That’s not true, really. My kids have friends. They play with them at recess and collaborate with them in their classrooms and talk to them during PE when they’re supposed to be doing six hundred jumping jacks.
We have avoided play dates for eight years, but no longer.
On a recent day, a note came home from school with my 5-year-old, from the parents of a boy named Aaron* (*name has been changed for privacy). My son had talked about this Aaron, so I knew they were good friends.
“Aaron would like to arrange a play date with Asa,” the note said.
I had no idea how to go about this.
The note, fortunately, listed telephone numbers and e-mail addresses for Aaron’s mom and dad, asking me to “get in touch.” Being the introverted person I am, I chose to text the numbers given. Surely that would be the easiest, and definitely much less awkward than trying to fumble through a conversation on the phone with people I don’t know.
Two days passed, and I heard nothing. That’s when I assumed maybe the numbers given weren’t cell phone numbers and didn’t have text capacity. So I did the next best thing.
I e-mailed.
Meanwhile, I mentioned to my oldest son, who is 8, that his little brother was going to have a play date with a classmate and did he have anyone he would want to invite over for a play date, too?
He had to think about this.
My 5-year-old had his friend over, and it went well, and I was preoccupied wondering about the after-play date etiquette—thank you note for letting him come over? Follow up of some kind? Reciprocated play date?—when my 8-year-old, one day after school, grabbed my hand and pulled me over to a woman I had never met, but clearly needed to, right this minute.
He didn’t say a word of introduction.
We stared awkwardly at one another for a minute-that-felt-like-an-hour, before she held out her hand and said her name, which I didn’t hear because my heart was roaring in my ears.
Awkward, awkward, awkward, it beat.
“I’m Christopher’s* mom,” she said. “He wanted to schedule a play date with Jadon.”
Oh no, oh no, oh no, not like this, not here, not in person. I wasn’t expecting this. I wasn’t prepared. I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS!
“Okay,” I said, and then I realized I had no idea what to do next. I panicked a little and then started babbling words that probably sounded something like this: “I don’t have my phone or a piece of paper or a pen or anything at all to write with or record your number but do you have a phone or a piece of paper or a pen or anything at all to write with or record because if you do I could give you my number and then you could text me so I have yours and then we could figure out this play date thing like when and where and how.”
Oh, crap, I thought. My mouth and its word vomit just lost my boy a friend.
“Oh. Oh, okay,” she said, and I knew then, for sure, that I was doing this exactly wrong and weird and much more complicated than it needed to be done. Most people just pick a day, I’m sure. They set a time. It’s easy. Except I was totally unprepared and didn’t have my calendar with me and needed to talk to my husband…
She fumbled around in her pocket for her phone, trying to maintain her grip on the arm of her 2-year-old, who was trying to escape exactly like my 2-year-olds would have tried to escape, and I thought about how I would have felt the teensiest bit annoyed that the person talking to me couldn’t see the struggle I was having, and couldn’t we do this later?
Fail.
I started working on an apology to my son, because I knew his friend would never be allowed over to our house.
Christopher’s mom took down my number, and my boys and I went home, and two days passed. Two days.
Then she texted, instead of calling, and invited my boy over.
He and his friend played LEGOS for three hours, and when they were done, I walked to pick him up, and Christopher’s mom invited me in, and we sat in clumsy conversation on her couch while our boys kept playing some more.
And that’s when I realized she was just like me.
Awkward. Weird. Unpracticed at this whole play date thing. (She was just like me!)
Her boy and mine have had another play date since.
A few weeks ago I published a column on Huff Post Parents about how I chose my large family and none of my children were “accidents,” and here came all the “environmentalists” calling names (breeder, selfish narcissist, hoe—for sleeping with my husband, no less) and whining about overpopulation (it’s actually over-consumption that’s the real problem) and bemoaning the state of the earth and its far too many people.
It was all really ironic, because I’m actually an environmentalist myself and spent months as a reporter raising awareness about my city’s disappearing trees and developers’ standard tree-razing practice to build the most houses in the least amount of space.
Before I even had kids, I did years of research on how to live frugally, earth-consciously and intentionally so I could raise my family with those values that were so important to me.
