Generation H2O

“Can I have a drink?  I think I’m dehydrated.” 

These words came, not from H after going for a long run then mowing the lawn* in the July heat, but from my eight year-old after playing outside…for thirty minutes. 

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard a kid use the word "dehydrated" in the last five years, I’d have that new Tory Burch bag I’m lusting after.  But these are today’s kids. They aren’t thirsty, they’re dehydrated.  They aren’t hungry, they have low blood sugar.  With every physical discomfort is made into an emergency of medical proportions; these kids lack the ability to be uncomfortable for even a moment.

Back in 1982, I went to a day camp an hour’s bus ride away on an unair-conditioned school bus.  Our only relief on the ride home, after a full day in the heat, was the colored sugar water that came in those little plastic barrels with the foil tops, that were not passed out to each child, but had to be fought for at the camp cooler.  And when they ran out, they ran out.  K’s job was to save our seat on the bus, as I scratched and clawed half-shirt-exposed midriffs and pulled ribbon-braid barrettes out of hair to attain our juice.  My father would meet us at pick up and my sister and I would stumble off the bus red-faced, limp from the heat, and was met with…silence.  There was no whining about being hot.  It was summer of course it was hot!

Fast-forward thirty years or so as I pack four half-frozen bottles of water for the girls as they head to sports camp**, preparing themas if they are about to cross the Mojave.  And no long, hot bus ride for them.  I drive the forty-minute loop twice a day so they can ride home in the cool comfort of the van and I also bring a Ziploc bag with washcloths soaking in ice water for them to cool their lobster faces upon pick up.   A classic enabler.

We have to stop treating everything like a catastrophe and allow our children to be hot, tired, thirsty and uncomfortable once in a while so they can learn the difference between major and minor complaints.  We spend so much time protecting our children from every possible discomfort, they aren’t learning that despite a blister on your foot, or sand in your bathing suit, you can still enjoy yourself.  My father tells stories about going out to Coney Island as a kid with a towel and fifty cents for French fries.  No water, no sunscreen.  The subway ride home was long and he was sunburned and thirsty, since he didn’t have money both the fires and a drink.  I think a child of today’s generation would spontaneously combust in that situation.

I might be a sucker when it comes to camp, but I really am trying.  On our various field trips this summer, my kids know a single “I’m hot” means an immediate exit and end to the fun.  I also have new rule in the house, something has to be bothering you for an hour before you tell Mom about it. This stemmed from #1 reporting every minute ache and pain she might have.  “My knee feels weird.”  Um, I’m sorry?  She has to learn that we all have weird aches and pains sometimes and you have to deal and, usually, they pass.  At some point you have to progress from “Oh no!!!!  Do you want me kiss it?” reaction.  I think a sympathetic pat is appropriate.

I think it's time we all get a little perspective.  A paper cut does not need stitches, you fell off your bike, not out at 10th story window, and as I remind my kids as we set off for a day of summer fun, “You may be hot, hungry and thirsty at several points today, but you will not die.” 

*But that would be assuming he does either of those things
**Did I mention how camp is the summer version of school, turning me back in to a screaming harpy in the morning, and I hate every schedule-filled minute of it?

Dear 2002 Postpartum Mary,

So yesterday was #1's tenth birthday.  Along with marveling at my own idiocy at planning a seven hour party that included taking nine of her friends to the town pool and having cake there, taking them out for pizza and then to see the new Katy Perry movie, I was also awed by the fact that I have now been a mother for a decade.  So much has changed in that time, I barely remember the terrified, tentative, sleep-deprived girl I used to be.  There is so much I wish I knew then that I know now.  I wish I had a time machine to go tell her.  Instead, I wrote her a letter.

Dear 2002 Postpartum Mary,

Since I am writing you this letter, you can see you do actually survive motherhood.  At least the first ten years.  The baby you are holding has not yet become a teenager, but my hopes are high I won't have to kill her then.  I wanted to send you some words of wisdom from the future to put your mind at ease during these scary, early days, when you are wondering how the hell you are going to keep this kid alive, let alone raise her right.

