love

It read: “you are the best mom ever!!! Good job Today. I hope you did great! Your so nice. here is a picture for you to celebrate. Good news. I finished my homework. the moon stands for you saying goodnight o sweet pea. the pink and blue cat stands for – your like as sweet as a kitten. The bow in the pink and blue cats head stands for your buty. The stars stan for your heart bersting open with Love. the hills stand for you running to help. Love, Sweet Pea.”

After staring at it for a moment, I couldn’t remember what I had come down to write. But I knew, whatever it was, it wasn’t important. This was the important work. This was the reward. This was the job worth fighting for.

I wasn’t sure why a kid I had abandoned all week had likened my ability to come running to her like the rolling hills holding up a pink kitten under a blue moon. But clearly I was “butiful” in her eyes, and that was really all that mattered.

I crossed back through the war zone in the dark, making my way up the stairs with minimal foot impalement, and snuggled back into the bed between them. I went to sleep determined to make it up to them the next day. It was time to make it up to them.

To be continued …