Professor Mother Blog

… Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold- W.B Yeats- 1919

I just finished reading “I Don’t Know How She Does It” by Allison Pearson and wow… just wow.  It takes place in London and is the story of a working mother with a high-powered job as a financial money manager.  Other than some minor differences (you know, like the issues of flying across the Atlantic on a moment’s notice and discussing how to pick a good nanny), the story was written to aggravate every bone of guilt I have.

Kate is balancing the needs of two children.  She feels guilt at how much she resents her children from taking her away from doing a job she loves- and she resents her job from taking her away from her children.  She goes on vacation and tries to bury herself in the role of perfect mother and wife.  She goes to a board meeting and tries to bury herself in the world of work.  She notes that women are not allowed to be late because of children’s issues- but men are applauded for parenting.  In an excerpt… How do you say you have to leave early because the baby is sick without saying a) baby and b) leave?” “When a man excuses himself from a meeting to attend his son’s game, he is patted on the back and when a woman needs to leave early she is not ‘committed enough’?”

Gender inequities aside, the tension between work and her children is not what you would expect.  She writes in an email,”What kind of mother is afraid of her own children?” She ends up not sending the email because, ”There’s only so much you can confess, even to your dearest friend. Even to yourself.”

And lest you think that I read the book while lolling about, waiting for the children to come home, I read the book in an airport- traveling to San Antonio for a conference, and to visit my dying grandmother for probably the last time- multi-tasking, even in grief.  I read because I was not going to pay for Internet in an airport.  I read it when I knew that my children, while being taken care of by James, would be challenged.  That Ray would not be doing his homework; that Elizabeth’s 4th grade girl dramas would be misunderstood by a busy Daddy; that James would be too busy being one parent that the other role would be missing even more because of its absence.

These past weeks have challenged me: too many observations, things to grade, chapters to write, conference paper to write, homework to help with, laundry to do, pounds to work off- my life is so far off balance, out of normal, that I can’t even see the pivot point.  I vaguely remember writing- I vaguely remember laughing- I vaguely remember… me.

For the reality is that my mothering role is the linchpin that holds my family together- and, as I’ve learned this past month- me.  Without the schedule, the routine, the comfort of tucking them in, listening to their day, and fussing at them for homework- including James in those routines, I lose touch with myself.

It isn’t as though I’ve lost my sense of humor, or my desire to dance, or even my love of all things chocolate, but I’ve lost my sense of timing- the sense of reflection- the sense of planning.  I’ve lost my writing.

Anxiety has been the driver this past month.  The sense of moving from moment to moment and being surprised when I got there.  As I overheard someone say the other day “I don’t know where I am.  I’m whereever my calendar tells me I am.”  While I am not planless, as in the days of diagnosis and treatment, I do find that I am moving from moment to moment just as I moved from therapist’s appointment to therapist’s appointment.

I finished the book while waiting in an another airport to go on a consulting gig- a gig that I needed to do to pay for the new car, the birthday party, the life that we have that is so finely balanced that more than two events in a row throws the whole thing off kilter.

At the end of the book, Kate quits her job and moves to the country.  She points how, when people say “I don’t know how she does it,” there is an implied perception that judgement that something is missing, something is slipping.  Moving to the country is, unfortunately, is not an option we have, and so I wait for the end of March- the end of this slipping, the end of this calendar-driven chaos.  I wait for the center to form again.

Did you know that when a piranha bites you, it only bites once?  One piranha bite does not kill, and from what I’ve heard, it doesn’t even really hurt much, other than a gash.  But a swarm of them attacking can turn a full-grown cow into an instant skeleton.  It’s not the size of one; it’s the volume of many that leads to collapse.  This week- no major crisis.  But a whole heck of a lot of piranha bites.

Saturday: Car blows up

Sunday: We owe money in taxes.

Monday: Cat gets an infection; has to go to vet for small surgery

Tuesday: Buy a new car we hadn’t budgeted for

Wednesday: Elizabeth develops tendonitis in her heel and is on crutches

Thursday: Hot water heater dies

Friday: Missed my book deadline.

It may be south Georgia with no snow, but the stress- it’s a’piling up pretty high around here.  No “crisis” that can’t be dealt with, but lots of dealing with this week.

