by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test featured, General Blog
Sometimes I feel like I’m doing a pretty good job as a parent. Relationships are good, all those consequences we’ve put into our Family Playbook—a list of infractions and their expected consequences—are well understood, the house is in almost perfect order.
And then my children wake up.
It only takes seconds to realize that they are completely different people today.
Not only have they forgotten all the new infractions and consequences we brainstormed yesterday, but they also no longer care about getting to school on time or wearing clean clothes or keeping their room even the slightest bit tidy.
Yesterday my two older boys came down for breakfast fifty minutes before we had to leave for school. Today they were still not eating breakfast 10 minutes before we had to walk out the door, and I had to shout my last you’re-not-going-to-get-breakfast warning above the volume of an audio book, because I’m too lazy to walk up the stairs for the sixteenth time (I blame my laziness on my broken foot. And Post Traumatic Stress, which I feel every time I approach stairs).
Yesterday they liked the grilled broccoli and cauliflower and carrots we brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt and roasted in the oven. Today they gagged just looking at them.
Yesterday they all sat perfectly still in their separate spaces while their daddy read two picture books and I read a Narnia chapter book and again while we engaged in our ten minutes of Sustained Silent Reading time and then again while we did our meditation breathing and prayer time. We didn’t have to remind them once to get back in their spots or stop talking or that, no, an art journal is not a book you read and, no, the pen in your hand is not necessary during reading time (unless you’re taking notes—which he was clearly not).
Today they think reading time means chase-your-brother-around-the-library time.
It’s enough to drive a parent insane.
I’ve often joked that parenting is like living in an insane asylum. But the joke is usually true.
Insanity is defined by Albert Einstein as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
THIS IS WHAT KIDS DO, EVERY SINGLE DAY.
They try to write during story time, even though we’ve told them a billion times it’s not allowed. They try to sneak that LEGO toy into the bath tub, thinking this time will surely be different and we won’t object. They seem surprised that 8 p.m. is lights out, even though nothing has changed in their thousands of nights.
The problem is, our kids are the least consistent people on the planet. Every single day they wake up completely different people.
The bigger problem, though, is that they give us that one little taste of expectation realization, and we think they CAN sit still for two stories and a chapter book.
And we keep expecting it every other day.
For as long as we’ve had twins, I have fantasized about two boys napping in the same bedroom for more than an hour and a half.
We were spoiled, because our older boys took three-hour naps and could be trusted to sleep in their rooms with their doors closed.
The first time we left the twins for three hours with the door closed, they pulled down the forty-four shirts in their closet, painted with poop and ate the cardboard pages of Goodnight Moon.
So the next time I set a timer for two hours (because surely they’d just woken up early) and I sat outside their door to work on some deadline material. I could hear them shrieking, but we’d baby proofed everything, and there were only two mattresses on their floor (not even beds, because the twins could destroy furniture in 3.4 seconds). Nothing they could get into. Nothing that would hurt them. Nothing to occupy them for two hours.
They got really quiet, but I didn’t worry. We’re all quiet when we’re sleeping.
When the timer went off, I opened their door and found them sitting on clouds, all the stuffing ripped out of the lone Beanie Boo someone had left in their room.
The next day, I opened their door. I sat right outside. I corrected them when they so much as moved.
AND THEY FELL ASLEEP. FOR TWO WHOLE HOURS.
Oh, thank God, I said. It is possible.
So, of course, the next day, I did the exact same thing. Except as soon as they were asleep, I went to my room to do some more involved work and make a few business phone calls. Two hours later, they had knocked their closet doors off the hinges, strung all their ties from the ceiling fan and neatly lined up all their shoes under their mattresses.
Oh my word.
It’s maddening and confusing and impossible to keep up with these every-day-different children.
It’s impossible to know that today the 8-year-old only got seven hours of sleep but will wake up the happiest kid in the world, but tomorrow he’ll get 12 hours of sleep and will wake up gnawing on all the heads he bit off before breakfast.
It’s impossible to know that today the 6-year-old will follow all the rules and help with everything around the house, and tomorrow he will wake up a defiant little monster.
