Erin’s column: Here we are.
As it turns out, I am not the type of mother I thought I would be.
To be clear, I’m not 100% positive what type of parent I thought I would be, but I can assure you I did not anticipate being the type of mother who hides in her bathroom, scrolling through her phone, trying to gain a few minutes free from the wardens pacing at the door.
I didn’t think I would be the mom who feigns excitement and says “Breakfast for Dinner!” in her best Oprah voice once a week because scrambling eggs is way less work than cooking the chicken thighs sitting in the fridge.
I didn’t expect to be the kind of mom who says she thinks Chuck E. Cheese is permanently closed because of COVID.
And yet, here we are.
Photo Credit: Jessica Newton Photography
Don’t let them fool you. They are exhausting.
My husband, Drew, and I have two children who are, all at once, the greatest joys in my life and also the single-most exhausting people I have ever met.
As a mother, I could not have anticipated how many times I would direct someone to take his or her hands out of their pants or please — seriously, I mean it — put that stick down. (Where did you even get a stick?! We are in the mall.)
I didn’t think I would have to say things like “Is there peanut butter in your hair?” or “Do not put the dog in a headlock” or “Is that smell someone’s feet or did something die?”
And yet, here we are.
When we found out we were pregnant with our daughter, I prayed for a little girl who was brave, strong, independent and kind, who would be able to stand up for herself and for others. We hoped for a girl who would communicate what she needed and wanted.
Gather ‘round children, and let me tell you what no one told me: If you raise strong, smart children, they can use that strength on you. I didn’t think my second-grader would be poised to defy me at every, single, solitary turn.
And yet here we are.
Elianna, my radiant, blonde 7-year-old, came out swinging and on her own time. She came two weeks late in the middle of a blizzard, as if she knew that we would be waiting for her for the rest of her natural life.
She sleeps as long as we will let her in the mornings and requires 18 polite requests, followed by one I’ve-had-it-up-to-here whisper hiss, before she will think about brushing her teeth. Related: I can’t be the only mom who weighs the cost/benefit analysis of nagging her kids when, realistically, these teeth are falling out of her head every other week, right?
Elianna is whip-smart and charming and never short on words, but has entered an impossibly whiny, exaggerative phase that I cannnnnooooot understaaaaaand where she leeeeeaaaaarned and might actually kill me dead, where I stand.
When we found out we were pregnant with our second child, Jude, we prayed for a loving little dude, steeped in adventure, who would be brave and look for ways to try new things, who could march to the beat of his own drum and forge his own path.
I now believe it might be possible to overpray.
Jude is wild and curious and could not possibly care less what anyone else thinks. He would wear rain boots with Bermuda shorts and his sister’s unicorn shirt one day and a wolf costume to school the next. Absolutely no cares given.
Jude has my hot temper and infectious giggles, listens when he darn well wants to and at no other time, and makes up bizarre stories about alligator families that live in our attic. He routinely demands that we call him by the names of Pokemon characters and turns instantly irate if he can’t get his socks on correctly.
And so here we are: Drew and I are in the middle of the hard, messy work of raising little people, and there are so many times this feels like a carnival ride I would like to exit — and, at the exact same time, one that I’m silently begging for a bonus lap.
These children of ours have the weirdest idiosyncrasies that drive me crazy, and at the same time are the most fascinating parts about them. It’s as if their beautiful, unique gifts are both the secret to their magic and, if not kept in check, the thing that could be their undoing.
I suppose that’s about right for all of us. Drive can become obsession. Relaxation can become laziness. My lust for life — to eat and taste and experience and not miss a single thing — if taken too far is gluttony and excess (also a good name for a band.) Ellie’s constant communication can be whining. Jude’s sense of adventure can be dangerous.
But if our best can be our worst, maybe the opposite is also true.
I am not the mom I thought I would be, but I will hold onto a sliver of hope that they tell stories about how they used to play castles and guard the door to my bathroom, or how I called them Snorlax and Pikachu for a whole week, or how I whipped up the best eggs for dinner at least once a week. I hope my kids will see all my quirks and shortcomings — all the places I tell myself I am not measuring up — as both the best and worst parts about me.
But I don’t think they are going to tell many stories about Chuck E. Cheese. As it turns out, it stayed closed after COVID.