Ray is on edge, and I’m about to follow him over it when he goes over it.  I feel the nips of the piranha…

On January 29, we looked at our finances, our stability (we’ve been here two whole years in May!), and realized that maybe… maybe with a lot of scrimping and saving and extra jobs, we could spend part of our summer vacation in England.  For free in the house of Vicki’s uncle who has  3 extra bedrooms.  In ENGLAND!  The SUMMER! (Or at least in July).  We started dreaming- Stonehenge.  Tower of London.  The Eye.  The Cotswolds.  ENGLAND!  Elizabeth started talking about a day trip to Paris.  PARIS!

On January 30, my husband’s car- the 12-year old faithful blue Honda that had only once given us any fits (a new radiator in December) died.  And died spectacularly by stalling on the causeway.  He had it towed to the mechanic where she was pronounced Dead On Arrival- a blown head gasket that blew the timing belt.  Not just “mostly dead”, but “all the way dead”. Dead.  Deader than a doorknob.  Scrap metal.

And so I Googled.  I read up on cars.  I looked at options.  I ran numbers and options through my head like a hamster on a wheel. I stayed up late and I slept badly.

On February 1, we bought a new car- a hybrid Honda Civic.  A car we need.  A car we’re excited about (40mpg gas mileage!).  We have to have another car, and we’re deeply fortunate enough to have a job to even get a car.  But a car that destroyed our dream of Summer in England.

On the one hand, I’m deeply grateful that the faithful blue Honda did not die six months ago when things were tighter.  I’m deeply, deeply grateful that it did not die a year ago when it would have been impossible to get a car at all.  I’m very, very, very grateful that we have mostly the means to buy a car at all.  I am truly aware of and appreciative of the fact that we have such a great car (40mpg!).  I am deeply aware of how unbelievably lucky we are to have a job and stability and all of those things that we didn’t have for so long.

But it does mean that I am going to have to try to find a part-time something in addition to our two full-time jobs and our two part-time consulting- pick up a class for another college, or even work at the movies.  It does mean that our already stretched time and income gets a little thinner.  It means that the stress level goes back up to where it has been for far, far too long- where we’re operating in crisis mode- again.   This ain’t even close to autism, but autism laid down the familiar tracks of crisis that we know all too well.

I should be used to this by now… but every time, it’s a surprise.  The universe saw that we were making one set of plans, and decided that no, no we’re not ready for those dreams to come true yet.

Well, I’m still working on finding a tutor- but his blog is set up, and that’s ready to go- other than the fact that I don’t have time to help him actually write it today.  I have a research meeting this evening, followed by a parent presentation about… autism. 

Ahhh… the irony.

Elizabeth has a new project.  After successfully saving enough money (with some carefully engineered projects by Mama) to go to Harry Potter World for New Years, she wanted a new project.

Her choice- Ugg boots.  Boots that, to my mind, are some of the ugliest things on this earth.  I get the whole comfort thing.  I get that they’re warm.  We live in Southeastern Georgia, where the natives start breaking out the hot chocolate at 50 degrees and no one has an ice scraper.  I showed my neighbor this morning that a credit card edge will work as an emergency frost scraper- she didn’t know. But boots that provide heat insulation are not really an issue around here.

I grew up in snow country.  I grew up in Southern Colorado where to my child’s mind, a good snow fall meant “bungling up” in multiple layers, sledding down the hill that my mom had made a path with snowshoes on, and then inside for hot chocolate and snow ice cream.  Snow days were great!  They were not so great the years we lived in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island when I had to bundle up to dig out the walkway, the drive way, and the sidewalks and then when I had to be the one to break ground for the children to sled.  Where by the time the children were dressed in all of their layers, they were ready to come back in.  Boots?  I yearned for the days of flip flops and sandals.  Boots were necessary evils.

And so, my daughter, who lives in a place where we can wear flip flops 11 months of the year, wants boots.  And not just any boots- hot pink boots that will get dirty in any adverse weather.  But boots that have the UGG label on the “ohhh look at the cute button” button.

And she’s willing to work for them- hard.  She took on the list of household chores- no tv, reading, washing dishes, and making her bed.  She added and re-added her daily figures to determine that it would take her until March 18th to earn the $110 she needed for these boots.

