8-10-24
I feel like I’m caring for tropical birds that keep flying into windows.
My children are attracted to activities that ensure injury for them yet, as their parent, I am left with sitting idly by while I allow them to spread their wings and stumble right into that divet in the field or off the edge of the stage. As much as I want to bubblewrap them from the dangers and ills of the world, I cannot. I can, however, preserve the moments in photos and videos for posterity and future storytelling to their partners when they decide to date.
“So,” drawn out sigh, “I have something to tell you…and I MEAN it, ok?”
I brace myself for this urgent news from my ten-year-old wondering if it’s going to be health-related or harm to property but his quavering voice sends my heart into my throat.
“I need you to stop treating me like a baby.” Is that all? I thought to myself.
“Call me by my name. Don’t call me “baby” or baby talk to me. Any. More. Ok? Ok!…I mean it. No nicknames anymore. Ok?”
We had a candid exchange about the topic that ended with him slamming a door and me doing some deep breathing while making a cup of coffee. It occurred to me that it didn’t matter whether I had, or had not, spoken to him in a baby-talking voice or called him “baby” as much as what he needed from me was to acknowledge that he was asserting his status as a big kid. Something that is becoming more apparent by the day with the eye-rolling, back-talking, stinky towels, and yo-yo-ing moods.
We are firmly in the in-betweeners phase of parenting. Gone are the kids’ clothing stores and shopping for toys every month. Now it’s arguments over apps for tablets and expensive Lego kits, astronomically priced activities and clubs, a refrigerator that works as a magical portal to suck food away, laundry hampers perpetually overflowing with the smell of sweat, rooms littered with books and granola bar wrappers as if supernatural literate squirrels were nesting under our roof instead of beginning teenagers.
“…in the meantime…,” I had allowed my mind to wander as my counselor was wrapping up our session with her signature phrase. I don’t have the heart to tell her that it’s the title of an atrocious song from the nineties by Spacehog. Not that I think she would be offended but I did think that she would chide me in that way she has of reminding me that I was deflecting things with humor. She chided me all the same and said, “…but back to you…”
Back to me, what does that mean nowadays? Not an empty-nester, far from it, yet many of my peers are becoming one or are not parents themselves. I didn’t think of my life being so consumed with parenting yet here I am nearing the midpoint and already feeling a bit lost at the idea of them nearing the end of their childhoods. Time is ephemeral and nonlinear, especially with children and parenting. Each day a seeming eternity, a month can be reduced to a week, and a decade into a blur. Folding in onto itself and leaving you with the mere remnants. The snapshots of memories and glimpses in the mind of their ever changing face through the phases.
As parents, there are aspects of our personalities that will always lie buried to our children not out of purposeful subterfuge but out of the sheer reality that they will never know the younger versions of ourselves or the inner self that is unreachable even to our own psyche.
“Mom?”
The tone alone made my coffee suddenly sour my stomach, “Yeah?”
“How do I take a compliment?”
Many jokes about first world problems and laundering lace come to mind but I stifle them, “You smile and say, “Thank you”, and move on.”
I’d like to say the conversation ended there but, sadly, it did not. We had a long conversation about every possible scenario and whether or not people are being genuine or are they being sarcastic when they compliment you and what does it mean when – …
In the meantime, I’ll try not to cry when I look at old photos. I’ll remind myself to enjoy the phase we’re in at the moment. I’ll keep taking photos (that, yes, annoy them greatly at times yet they enjoy looking at them afterward despite their protests) but not share them online except for the rare occasion with certain people and try to catch a breath before they are old enough to vote. Which, yes, I got to hear several monologues now about how unjust it is to have zero representation without the right to vote. As I remind myself, “You just had to teach them to read…”
There are the little moments. Those ones that sneak up on you and you catch your breath in hopes that time will slow and your brain will remember the input from your optical nerve to allow your geriatric future self savor this once again.
When they spontaneously lean towards each other for a hug. When they hold hands. When one of them helps the other with their shoes. How they offer to share a dessert and then speed eat like they were just rescued from captors. How they can go from arguing with each other like they’re at a divorce mediation table one second and then laughing in solidarity at the expense of one of their parents the next.
When they cheer each other on. When they compliment each other. When one of them asks the other to help them pick out an outfit. Those rare moments, those fleeting instances that remind us of how sacred childhood is for all of us, are what happen in the meantime as I worry over the mundane logistics of parenting kids with unique needs. The medical appointments, paperwork, phone calls, and so-called experts. It wears you down.
The photos and videos are not just a compulsion to hold onto those memories but a way for me to remind myself of how much my children have proved doctors and experts to be wrong over this past decade. It’s evidence that debunks that special insidious form of medical gaslighting. It’s a testimony of their effort and determination to master skills that I was told to not hope for or encourage lest I upset them or mistreat them with false expectations or hope.
Here’s a secret, I don’t care if my kids live with me well into their adulthood. I don’t worry about whether or not they will go to college. I’m proud of them without any conditions or clarifications. They will become who they want to be and my job is to help them find that path.
They are amazingly kind people that have peaks and valleys in their abilities much like us all and have conditions that make their lives more challenging than the averagely abled person but, at times, more freeing. They live in a perpetual status of “in the meantime” because many people don’t know what to make of them and it used to be a constant worry to me so I would advocate, argue, and protect them. Now, I just smile and ignore others that stare or mutter comments. If the kids notice, I reassure them and encourage them to ignore the ignorant and be overly kind to the rude.
We pulled into a disabled parking spot to do a quick grocery run for an event because I didn’t have the energy to bake or, honestly, the ability to bend and use my oven. As I pulled into the spot I saw an elderly person standing on the sidewalk staring at us. We climbed out of the car in our usual routine. I had to swing my legs so both feet hit the ground at the same time so my hip wouldn’t subluxate, I keep the child safety lock on because my kids have trouble understanding when to leave the car, I opened the back door and put my body inbetween my son and the traffic behind us in the parking lot while announcing, “We’re in a parking lot…”
He giggled and switched directions towards the sidewalk and ran back in the opposite direction. I walked behind him and he waited at the crossing for me as I mistakenly made eye contact with the man who had been staring at us.
His face was twisted with disgust, “Must be nice to get all this free stuff!”
My son turned to me with his eyebrows knitted in concern, “Mom! We’re suppose to get “free stuff”?!”
I laughed and the man glared at us, “No, honey, some people think the disabled get free stuff. They don’t realize how much we spend just to be alive.”
He nodded sagely, “Ooooh, gotcha,” he shook his head, “So he’s an idiot.”
This went over as well as you would expect. I might need to consider using a different grocery store. Because as wonderful as my children are, they are human. They bicker, they steal from each other, they wipe boogers on each other’s iPads, they push each other’s buttons, they push each other’s sanity – and mine! – and they do all of this in a span of a day.
Because while I thought I had them completely figured out they were developing and becoming the next version of themselves in the meantime of me looking away for just a moment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Meantime_(Spacehog_song)
Kelso Kids 