To begin, it will not always feel like the baby has a mouth full of razor blades, and you will actually get a handle on this nursing thing.  There will be an "incident' with a rental pump next week, but you will not be permanently injured.  And, no, your boobs will not always be this big.  They will, however, become sadly deflated looking.  Sorry for the spoiler.  Yes, you will eventually stop wearing maternity pants, but, no your stomach will never look the same.

The baby will get better looking.  That nose situation is from her being pressed against your pubic bone and she actually has H's little nose.  Whew, right?  That weird baby acne resolves itself as well.  She will also sleep through the night - eventually.  I promise.  You will even be able to, and want to have sex again once this happens.  Hard to imagine when you have about a thousand stitches in your privates now, huh? 

It is possible to be more tired than you are now.  In fact, your situation right now isn't so bad sleep-wise.  When the baby sleeps you sleep.  Trust me, this will not always be the case.  I bet you're thinking I've got it made in the shade now, with her going to school the whole day.  Ha!  These hours you imagine using for the gym and to catch up on the Today Show will now be used to clean, go grocery shopping, and run errands like buying poster board for her Colonial America project and nude tights for her dance recital.  You will also make good on that promise to yourself to be around.  You will volunteer in the school library and to hand out ice pops on Field Day.  You will join the PTA and be girl scout leader.  You will become a cliched stay-at-home mom and you will love the shit out of it.  For reals.  Oh, and say goodbye to all that TV you're watching now.  You have about two years before the day you see her clapping along with you when Charlotte finally gets pregnant on Sex and the City and realize you need to make some changes. 

It gets harder.  OK, I know I should be comforting you, but I also need to be realistic.   Sure, you have a person waking you every two hours to eat from your body, and you are changing shitty diapers (you ain't seen nothin' until she starts solids, meats in particular), but you are also going to have to help create an actual person.  You will have to teach her how to be a kind and considerate friend without being taken advantage of.  How to make mistakes with grace and learn from them.  You will have to teach her how to survive in the real world when she is away from you, how to stay away from strangers, perverts, and to look both ways when crossing the street.  You will have to help her with times tables, how to write a cohesive paragraph and memorizing the fifty states.  You will stay up at night, not nursing, but wondering if you are doing enough and doing it all right.

It also gets so much better than you can imagine.  Once she is walking and not sleeping half the day you can take her to the Museum of Natural History, to see them blow up the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade balloons, to the Crayola Factory, and to the beach (and on one unexpectedly inappropriate trip to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit at The Met).  You will introduce her to your favorite books and movies (Little House will not be the huge hit you anticipated it being, Harry Potter will be).  You will get to experience the best bits of childhood through her, minus the annoying growing up part.  You will love hanging out with this little person you are holding now.  You will not only love her, you will like her.

I know it's hard now, I know you can barely imagine what tomorrow will bring, never mind the next ten years.  But you can do this, you will do this, even though it seems an insurmountable task.

Oh, and you'll do it two more times within the next five years.  No, I'm not lying.

Good luck!

Future Mary

PS - You also get rid of those atrocious blonde highlights.

Mothering motives

“IT’S SUMMEEEEER!!!!!”

So says Selena Gomez in “Summer’s Not Hot”, the song of this summer as selected by my children for me to blast as we peeled out of the school parking lot on the last day.

We have already gone to the beach twice, Coney Island for #2’s birthday, the town carnival, Chuck E. Cheese for my girl scout troop’s end-of-year party, and Field Station Dinosaurs*. 

And then I got sick and lost my voice. 

I think I need to pace myself, but this school year was so hectic, and time seems to be speeding up, propelling my children into the outside world, I guess I got a little crazy.

I wonder how my kids will look back at this time?  With my dad in town this week (the poor guy goes from his relaxing life in Florida, to running a half-assed summer camp with me in New Jersey), we have been talking about my own childhood, and it’s surprising to me how different our perception of the same events can be.  Marathon bike rides, that I swear turned me into an endurance “athlete”, were not just for the physical benefit of his children, but a way to give my poor mother some peace and quiet.  The disappointing birthday cake of ninth birthday infamy -a pumpkin roll from Baskin Robbins goes over like a bag of dog turds at a sleepover, I tell you – was a harried, last-minute errand pawned off on my dad, on the way home from work.