It’s impossible to know that today the 4-year-old will love reading those books to me but tomorrow he will wake up acting like he’d rather eat spinach than finish the last five sentences of that Little Bear story.
What’s a parent to do?
We just keep doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results from this insane asylum. Because, you know. Consistency and all.
Also because sometimes it does work, and those times it works might just be enough to power us through the times it doesn’t.
And if they’re not, well. At least there’s red wine. And chocolate.
And a lock on our bedroom door they haven’t yet learned to pick (it’s coming).
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
Not long ago I fell down our house stairs and broke my foot.
It’s not often that I am sick or injured. I’ve taken two sick days in eight years of parenting—because my appendix was about to explode and, after vomiting all night, I thought it was time to have someone take a look at it.
As the only female in this household of eight, my boys form quite a force when it comes to taking care of Mama.
They fight over who gets to take the laptop up the stairs so I have a free hand to hold onto the stair rail while carrying the baby. They throw away dirty diapers so I don’t have to walk the thirty-seven excruciating steps to the trashcan. They draw me pictures and pick me flowers and leave sweet love notes on my pillow.
I appreciate their help and care. I really do. But, three weeks in, there are some things I can just do without.
For instance: the constant Shadow following me around, asking me if he can inflate my foot cast. Him, I can do without.
I let him do it once, and now, every time I take my cast off to rest my foot on the couch, he gets this excited gleam in his eye, because he knows, eventually, the cast will have to go back on. He knows, eventually, the cast will need inflation, because I have to walk to the kitchen to fix dinner.
I’m tired of being stalked by the Inflation Predator, son. Thank you for your help. But no.
There’s another predator who lurks in the doorway when I’m struggling in and out of the bath.
See, it takes me ten minutes to remove the cast and ease myself into a bath balancing on both hands and one leg, and it takes practice.
So my triceps weren’t as strong as I thought they were. So a few times I’ve slipped. Big deal. I didn’t cry out or ask for help or shout curse words like I did when I was falling down the stairs. I mainly laughed hysterically because I didn’t die in a bathtub.
I guess this boy thought I was weeping instead of laughing, though, because he’s always lingering just outside the door, close enough to hear my every move.
“I’d like to take a bath by myself,” I say. “With no one else around.”
“I’m just making sure you don’t fall,” he says.
I appreciate your concern, son. But please. Leave me alone. Let me take a bath in peace.
Then there is the predator who walks behind me on the stairs.
To be fair, all my boys are a little freaked out that Mama, normally so athletic and graceful (HA!) fell down the stairs and broke the second bone she’s ever broken. Even my husband reminds me, every time I approach the stairs, to be careful and take my time.
But there is one boy affected more than the others, so he has taken to walking one step behind me on my way up the stairs so he can catch me if I fall (as if I don’t weigh four times as much as he does and wouldn’t flatten him on contact).
This would be all nice and sweet IF he didn’t also feel the need to make comments about my appearance as we’re walking up the stairs.
“You wore those shorts yesterday, Mama,” he says. He laughs. “Did you?” He laughs again. “I think you wore them the day before that, too. Did you, Mama?”
Truth is, I’ve worn them for four days straight, because they’re comfy enough to wear to bed, and I can just roll out and not have to wrestle into new clothes while balancing on one foot.
“What’s that blue line on the back of your knee, Mama?” he says.
It’s called a varicose vein, baby.
“Why is it there?”
Because I had a lot of children.
“You’re really slow, Mama.”
Thanks for noticing, baby.
“And your booty is bigger than my face.”
Sometimes I think about falling backwards on purpose.
The twins have excused themselves from this “help Mama get better” phase. They actually are working harder to NOT make me well. They leave blankets all over the floor so I can trip over them. They “accidentally” step on the boot. They drop water on the floor without telling anyone so I slip and almost break something else.
The constant questions are another way my boys express concern.
“Is your foot still broken, Mama?” (I hear this a billion times a day.)
No, I just like wearing this good-looking boot.