But this article is not a defense, because the haters don’t really deserve that. This article is about the (largely unexpected) ways my half dozen boys have made me green.
So, without further ado…
1. If it’s yellow, let it mellow. They don’t flush the toilet. Like hardly ever. If I want to go to the bathroom, I better be using my own, because theirs has been mellowing for days. And it smells. Saves on: Water and wastewater.
2. Bath water can be consumed. That’s right. Bath time is not only wash time. It’s also hydration time, because they’ll fill up the bath cup that’s supposed to be used to wash off the eco-friendly soap in their hair, and they’ll drink that nastiness instead, no matter how many times we’ve told them it’s gross. Also, if one brother has already finished his bath and left the water in the tub, another brother will get in and wash anyway (and still drink the water). And while we’re on the subject, I’ll admit that their daddy and I only have time for showers every two or three days, so. Winning. (Don’t worry. We make our own deodorant. No, really. All you need is organic corn starch, baking soda, coconut oil, an essential oil of choice.) Saves on: Water, wastewater, energy.
3. They’ll wear the same Iron Man costume with nothing else underneath for four days straight. Or the same pair of pajamas. Or the same sweat pants. They’re not picky at all. They just want to wear what’s comfortable. For a week. This saves us the most in the summer, when it’s too hot in Texas to wear clothes. They just run around in their underwear swim trunks instead. Saves on: Water, wastewater, energy.
4. Paper of any kind is good for drawing. This means their brother’s class list for Valentine’s Day is a good place to draw that 2-year-old version of a spider. So is that flier for math camp registration and the thousand other pieces of paper that come home in school folders and clutter up our counter. Saves on: Paper waste.
5. Sharing is caring. If one pulls out an organic apple and puts it down, another will find it and finish it. No food is wasted around here. And when they’re finished, someone will find that apple core and take it outside to plant seeds and feed birds. (We’re still waiting for those apple trees to start sprouting, but I hear Texas isn’t so great for growing apples because it’s ten thousand degrees here.) Saves on: Food waste.
6. They prefer unpackaged foods. Actually, that’s not true. Give them a choice between a chocolate bar and a piece of organic fruit, and they’ll take the chocolate bar (unless they ask their parents… in which case they’ll take the fruit). But their daddy and I stick to the peripheries of the store, so they don’t really know what they’re missing until they see what’s packed in all the other kids’ school lunches. They’ll thank us later. So will the environment. Saves on: Energy required to package foods, chemicals buried in food and released in air.
7. What’s TV? It’s been years since we got rid of cable and threw out the television. Our boys spend their days outside making movies with an old camera or pretending fallen tree branches are light sabers or creating hole-in the-yard art masterpieces their daddy and I will trip in later. Saves on: Electricity, consumption messages spread through commericals.
8. Weeds are just another word for flowers. Our boys gather them into a bouquet for Mama. They give them to the neighbor girls. They pick the dandelions and make their wishes. We have no use for herbicides, and guess what? We have the greenest yard on the block. Weird. Saves on: Chemicals leaching into groundwater.
9. Fertilization is free. Boys like releasing bodily fluids outside. No, we don’t have a dog. That’s probably just the waste of our two 2-year-olds. It’s OK, though. Just watch your step on your way to admiring the prettiest peach and pear trees in the city. Saves on: Synthetic fertilizers, chemicals leaching into groundwater.
10. Energy is free (and plenty). We live half a mile from our boys’ school. So we walk or ride bikes or race on scooters. A little more than half a mile down the road is the neighborhood park. A mile down the road is a frozen yogurt shop and a pizza place, perfect for the monthly family night out. After all that, our boys will still have energy left over. One of these days we’ll find a way to bottle it up and patent it for selling. Or just drink it ourselves. Saves on: gas, emissions from a car.
There are many intentional ways we teach our boys about environmentalism and social justice—because environmentalism always boils down to social justice.
But I did not expect our boys to help us along the journey.
So I can only say to these six wonderful little people: Thank you. You have made the world a better place in so many ways.
It’s quiet, and it’s dark, and it’s only you and me.
All day long your brothers have pulled and demanded and captured my time while you have slept and dreamed and grown, little by little by little.
But right now is our time, because brothers are sleeping and Daddy is snoring beside me and the whole world is silently breathing its way toward morning.