But it’s looking like it might be earlier.  On the list we devised of “Ways to earn money” was “clean the dog yard”- a task we all hate and one that I hoped would have fixed itself in the months since it last got done.  It hasn’t. There was quite a lot of, shall we say, dog droppings on the ground.  We decided that cleaning the yard would earn the princely sum of $6- $7 if she did it without complaining and all at once.

Saturday morning found Elizabeth outside in her pajamas, before her morning shower, cleaning the dog yard- scooping and placing the “droppings” in the plastic bag, and scooping some more.

Ray?  Ray stayed inside and watched her.  “Ugh.  No way I’m doing that,” he informed me.  “Then I guess you’re not getting your new Lego set anytime soon, huh?” I told him.  “Nope,” he replied, completely unaffected by my use of the not-so-subtle sibling rivalry.

When our friend Kristen came over- very pregnant and with her very large dog to play with ours- she was most admiring.  “Wow, I’ll pay you $20 to clean up my yard,” she offered.

“Ray?” I asked, extending the offer to him to boost his fund considerably.

“Ugh, no way,” he repeated from the morning.

“Ok!” Elizabeth accepted.

When I think of my child who gags at bad smells, who HATES being around slimy textures, and who really is not fond of hard physical work, I realize just how motivated she really must be.

I can’t help but roll my eyes- and be really proud of her at the same time.  Elizabeth is prepared to go through an awful lot of “Ugh’s” for these Uggs.

I have only one resolution this year…. Get more sleep.

It may sound like an odd resolution- I haven’t seen it up there with “lose weight… spend more time with family.. save more money” that have made mine- and many other’s- lists in years past.

I would like to plan to lose weight, organize my closet, finish that book, write that grant, be more patient, cook healthier meals, but the reality is that I can do all of that- if I get more sleep.

When I get enough sleep, I am a better mother.  A better wife.  A healthier, happier me.  More productive at work.  Overall, life is just better when I sleep.

So, why? you might ask… why don’t you get enough sleep?

Because… because the list of things to get done never ends.  Because I work all day long and then come home all evening where I make dinner, deal with homework, deal with various hysteria of the day, deal with laundry, deal with after-school sports, deal with finishing a project from work that has to be finished and deal with the pets.  This doesn’t include I deal with autism and attention deficit and Tourette’s and anxiety and depression- not all of these located exclusively within the children.

And I do have help with all of these- my husband does a fair amount of all of this.  If not for him, the house would never be vacuumed and our laundry would never be done- and let’s not talk about the trash.  He certainly works as well.

But it is an inescapable fact that while he is a foot solider in the daily battles of our life, I am the general.  I keep track of what gets done when and when we need to buy more cheese and when to replenish the children’s lunch money.  We have  a calendar on our refrigerator that I maintain.  I have the schedules of the four of us, the college, the school system, the needs of the pets, and who goes where when all in my head.

Add to this rather typical busy life a husband who is leading the college through accreditation and various reports that are due- and a book draft of mine due at the end of January and a research project underway- and well, we’re busy.  Our life is an amalgam of disability and giftedness.  We have pediatric neurologist appointments (end of January) scheduled right after a weekend of Georgia Tech’s science camp that overlaps with a chess tournament.

It’s not terrible.  It’s pretty ordinary- with a twist or two.  But it would be helped if I could get more sleep.

Because you see, after I tuck them into bed- a 45-minute and 37-step process for Ray- and clean up after dinner and throw a load of laundry in and finish grading, I am so frazzled and drained that I stay up.

It’s quiet in our house from 10:00 on.  The children are asleep.  My husband is asleep.  Heck, even my dog is asleep.  And that silence is nurturing, healing.  I don’t appreciate silence in the morning as much- the silence at 5:00am (not that I’ve seen it much, but once in a while, I blunder into it) is filled with potential- with the pressure of what has to get done that day.  It’s filled with energy and lists.  5:00am silence is ready for action.

10:00pm quiet is relaxing.  It’s curl-yourself-up-in-the-couch-with-a-good-book kind of silence.  It’s cozy and it’s healing.  It’s my time- my time to unwind, to reconnect the dots of my fragmented personality.  It’s the time of appreciation and still.