“Can I wear your boot, Mama?”
Of course, dear. I’m only wearing it because I want to. Also, even though it comes up to your thigh, I’m sure you’ll find a way to walk with a stiff leg where others have failed.
“When will you get better?”
Well, kids, that depends a lot on you.
The predators and booby traps and questions can all get pretty annoying, but mostly I’m just glad they care enough to ask about my wellbeing. I’m glad they want to do what they can to help me heal.
Or maybe they’re just worried that we’ll have tossed salads for dinner indefinitely because I haven’t cooked a decent meal since it happened.
On second thought, that’s probably what it is.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
This year my husband shared a birthday with Mother’s Day.
He’s been just the tiniest bit overlooked for most of our parenting life because his birthday falls so close to Mother’s Day, and all these boys in our house would much rather celebrate Mama than Daddy.
So I didn’t want the week to go by without expressing just what he’s meant in my life and the life of my children.
When we were 18 and 19, Ben traveled to my hometown with me, because we were in a band together and were booked to play a concert. He stayed with some of my mom’s friends.
“You’ll marry that man,” my mom’s friend told me on the last day.
It was before I was even interested in him THAT way, so I shook my head. “No way,” I said. “We’re just friends.”
My mom’s friend shrugged. “Okay,” she said. “But you’re going to marry him. Want to know how I know?”
Of course I wanted to know how someone knew who my future husband would be.
“Because of that,” she said.
She pointed at him, sitting in the middle of a circle of children. They were all giggling hysterically, and when he stood up, they followed him like the Pied Piper.
Two years later, I did marry him.
In the eight years we have parented our boys, I have watched him grow into one of the best fathers I’ve ever known. He has taught me better ways to love my children just because of the example he is.
Not only that, but he has taught me how to be a better parent, because it all comes so naturally to him.
He has taught me
1. Giggles are never too costly. He will do anything in the world to elicit giggles from his children. He will try to break dance on the carpet, tripping over his own feet. He will bound around the room on his hands and feet like a Daddy gorilla. He will read stories with their names replacing the words (“Shaggy dog, waggy dog, don’t-do-as-you’re Jadon dog.”). He will trip himself on purpose or run into a wall or pretend he’s slapping himself. He will turn them upside down to walk on the ceiling or body slam them on the couch or ask about their feelings in a robot voice. There is never a price too high.
2. There’s no such thing as an embarrassed parent. When his son picked Treasure Island as his birthday party theme, my husband borrowed a pirate costume from his brother and stole my black eyeliner to rim his own eyes and read A Pirate’s ABC with a roughened-sailor accent to all the kids gathered in our living room. When one son started dancing in the middle of the grocery store, because his jam came on over the loudspeaker, my husband joined him. When another son melted on the mulch of the neighborhood playground because he wasn’t ready to go home yet, my husband bent beside him and acknowledged his feelings and the time and what he was expected to do next, instead of walking away and pretending that child wasn’t his (which is exactly what I did).
3. Stories are much more fun when there are accents. My husband reads to his boys every night before they go to bed, and it’s not unusual for me to hear an Englishman reading Imagine a Day or a Spanish man reading Skippyjon Jones or a dopey man reading The Book With No Pictures. When we’re reading Elephant and Piggie books, he has voices for all the characters. He uses his hands. He makes it a show. He says I’m the reason they love to read, but the truth is, he has made books come alive for them. They love reading because of his theatrics.
4. Play is so much better than work. My husband has passed over good jobs because he wouldn’t be home in time for family dinner. He has turned down promotions. He has limited work-from-home hours because he wants to protect family play time after dinner, when he’ll run around the cul-de-sac playing kickball or trying to get a kite in the air or chasing all the kids for an epic game of tag. When it’s raining, he pulls out Jenga and Monopoly and Battleship or makes up his own game of charades. His boys know their relationship is more important than what work their daddy might have to get done at night.