And it doesn’t matter that I’m so exhausted or that I will wake again in three hours to start the morning whirlwind of a school day. It only matters that you are here with me, that you are looking at me with those eyes that just might stay blue this time, that I can kiss a tiny face back into sleep once a belly is full.
It doesn’t matter that all day I have poured milk for your brothers and cooked breakfasts and lunches and cleaned up after dinner. It only matters that there is this quiet, still moment when I get to hold you and only you, when I get to talk softly to you and only you, when I get to stare at you and only you.
Your brothers, they used to be you once, and I know exactly how this will go, because they used to enjoy the holding and the talking and the kissing and the staring, and now they are too big for laps and too busy for talking and too old for staring.
This will go fast and sharp and bittersweet.
So I will have you to myself, for this one moment in time.
I bend to kiss you, and it is overwhelming, the love that cracks a whole heart wide open, again, because you are tiny, and you are last, and you are just thirteen days old. I bend to kiss you again, and it is overwhelming, the sadness, because you are tiny, and you are last, and I know your peaceful sleep in my arms won’t last forever. Not even close.
So I will take time where I can.
And here it is, in the dark of early morning, when everyone else sleeps and you meet me, for the thirteenth time.
I hold you close, longer that I would if I was concerned about sleep, longer than I would if I were thinking of the day ahead and all the challenges it will likely hold.
Because this is our time, you and me.
So what the clock tells me makes no difference whatsoever, because we are together, and this time belongs to you. Only you. This time is frozen. Sacred. Beautiful. It widens the heart of a mama so another little boy can take his seat inside.
I drink every moment of this time, every breath, every flicker of a smile, every stretch. I watch you feed, touching the soft skin of your cheek, feeling the weight of you in the crook of my arm, memorizing the curve of that nose and the flutter of an eye that blinks open and shut again beneath the soft glow of a lamp.
I gaze and soak and adore, oblivious to time’s ticking, because some things transcend time.
Like a 2 a.m. feeding.
And when you are done, when I am done, I kiss your face once more and wrap my arms just a little tighter, and then I fold the blanket around your still-tiny-for-today body and put you back to sleep, whispering the words I always whisper when our time has met its end.
We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our sixth (and last) baby, another boy, and I have reached THAT point in pregnancy.
There comes THAT point in every pregnancy, when the days feel like they’re 2,000 hours long because of the other littles demanding time and attention, and the nights feel like they’re 4,000 hours long because you’re staring at a clock, hoping, hoping, hoping you can just, for once, for these last few days, fall asleep and stay asleep, since there is no promise of that once a baby comes.
You know you have solidly reached THAT point in pregnancy when:
You can’t turn over at night without moaning at the pain of trying.
You wake your husband and ask him to give you a little push, because you’re stuck on your back and you’re starting to panic and there’s the vena cava, and why do you suddenly feel so lightheaded?
You get up to go to the bathroom 40 times a night, and every single time you wish you had a walker to lean on, because your back seized up while you were lying down and you can’t even walk now.
In fact, every time you sit for longer than 15 minutes, you wish you had a walker.
Your back feels like every bone is broken.
When your husband complains about how much his back hurts, you snap, “Oh, please. Don’t even talk to me about a backache.” Because he really has no idea.
Every time you sneeze, you pee a little. Every time you laugh, you pee a little. Every time you choke on the water that went down the wrong way, you pee a little.
Your children tell you your belly is the biggest thing they’ve ever seen. Bigger than the moon and the basketball they played with in P.E. today and even bigger than the sumo boppers they got for Christmas.
Your belly is so big it forgets how to hold itself and starts sagging toward the floor.
You’re bent at a 45-degree angle (backwards) to counterbalance the baby weight on your front side.
You actually practice labor squats, bearing the hip pain, because surely the weight of the baby will break your water instead of your back like it’s been doing.
You pull a muscle trying to walk up the stairs.
You dream of running.
You wonder if running might induce labor.
You seriously consider going for a run.
You try to do your pregnancy yoga, and you get stuck on the floor.
You comb your closet for clothes that still fit, a shirt that at least covers your dropping belly, but there is nothing. So you tie a few scarves around your middle. They double as a belly bra, anyway.
