Another Family Chef

Back when I was only juggling one child, we used to do a lot of cooking as a family.  Sam would stand on a chair pulled up to the counter and help with cookies and pizzas and teetsa bread and pumpkin ravioli, all a little bit crooked but made with love and care, each new cooking adventure a decision to allow the kitchen to be covered in flour or sprinkles or grated cheese. From a very young age, Sam was allowed to help with chopping and rolling and cutting and stirring.  He got to experiment and create and taste ingredients while he covered himself and the kitchen in butter and flour. And I had both the time and energy to clean the floor and wash the dishes.  With child number two everything has been different and we haven't been cooking as frequently as a family.  There is the fighting and whining about what is fair and who got more cheese and why her pizza crust is bigger than mine.  There are tug-of-wars over the rolling pin or the salt shaker or the cookie cutters.  And there is the way my back screams at me when I bend over to dust up the flour or pick up the 30-pound toddler covered in egg whites.  But today while Sam was away at a birthday party and Eva and I had a little rare alone time, we made whole wheat dough and roasted peppers and simmered homemade tomato sauce and laid everything out for a mini-pizza dinner party.  Eva rolled out four little crusts all by herself, and when Sam came home he topped his with cheese and pepperoni and more cheese and more pepperoni.  And nobody whined (well not much) and nobody got hurt and I didn't have to bend over to sweep up the kitchen floor.

Last Big Hurrah with Wonder Woman

Sam started kindergarten with a little anxiety and some picture taking, and the first two weeks were thrown off by half days and unexpected school closings due to heat indices over 100 degrees.  So rather than one last big hurrah at Jamie's Play Palace, Sam was slowly weaned from the daily routine by first giving up half days and then going back for two school holidays and finally converting to full days at St. Mary's during his second week of school.  It was the end of an era and I felt perhaps I was the only one who was sad about the fact that he won't be getting out of the car every morning to run onto the porch to show the big boys his latest Yo-Gi-Oh cards before turning to me arms open and chin up and saying "Huggie and a kiss."  He will no longer be running up the chalk covered sidewalk to greet me in the afternoons, smeared with sweat and dirt and red sauce from his lunch, not sure where his shoes are but very excited to show me his latest trick on the scooter or the skateboard or the 16" bike.  No more winter afternoons standing talking and shivering with Jamie while Sam climbs and then sleds down the giant snow pile left by the used car lot plows.

So when Jamie texted me on Thursday to ask if Sam could come to her place for a celebratory end-of-summer party on Friday, I said yes immediately and informed St. Mary's that he wouldn't be in their aftercare program that he had started the week before.  Sam was going back to Jamie's for one last hurrah with Max and Owen and Ayanna, one last afternoon of learning through play and making messes and joy and fun.  And when I arrived at the end of a hot afternoon to pick the kids up, Eva stomped up to me in her soaked purple tank top and announced that her clothes were wet before showing me how she could put her enter face into the sprinkler spray.  Sam barely noticed I was there and Ayanna gave orders and Max and Owen and Sam did as they were told, marching through the water and racing back up the sidewalk for more instructions while Jamie and I wringed out wet clothes and gathered shoes and loose yo-gi-oh cards and wondered where the summer (and the years) had gone.  When she handed me the framed collage of photos she had collected since Sam was 12 weeks old, I smiled and teared up and once again knew that Sammy had spent his formative years with Wonder Woman.

Kindergarten

After we had been there fifteen minutes and Sam had sat patiently coloring a fish at one of the tiny tables while I explained the peanut allergy and not having a dad to his just-out-of-college teacher, I stepped in to the hall to look for the after-school classroom, and he came running out to me.

"Mommy, Mommy!  A huggie and a kiss!" he cried, his arms outstretched.

"I'm not leaving," I told him.  "It's just orientation.  It's not school yet.  Tomorrow is school.  This was just to meet your teacher."

"Oh."  And he went back to the table and finished coloring his green and purple fish.

A newly tanned and freckled though clearly overwhelmed Miss Kay helped him hang it on the wall outside the classroom, and then she showed him his seat and where to put his nap mat and where to hang his backpack before we headed out of the room and down the hall to say hello to his teachers from last year.  Only after he saw Mrs. Hefel, who squatted on the floor next to him and asked how he was doing, did he seem to relax.

For weeks he'd been nervous, afraid he wouldn't like his new teacher, anxious that he wouldn't have any friends in his class. 

On his actual first day I asked him to show me which classroom was his and he walked right in and unpacked the crayons and markers and folders in his backpack and hung it on the #9 hook and posed for a picture.  He found his seat at the third table and he waved to Luke at table 2 and Morgan at table 1.  Then he waved to me and said "Okay, goodbye Mom," before I was even ready to leave.

Another Season of Progress

 

I am down on my knees under the bleachers, retrieving Sam's baseball cap that Eva has thrown up and behind us, and the knee of my pants sinks into the wet mud and stains. It is not the first thing Eva has thrown in this general direction this season, and most tee ball nights she and I move circles around each other as she climbs and grabs and runs and teases and tests the boundaries of what she can get away with. I surrendered the battle over her having to wear shoes a long time ago, and tonight she's been playing with my car key like a little switchblade during the entire game, popping the key in and out and laughing. I gave her Sam's cap in hopes of getting the keys back before the end of Sammy's game.

A few weeks ago I had left Eva with a friend while Sam's blue team played a late game in the hot sun and I actually got to watch Sam nervously wait to be lined up at bat and run the bases like he was ice skating. I saw him walk slowly out to the infield and listened to him complain that he never ever ever got to touch the ball. I handed him his water and gave him 30 second pep talks during breaks, and I took pictures and cheered while he played. I commented to the parents in the stands that tee ball was a completely different experience when I wasn't wrestling a 2-year-old. Espn's dad, a father of 5 whose wife used to sit on a blanket next to the field with an army of small children while her oldest was just starting tee ball, said to me, "You realize who you're complaining to, don't you?" And I laughed.

My friend Tammy, who juggles 4 children and a full time job as an amazing photographer, recently posted a link to another mother's essay about what it means when people say "I don't know how you do it." The essay was about how no matter how many children you have and how long you're at it, you're maxed out. When I see other mothers juggling 3 or 4 or 5 children and I feel overwhelmed with exhaustion just managing my two, I wonder what I’m doing wrong, why this little girl who constantly challenges me emotionally and physically is winning the battle for control of our household and the keys to my sanity.

After I dust the grass and mud off my pants leg, I hand the cap back to Eva and I go to sit among friends on the bleachers. Eva puts the cap back on her head and goes to stand by the fence and jiggles my keys and I sigh as Sam and his team line up for the freezie pops that celebrate the end of another season of progress.