5. Kids are not too young to add value to the world. So many kids feel like they have nothing to offer the world, but my husband lets our boys know they do. He encourages their creativity. He makes up secret codes with them. He designs the book covers for the books they’ve written. He lets them use all the computer paper to make paper airplanes they’ll sell in their art stand out front. He writes silly songs with them. He outlines that hand-lettering piece he drew and lets them color it in. He teaches them, and he lets himself be taught by them. He believes in them, and he teaches them to believe in themselves.
The other day, we were leaving a meeting when all five of the potty-trained boys announced that they needed to go potty. I rolled my eyes, because it happens EVERY time, but my husband laughed and raced them out of the car.
They were walking up wooden stairs, the boys behind him and all around him, and I saw the same picture I’d seen fourteen years ago, all these kids gathered around him just because they love being around a man like him.
I couldn’t help but smile—because it’s plain to see the love he has for them and the love they have for him and the rock of a relationship that has been building since they slid into his life.
How fortunate I am that my boys have a daddy like him.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
Every morning when I get him up to eat and every night before I put him to bed, I tell my 11-week-old that I love him.
I say it over and over and over, knowing that one day he will say those magical, heart-effectively-exploded words back to me.
It’s one of the best parts of being a mother—hearing that baby voice coo in a way that is surely “I love you,” listening to the toddler echo, treasuring the spontaneous words from big-kid lips.
My boys rarely go a day without saying they love me, mostly because I can’t go more than a few hours without telling them, and they can’t just ignore me every time.
But even if they didn’t tell me in words, I would know in a million other ways.
Sometimes, when we are wading through a week and there’s really just not enough time to get everything done and we’ve barely had a chance to sit down and talk about anything important, and we start feeling more like a maid and a shoe-finder and a diaper-changer and a laundry-doer and a cook and a story-reader and a do-your-homework nagger and a get-back-in-bed-dang-it-yeller and an invisible piece in the world of husband and children, it can feel difficult to remember that we are loved and appreciated.
Our children, every moment, are loving us in a thousand different ways. Just like we show love in the little ways—sorting socks and applying dish soap to that stubborn stain on his favorite shirt and keeping those art treasures in a closet box—they are showing love in the little things, too.
Love doesn’t always need words. It just needs eyes.
There is love in those shorts left on the floor—but not underwear, because he knows you hate it when he comes to dinner with a naked lower half.
There is love in those crayons spread all over the floor, because he was coloring a picture for you.
There is love in the “I hate you” he throws out so recklessly when you say it’s no longer time to play with LEGOs, because he trusts you enough to share how he feels instead of locking those emotions tight.
There is love in his picking that first bloom on the peace lily that hasn’t flowered since kids came along, because he wanted to give it to you.
There is love in that twelfth knock on your bedroom door after lights are out and they should be sleeping, because he spent all day at school and just can’t get enough of his time with you.
There is love in the hug he gives you in the middle of the second- and third-grade hallway, because he didn’t have to do it.
There is love in pulling the dishwasher open and accidentally dumping out all the silverware, even though you’ve told him a billion times not to touch the dishes. He just wanted to help you.
There is love in the stuffing all his clean clothes into his underwear drawer, because he knows you like a tidy room.
There is love in the way they get up at 6 a.m. on the weekend and you have to drag them out of bed at 6:30 on the weekdays—because they know one means they have all day with you and the other means all day apart.
There is love in the note slid under the door, the one that says you’re the meanest mama ever, because he feels safe enough in this home to express himself.
There is love in those forty cups lined up on the counter, waiting for washing, because he knew you wouldn’t want him to drink from a dirty cup.
There is love in the egg smashed all over the floor, because he was just trying to bring you breakfast.
There is love in that unexpected mural on the wall, because he wanted to make you something beautiful, and this bare white wall looked like exactly the right place to do it.
There is love in the stuffed animal left in your room after fifteen reminders to get it, because he just doesn’t want you to be lonely.
There is love in his asking you to carry him downstairs, even though he has perfectly capable legs, because, deep down, he misses those mornings when you would do this all the time.
There is love in the running away, because he knows you care enough to come after him.