You can no longer see your feet on the next step in front of you when you’re coming down the stairs, so you just hope you don’t miss one.
You nearly face plant when you trip going up the stairs (because you also can’t see your feet going up) and run the rest of the way, trying to keep your top-heavy balance, and then you laugh hysterically when it’s all over because you didn’t just die. Maybe you induced your own labor.
You can’t even pretend you’re a peppy, beautiful pregnant woman anymore. You can’t rally. You can only drag.
You waddle without even realizing it until your husband kindly points it out.
You can’t reach the silverware at the bottom of your sink while doing dishes without standing on your tiptoes, setting your belly on the counter and then hunching down to pick them up.
Your laptop will no longer fit on your lap.
You burn your stomach trying to cook grilled cheese sandwiches.
Pregnancy is a wonderful, beautiful time, until those last brutal weeks, when we vow to never, ever, ever do this again, never ever.
But then it will be over and we’ll have a tiny precious baby in our arms, and we’ll fall so deeply and irreversibly in love we’ll forget.
And it’s necessary to forget, of course it is. But sometimes it’s also necessary to remember, so we can keep that last-one vow, for whatever reason it needs to be kept.
If I had a dime every time I heard someone say something like, “Time flies. Cherish these days.” I’d be a millionaire. Or how ‘bout, “Time flies. You’re going to blink, and she’s going to be graduating from high school.” Many of us have heard the empty nester at the grocery store passionately declare, “It goes by all too fast. I remember when my little girl was her age.” Then there’s the stay-at-home parent line, “The days are long, but the years are short” (Okay, I’ve just been informed that’s from Grethen Rubin.).
Yes, it’s all pretty cliché, and still, it’s the truth!
However, some days it is really difficult not wanting your child to grow up.
Recently, when my 2 year old daughter, Caroline, jumped on the Frozen bandwagon (she’s only seen the movie once), it was pretty darn cute, and well, you know where I’m going with this…
Even though she’s the most precious ‘lil girl in the entire world, this just gets old…
Let it go. Let it go. Don’t’ hold it back anymore…
Let it go. Let it go. Don’t’ hold it back anymore… (Repeat – Repeat – Repeat – Repeat – etc. …)
I think I’ve read Peter Pan 4 times already today. It’s only 2:08 p.m. I’m going to set a new record before 8 p.m. I’d like to throw Tinkerbell against the wall, but my nonviolent convictions remind me to breathe deeply, smile, and remember that every adult battles the “Captain Hook” syndrome.
Do you want to build a snowman?
May I say, “NO!” please?
Everyone looks forward to the day their 2-year-old learns how to use the toilet. The parents with the 10-month-old are on pins and needles anticipating baby’s first steps. So many parents are thrilled the day their child stops sucking his or her thumb, throws away the lovy, and/ or drops the afternoon nap (so you don’t have to be at home from 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. every single afternoon).
We are pumped for milestones, and this posture of living doesn’t seem to stop until the nest is, yet again, empty. Think about it. We—westerners—are all about what’s next, and we cannot wait for the next big thing in life, whether this applies to children’s development, career moves, vacations, “wins” at work, etc.
More often than not, we think the answer to life is summed up in the phrase, “Carpe Diem”—Seize The Day—but, while motivational at times, this timeless phrase is actually misleading and not very conducive to the seasons of ordinary life. “Carpe Diem” lifestyles seem to get in the way of real life and are rooted in the desire to achieve the next greatest milestone! The “Carpe Diem” world ironically misses out on cleaning diapers and listening to the Frozen soundtrack on repeat.
Most of the time, we—adults—learn lessons in hindsight. If we open up our Photo Stream at night and spend an hour looking at iPhone videos of our baby growing up, we usually get pretty emotional, to say the least. We end up sounding like the old lady at the grocery store inwardly reminding ourselves that life is too short. We want to do the impossible and freeze time. We see sacred moments that are somewhat long forgotten.