So I asked myself, will my children know why I do the things I do?  Or will they develop their own set of reasons for all the wonderful and pain-in-the-ass things their mother did?  So in the interest of posterity, and to assuage my dead-mother fears, I have made a short list of things I want my kids to know concerning my parenting motives.  Perhaps they will reading these entries someday after I’m gone (while cringing and half-covering their eyes**).

Here is what I want them to know:

1.     I am hard on you because the world will be too.  It’s my job to teach you to be a functioning adult and, in my eyes, that includes remembering your own homework, making your own bed, cleaning up your own messes, and, yes, occasionally, the dog's vomit.

2.     If you haven’t guessed it already, I think reading is right after food, wine and sex on the list of life’s pleasures (not in that order, sorry to make you puke), which is why we do so much of it.  If you read, you will be exposed to worlds outside of your own small one, and maybe learn to look at yours in a different light.  That’s why every third time you ask to play Wii I tell you to go get a book instead.

3.     You are the most important people in my world (tying with, but occasionally being beaten by, Daddy on particularly bad days), but not the world-world.  Act accordingly.  That means putting yourself in someone else’ shoes, using your manners, and helping when you can.  That time I yelled at you Starbucks for letting the door close on the lady with triplets in a stroller?  That’s why.

4.     You know when you’ve had a long day and I ask you if you need some time to yourself and you go lie on your bed before dinner and read or draw or day dream?  Well, everyone needs that sometimes.  Sadly, I need that around 5pm, but I have to cook dinner, so after your bedtime is the only time I get.  Mommy needs to watch inappropriate television, read a book or stare into space.  So when you come down for the hundredth time to regale me with passages you have memorized from Diary of a Wimpy Kid or ask me what’s for dinner tomorrow night, that is why Mommy occasionally (OK, regularly) loses her patience.  I’ll try it the next time you’re all watching Phineas and Ferb and see how you feel.

5.     Family comes first.  You know I try my best and quite often our house is overrun with children so you all can socialize with those your own age, but there are days I want you to play with just each other and I say no to playdate requests - and #1, that request for nine friends to sleepover was outrageous, and you know it.  Some day, Daddy and I will be gone and you will be what is left of this special little tribe we’ve created and I need you to be a unit.  I want you to not only be siblings but friends, and that only happens if you spend time together hating me and Daddy.  So no, you will not be bringing friends down the shore with us when you are teenagers. 

6.     I criticize because I love you.   I want you to know how hard I fight to not change your hair once you’ve done it yourself in that way I hate, or tell you to put on a different pair of shorts after you’ve chosen your own outfit because I know YOU think you look nice and that’s important.  But, no, I will not let you wear leggings with holes in the knees to the Spring Concert, or your ratty shark t-shirt to your preschool graduation***.   “Chew with your mouth closed…don’t pick your nose in public…leave the room if you have to fart…did you even wash your face?”,  I say these things out of love

8.     Life is short, do all you can while you’re here.  You all might think your mother is a crazy lunatic who tries to squeeze a lot (too much?) into a day, a weekend, a summer, but it’s only because I feel like there is so much out there to experience, why should we waste time?   I’d like to think I’ve instilled in you some excitement about life and the world.  Or maybe you’re tired and are too afraid to tell me, but I just want you to wake up and ask yourself, “What can I do today?” Some days that’s riding the Cyclone, some days that’s reading a book on the couch.  No matter what you do, every day should be a possibility.

And despite writing all of this, I know you will ask me one day, “Why were you always doing that?”

*A Jurassic Park style venue, involving life-sized, animatronic dinosaurs in a paleontology camp setting.  Awesome!

**Who doesn’t want to read their mother’s opinions about blow jobs?

***OK, it was technically Pop who pointed that out.