There is love in the toddler attachment weighing down your leg while you’re trying to take laundry out of the dryer, because he really just wants a two-arm hug. PUT THAT LAUNDRY DOWN, MAMA.
There is love in the interruptions that somehow find their way past a locked door, because you’re just his favorite person in the world (even though he’s not really yours right this minute).
There is love in all the carpet stains and all the broken dishes and all the scratches on the walls—because they mean children felt comfortable enough in your home to really live.
This is how children love a mama.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
This week my husband and I attended a creative conference in Georgia. The baby was too young to stay with family or friends, so we took him with us.
Every time I had to feed him, I hid out in the bathroom. I made his bottle while hunched in a bathroom stall so I didn’t have to share my shame.
You see, I don’t breastfeed my baby.
I didn’t breastfeed any of them.
It’s not because I don’t want to. God knows I tried every time. I did everything those lactation consultants told me to try with the first one, who ended up in the emergency room two days after we brought him home because he was dehydrated.
Sometimes I wonder if his first few days, the nursing that wasn’t really nursing because there wasn’t any milk, is why he struggles with anxiety today. Did it change something in his brain, that dehydration? Did it make him feel insecure when he couldn’t get enough food? Did it harm him in ways we couldn’t even see at the time?
This kind of thinking can drive a mama crazy.
The truth is, I am one of a minority of women who just can’t produce enough milk for their babies.
I knew it would happen. I waited for all the familiar signs, and they came around the same time they had for all the others, about three weeks in. I thought I’d taken the pressure off this time, but no. I didn’t. It felt like failure all over again.
That guilt comes creeping in slowly, when another mother asks me how breastfeeding is going and I have to explain why I can’t and wonder if she believes me. When I read a new study that finds yet another benefit of breast over bottle. When I am in the presence of other people who may or may not care how I feed my baby.
The publicity around breastfeeding has been great and wonderful and so very helpful for most mothers.
It has also been hard for women like me. Mom guilt likes to hide in statistics. It likes to use facts. It likes to twist something beautiful into something dark and ugly.
We moms aren’t always the kindest to ourselves, and that mom guilt can come out swinging, and it’s vicious and unrelenting and so very cruel.
Shame can lock us in a bathroom stall so we can try to hide our I-don’t-breastfeed secret. It can close us in a house so we can try to hide our I-don’t-think-I-like-my-children secret. It can steal the courage to venture out to a park or a grocery store or a restaurant so we can try to hide our I-yell-at-my-children secret.
This mom guilt lobs its lies at all the weak places.
You should have handled that more calmly.
You should have spent more time with them.
You should have let them sleep with you.
You should have bought them that toy.
You should have hugged them good night.
You should have built that LEGO house with him.
You should have colored that picture with him when he asked.
You should have cooked a healthy meal instead of ordering in pizza.
You should have planned a better birthday party.
You should have done more.
You should have tried harder.
You should have been better.
Where does it end?
It ends at a mom saying enough is enough.
It ends at moms sharing their secrets. It ends at admitting our fears—that we are afraid our baby won’t be as smart because we can’t breastfeed or we’re afraid we don’t really love that difficult one or we’re afraid no one else has ever dealt with this or felt this way before.
We will never crawl out from beneath the weight of mom guilt if we don’t bare ourselves.
Shame cannot get a foothold in the light. Only in the dark.
I don’t want to hide in a bathroom stall to make my baby’s bottle anymore just because I’m ashamed of my inability to produce milk. I don’t want to pretend that I always love my children and exact perfect patience in the discipline areas and keep a level head at all times. I don’t want to wonder if I could have done more or tried harder or been a better mom to my children.
Enough is enough.
We will never know enough or do enough or be enough, at least not according to those ridiculous expectations we put on ourselves.
We must choose to believe that we are already enough. We must choose to get real. We must choose to find other mothers who are ready to get real, not the ones who pretend they’re perfect.
There is no perfect. There is only good enough.
The thing about mom guilt is that it’s only true when we are alone. It’s only true if we are hiding. It’s only true if we refuse to acknowledge that we will never, ever be perfect.