But 10:00pm quiet leads into 11:00pm silence, which is a blink away from midnight stillness.  By midnight, I’m falling asleep over the book and I drift, connected-ME again- off to sleep.  Only to wake groggy at 6:00am, with that list pressing down on me, that energy of things I gotta get done.

And that tiredness dogs me all day long.  It distracts me at work; it makes me cranky.  It makes me less able to deal with the tantrums, the drama, the trying-to-figure-out-what-she’s-trying-to-say.  It means that I stare at that blank computer screen that is supposed to turn into Chapter 4.  It means that we have macaroni and cheese, once again- for dinner because I forgot to buy whatever-it-was we needed for something else.

So after a long, fractured day, I relish that 10:00pm quiet.  I feel my scattered attention and anxiety drain away in the quiet.  I feel back to me again in the quiet.

But I gotta go to bed before midnight.  I gotta find a way to find quiet before 10:00pm.

And so- my New Year’s resolution is to get more sleep.  Because if I get more sleep, all of the rest of can happen too.

We’ve added another tradition to our Christmas this year.  It’s part of our recipe for the holidays.

Start with two children with anxiety issues- autism, Tourette’s, giftedness.  Add in some parents with anxiety issues of their own.  Blend together moving lots of times and lots of houses- 8 houses in 10 years.  Sift with some old family items and all together you get a regulated set of traditions that help establish “THIS is how we celebrate the holiday”.  And we love them- we all love them.

We start the season on December 1st with the Advent Box- a box that marks down the 25 days until Christmas.  Every day, they get a little something- a candy, bubbles, a little game- all around $1, except for a mug or glass I give them every year.  They race home from school and burst through the doors with eager anticipation to check the Advent Box.

Next, we celebrate St. Nicholas Day on the 6th, because he is my son’s patron saint when he was baptized.  Ray gets taken out of school for lunch that day as “religious observance”.  That’s followed up by St. Anne’s Day on the 9th, my daughter’s patron saint.  Lunch again.  He asks for McDonalds- a rare treat around here, while she classes it up with Chik-Fil-A.

On the 12th is our anniversary- which we try to spend out- away from the hubbub and the constant demands and the… all of it.  Some years we manage it.  Some years we can’t find a babysitter we trust enough to spend the night, a child is sick, or a child- normally Ray- is just too unsettled.  This year, we have Vicki and we spent it out.  A moment of peace during a hectic month.

Then, after the anniversary, we get the tree.  We do live trees around here, so I’m always nervous of it drying out too fast.  Decorating is an on-going process that gets started at the beginning of the month, but it culminates with the getting of the tree.  Every ornament is a story- a “remember when”.  We get ornaments on our travels and events, so this year, we hung the tiny St. Louis Arch and the tiny tea cup from Boston next to the gold place ornaments from Charleston, Williamsburg, the Edison House, the seal from Pier 49, the cranberry basket from Plymouth, the tiny Seattle Space Needle.  Add to that the school-made ornaments that always include a picture of a child- 2 for each year.  And occupying a place of honor is the silver Sheriff’s star that my dad used to wear and place on my childhood tree.  Our family history can be told in ornaments.  And Ray sets the angel on top- the angel that James and I bought from Walgreens our first Christmas together.

Attendance at our Christmas can also be told by the stockings.  We order individual stockings from Lillian Vernon and in addition to the four of us, one year, we have Dampa, another year we have Vicki.  We have a pile of “those who can’t be with us this year” stockings that stay in the Christmas boxes- waiting for them to return.  My mom’s says “Gran” which was the name she was “supposed” to be called, but Elizabeth, figuring out family relationships with a limited vocabulary, named her “Mamamum” (Mama’s mama). when she was two. Ever year, when we bring out the misnamed stocking, that story gets retold.