Have you seen Richard Linklater’s Academy Award-nominated gem, Boyhood? You will either love it or hate it, but everyone should learn to respect this original masterpiece of patient filmmaking. The story chronicles the life of a child and his family for 12 years until the boy goes off to college. Linklater aims to achieve presenting every-day events and the ups and downs of ordinary life for approximately 10 minutes of footage per year. Crazy! People love and hate Boyhood for the same reasons. The film doesn’t have a major plot with the typical film storyline and the three-part act. It is simply a movie about one’s life, the discovery of oneself through family drama, peer pressure, hobbies, pimples, haircuts and awkward relationships. Linklater manages to get the point across that life is not so much about “seizing the day,” but allowing the moments to seize you!
If parents are always looking for the “next big thing” this will only lead to disappointment and a glamorized “Carpe Diem,” epic fail! But if we allow the moments to seize us, we will be more willing to “let it go” and sing along for the 1,000th time with Elsa, Anna and Olaf! We might enjoy Peter Pan and the Lost Boys of Neverland and be more willing to give Captain Hook the boot!
Your child will get older. There will be a day when Peter Pan will only be known for Peanut Butter. Your child will no longer play with pixie dust, and Olaf—like seasons—will become a “happy snowman” puddle. Moments seize us 24/7 from the cradle to the grave.
The only tools we need are eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart like a child. May the moments seize you, and may you learn to fly with time.
I sat in a living room, sorting through all the clothes my boys wore as babies, washing them and hanging them and breathing them, and I arranged all those tiny unnecessary shoes into rows so they would be ready for this last baby of mine who will come any day now.
I pulled out the red outfit, the one my firstborn wore the night he first laughed, a sound I’ll never, ever forget, even though it’s been eight years. I found the shirt my second-in-line was wearing when he first gifted the smile that still melts my heart today. I showed their daddy the plaid shorts and white shirt, now stained irreparably, the third was wearing when he first walked out of his room on two feet instead of the four he used to bear-crawl his way around.
First Christmas, first swim day, first day home from the hospital. It’s amazing how many memories those clothes hold, how they mark time more surely than we can in our everyday lives.
Was he ever really this small, eight pounds instead of 58 pounds? How could these tiny swim trucks have fit the boy with legs long enough to put him level with my chest? How did that tiny baby become the one who graduates to the big boy side of the store in just a few months?
Where did the time go?
I tried not to cry, looking at all those clothes, remembering, but I am a mama.
These years of raising babies and toddlers and almost-adolescents make the days seem so long, but the years are incredibly short.
Before we even know it, before we’re really even ready, they come up to our shoulders and they weigh 58 pounds and they don’t need us like they used to.
Time to grow up.
Time to be their own people.
Time to let them fly.
It’s not easy, as a mother, to watch time slipping, because I can still feel their baby weight in my arms, and I can still see their eyes that would look upon a new world but first sought only mine, and I can still hear the babble of their baby talk. And yet now they dress themselves and brush their own teeth and buckle their own seat belts?
Time marched on, and it did not look back.
So often, in these days of great demand and need, when I walk most days with my head spinning, I just put one foot in front of the other, trying to make it to naptime so I have a few hours to finally breathe, and then I’m trying to make it to bedtime so I can finally get some rest to start it all over again tomorrow.
And in my surviving, I’m missing the beauty of a moment right here in front of me.
What will they remember of this childhood I have given them? Will they remember me hurrying from one thing to the next thing and never stopping to watch the way that chair makes a perfect curvy track for Lightning McQueen, or will they remember the way I stopped and watched until he was all the way to the table-mountain above the track?
Will they remember my apologetic dismissal when they want to tell me a story I know, from experience, will take them 45 minutes to finish, or will they remember that I stopped and looked them in the eye and listened like their words meant the world to me, even though the dryer just went off and if I don’t keep those clothes moving, I’ll never get the nine loads finished today?
Will they remember the way I yelled those times I was exhausted and overwhelmed and not quite myself, or will they remember the way I loved them in my words and my tone and my actions?
Time is not always a friend, because it tells the truth of our lives, how we wanted to take that camping trip together, but there was never any time; how we thought we’d start playing kickball in the cul-de-sac together, but we just ran out of time; how we always planned to make that Christmas video together, year after year after year, but there was not enough time.
But time is a forgiver. Time offers a hundred chances for us to get it right.
And so, when we pick up the boys, all wild and crazy from a weekend with the grandparents, I seize time like I seize them, and I gift them with whole presence.