Sometimes I yell at my children, because I’m just SO ANGRY at them for doing what they’re not supposed to do.
Sometimes I spend too much time on Twitter because their stories have so many words and I checked out five minutes ago.
Sometimes I wonder if I was out of my mind to have so many.
Now you know some of my secrets. What are some of yours?
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
They say sleep deprivation is a lot like walking around drunk.
That must be why I keep running into doors and passing out on the couch and forgetting where in the world I put the baby’s clean diaper when it’s literally right in front of my face, and I’m looking at it and it’s looking at me.
After the first baby, all those people who have walked in our shoes give us that helpful advice: “Sleep when the baby sleeps.” And if you’re like me, you don’t realize they’re serious until you’ve spent 60 hours awake.
People also give this advice after baby number two and baby number three, which always makes me wonder if they ever really had more than one.
It’s just not helpful advice once you’ve passed the first baby.
Kids, you see, at least a tribe like mine, need constant supervision. The only time I sleep is when they’re ALL sleeping. Which is never.
(Actually that’s not true. My kids sleep like champs. In their beds by 8:30, the first one usually falls asleep by 8:45, and the last one by 10, and then that first one will wake up by 6. Which leaves me a whole four hours for sleep, after I finally wind down from the thirteen times I almost dropped into dreamland only to hear a knock on my door from the one who needs to tell me about that new character he’s developing for the story he’s writing or another one who needs to tattle on a brother for kicking him in the face or another who just wants his third kiss goodnight.)
Sleep while the baby sleeps.
Oh, I wish it were that easy.
Once, when I slept while the baby was sleeping, my 8-year-old, 5-year-old and 4-year-old boys climbed to the top of our minivan parked out front and decided to see what it would be like to pee off the top, in clear view of every house on the block (sorry neighbors).
Another time I passed out involuntarily, I woke with a start, five minutes later, because I heard something clinking in the background. Turns out it was my 2-year-old twins, racing out the back door with knives they wanted to use for sword fighting.
And who could forget the time I took a twelve-second nap and my 5-year-old ate two pounds of grapes.
Sleep while the baby sleeps.
It’s just not helpful anymore.
Another piece of used-to-be-helpful advice that is no longer relevant after the first child: Take care of yourself.
Well, see, I tried it one time. I tried putting up my feet for 10 minutes of quiet in my bedroom. Just 10 minutes. When I came back out there were 100 paper airplanes scattered all over our living room floor.
Another time I went to the bathroom for no more than two minutes, begging my pee to flow faster, and my third son located a black permanent marker and turned his yellow shirt into a black-and-yellow striped shirt.
And then there was that time I felt brave enough to rinse off in a fifty-two-second shower, and my 5-year-old used the time to cut a chunk out of his hair, draw whiskers on his face and glue his hand to his shirt.
“Hold him all you can,” they say.
I tried holding him every minute I could. And then a 2-year-old figured out how to open the under-sink cabinets, even though they’re baby proofed, and sprayed vinegar cleaner all over the floor so his twin brother would slip in it and bust his head on the tile floor.
There was that time at the children’s museum I tried to hold him and stare in his eyes for five seconds or so, and the 2-year-olds snuck into an elevator and we searched for them for twenty whole minutes, nearly giving them up for lost before the elevator door dinged and out they came running with grins on their faces and not enough vocabulary to tell us what exactly they were doing in there.
Once, when I thought I’d feed the baby in the privacy of my room so we could share some one-on-one time, because the 2-year-olds were sleeping, one woke up, unbeknownst to me, and colored his entire door red. (It’s still a mystery where he found the crayon, since they have NOTHING but beds and clothes in their rooms. I think he was hiding it under his tongue.)
OK, kids. You win.
I just can’t use all that well-meaning advice anymore.
When I was talking it over with my husband, trying to figure out a new plan, some way we might be able to sleep while the baby was sleeping and hold him all we could and take care of ourselves, he looked at me for a minute and said, “Maybe we should just invest in some kennels.”
I think he might be on to something.