Around the end of school, we hold our annual Train Decorating party.  It started out as a cookie-decorating party when Elizabeth was six months old and my friend/doula Michelle and I got our babies together for some Mommy time too, and we decorated cookies.  It evolved when I got a cake tin that made train cars from Williams Sonoma- that could be decorated.  Every year, literally since they were born, the children invite 1-2 friends over and have an orgy of frosting, candies and marshmallows.  They start with a singular vision that invariably ends with a masterpiece pile of sugary stuff.  Each child then takes his or her own creation home.  I’m not sure what the parents feel about it- but it’s one of the ways we create activities that don’t require a great deal of social interaction but are highly sought over by other children.  The friends may shift every year, but the Train Party is a constant.

A few days before Christmas, my mom flies in from Santa Fe.  One year,when we were in Fort Myers, we rented a convertible to pick her up.  One year, when we were in Rhode Island, we inched along on icy roads.  But no matter where we are, her presence kicks the holiday up a notch to the culmination. She is the final piece to our family’s Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, we eat beans and Mexican cornbread and open presents from the family.  It’s another orgy of wrapping paper, boxes and me trying to corral things with ongoing trash bags.  Elizabeth and Ray are “Santa” and have been since she was 2 and could recognize the first letter of her name.  We taught her “M” for Mama and “D” for Daddy that year.  We can trace their reading abilities by how well they are able to distribute the gifts.

Then, there’s the humor running throughout the whole gift-giving thing- we give hints of what’s wrapped inside by the names on the packages.  ”To: Travel Buddy 1, From: Travel Buddy 2″ one year graced a framed map.  We break up parts and wrap them separately- a pajama top here and a pajama bottom there.  My dad used to wrap in comic paper and top with “bows” of household items (one year, there was a screwdriver on top of my present), but we have tended to stick to regular wrapping in my own family because Ray doesn’t get that humor and was very angry one year when he couldn’t keep the potholder on top of his gift.

On Christmas Morning, Santa comes- and Santa doesn’t wrap.  The children are then required to come and wake us up first- and no earlier than 6:00- so that we can document their faces when Santa brings their heart’s desire. One year, it was a tricycle; one year it was a Baby Alive; last year, Ray got a drum set.  Some years are leaner than other years for regular gifts- but Santa almost always delivers the one thing they’ve been wanting.  Ray tends to get overwhelmed and will grunt and cry.  He holds it together all during this string of traditions- but Santa’s coming is typically the final straw for him.  Hey, not all traditions are planned or wanted.  I try not to let it ruin the moment for me- but it’s always hard when we’ve had such perfect run up to the holiday itself.

After the inevitable tantrum, I make an extravagant breakfast- apple pancakes, lemon something or other… If we’re close to a Greek Orthodox church, we will go to service that morning. We come home in our dress up clothes and then organize the baking of the Christmas dinner.  We use the china from my grandmother that has survived every move, and the sterling silverware if we can find it.  It was “in a box” for about three moves.  But this year, we have found it, and so this year, we have the sterling.  We gather around our table, we light the candles, we take a deep breath, we say a prayer of gratitude and we eat.  Some years, it’s awful; some years it’s good.  But it’s a production, whatever it is.  And it’s almost always late, despite our best intentions.

By the time we clean up, we’re all tired.  The children are tired, overwhelmed and getting them to bed is not normally a problem.  Then, because we’re all tired of the overwhelming sweetness, the grownups watch some atrociously foul grownup movie.  One year it was “Die Hard”; one year it was “Bad Santa”, and this year, it will be “Get Him to the Greek”.  Nothing like lots of cursing to clear away the sweetness that has become cloying by this time.

And this year, we’ve added another bead to our necklace of traditions.  Yesterday was the last day of school.  Elizabeth and Ray, knowing that I’m a sucker for a tradition, asked to sleep under the Christmas tree last night.  ”We can make it a tradition for our last day of school!”  As I watched their faces with the lights twinkling last night, I valued the moment.  I relished that they are 8 and 9 years old and that they still believe in Santa.  I loved the hubbub that Christmas is with children.  I know that this time is fleeting.  I don’t look forward to Christmas when the children are grown and there are no small children to squeal over Santa.  These are the Christmases we will forever remember as “Christmas”.

We don’t do much for New Year’s.  Thanksgiving is ok.  The other holidays- we do stuff.  But Christmas… Christmas is the time of joyous excess, of connecting us with tradition with family.  Christmas is… joy.   And so, yes, we have a new tradition.