In Awe and Reverence of Parents

I am amazed to see parents who can manage to hold down a job, keep a house, remain social, and not go absolutely nuts.  Several of my co-workers have young children and every day they show up with a smile on their faces to teach even more children. With smiles on their faces.  Fashionably dressed. Healthy, packed lunches at the ready.  I'm convinced they are medicated.

Or, Holden Caulfield so eloquently stated, "All mothers are slightly insane."

I keep my nephews for 24 hours and I feel, look and behave like a mental patient whose been on the streets for weeks.  If manage to brush my teeth, I feel like a champ.

Those who own me.

There is nothing, nothing I love more in this world than my two nephews: Jay, who is 5, and Blake, who is almost 1 1/2.  They spend the night with me often, usually one at a time, but there are occasions when I keep both. One is hard enough; two, OMG.

This parenting shit is hard.  And I am not even parenting; I'm quasi-parenting. Actually, I just keep them alive. Naively, I figured all it required was to throw food at them, change a diaper, and block them from running into traffic. Guess what? It takes a lot more than that.

I have to convince Jay flipping over couches and leaping off chairs can result in him getting hurt, try to get him to eat anything other than candy and chips (I have no problem spoiling him; I do have a problem with the demon within unleashed by sugar), and if I take him to the park? That adds at least 100 other ways he can hurt himself: slides, swings, strangers, oh my.

And the gear one needs to keep a baby alive: I don't know how anyone can afford to be parents.  You need diapers, 5 changes of clothes per day, a sleep sack, butt cream, wipes, whole milk, baby food, regular food (that he'll like, that he can "swallow" without choking because chewing is new), a high chair, and a pack-n-play. Oh, and toys.  Lots and lots of toys.

The first time I watched both boys for an extended period of time, we barely made it. And when I say "we" I mean me.  After that harrowing 24 hours, I swore the next time my sister asked if I could take both overnight, I'd immediately volunteer as tribute for the Hunger Games. I just don't have enough arms, patience, and brain cells to keep both of them alive for an extended period of time.

As with all other great pains in life-- heart-break, labor, crossfit--time blotted out the memory of it, so when my sister and mom went to DC for five days, I volunteered as tribute to watch both nephews overnight to provide her husband with a break.

I prepped like a motherfucker: I stocked up on child and baby preferred snacks: Cheerios, bananas, fruit, and cookies.  Bottles are pulled out and lined up on the counter.  Sheets were laid over the furniture to save them from ruin. All breakable items were stashed in a closet. Pack-n-play was set up (after a lot of cursing and sweating). Wine was chilled. And if shit really gets rough, children's Benedryl was loaded in the medicine syringe ready to fire.

The first 5 hours, I managed fairly well.  Kids were fed and entertained.  My apartment was littered with toys, but nothing has been broken. Each kid had only one or two brushes with death.

Inevitably, my strength waned. I'm not sure why Jay can't get it through his head that he shouldn't cover his brother's face, and since I don't speak baby babble, I'm not sure how to communicate to Blake that kamikaze diving off my ottoman is not a good idea. I had been watching Teen Titians, PAW Patrol, and Team Umizoomie forever, so I found the movie Dawn of Justice: Batman vs. Superman for them to watch--it's about superheroes, so it's child-appropriate, right?--but after Jay asked me 1000 questions about the plot, I'm ready to go back to helping Umizoomie save another one of their dumbass friends. My feet were pock-marked from stepping on legos. I considered putting tape over Blake's mouth to keep him from shoving anything and everything into it--he can still breath through his nose--but the last thing I need to be doing is giving Jay ideas.

I had poured a glass of wine, but couldn't find two seconds to actually drink it.  One of the kids might have drank it; I don't know.

When I got Blake to go to sleep for the night, I figured I might be at the end of the gauntlet. Jay was watching television, so I told him I was going to take a quick shower.  And I mean quick--long enough to get clean--no relaxing, not pampering.  In and out.  But as soon as I had lathered up my hair and then . . . surprise! My shower curtain flew open and there was Jay, "Auntie, are you done yet?"

Yes, young man, I am done. And I still have about 12 hours to go.

I'm sure parenting books have a chapter on how to synchronize the sleeping of multiple children, but I haven't read them.  Blake was asleep at 8:30 p.m. and then up at 3 a.m.  We hung out for two hours--me trying to convince myself that I'm a rockstar being up at 3 a.m.  I think "rockstar" status is negated by poopy diapers though. I finally got Blake back to sleep at 5 a.m. just to have Jay pounce on me at 6 a.m.

I had to make it until noon.  If I made it, I had planned on auditioning for Survivor.

Jay doesn't understand the concept of brain development. To tell him that Blake "doesn't understand"--well, anything--doesn't quite sink in.  So, when Blake threw his Cheerios all over the floor, Jay figured he had license to throw his much bigger bowl of Cheerios on the floor. Fuck it; I told them to pick their breakfast out of the carpet. Hell, I saw Blake eat a few Cheerios he peeled off the bottom of his foot. Breakfast turned into a scavenger hunt since they had to sift through the toys that blanketed the floor.

I've heard parents--moms especially--lament the time they used to have to themselves.  They claim they can't do anything alone.  My own mother swears that she hasn't "peed or had a can of Pepsi to herself in 35 years."

While my nephews scrounged for their breakfast, I decided to duck into the bathroom. Not ten seconds after my butt hit the toilet seat, Jay comes in asking me how kryptonite works.  As I explained this (for the 100th time), Blake toddled in with a small tennis ball and began bouncing it off the walls.

Taking a dump while explaining the power of a glowing green rock while a ball pings around my head: #glamlife.

At 11:30, I loaded those kids up and drove 80 miles an hour to meet up with their dad to hand them off.  In my pajamas.

When I got home, it took me hours to get my place and my psyche back in order.  A week later, I'm still stepping on Cheerios.

In my opinion, setting a pack-n-play up and breaking it down qualifies as a workout.  I may not have been able to brush my teeth, but I could scratch "exercise" off my list.  Shit, I can't even do that on a day without kids.

Honoring Dad

My father, Michael MacDonald Vance, died from a heart attack on Friday, September 4, 2015 at 11:59 p.m.  He was 69 years and 6 days old.

I am very conscious of dates and time and so was my father. Therefore, I am exact when people ask me when he died. Those who knew him would appreciate that he died at 11:59 and that he expected me to be accurate. He died on Friday night not Saturday morning. Such an error in detail would be egregious.

But since Dad has died, my concept of time has been thrown off. From the time when he went into the hospital for a host of other physical ailments to the time he passed was 3.2857142857 weeks and yet to me it feels like 6 months. Then there are days when I feel like I have just seen him; have just talked to him. He is no more distant than the moment I am thinking of him.

Dad with his "kitties" Fluffy and Scooter

Every day this week I’ve been thinking, “Friday will be one month since Dad died.”  I’ve rallied friends to keep me company so that I don’t cry my face off.  Then last night when I was shuffling around my apartment I happened to glance at the calendar and realized that today is the 2^nd, not the 4^th, of October. It is not the one-month anniversary of his death, but the four-week anniversary. The only timeline that’s measured in weeks is pregnancy, so Dad would be annoyed if I mourned his one-month anniversary today, because it isn’t the one-month anniversary. And there’s a part of me that wants to honor his love of the punctilious and reign in the emotions until Sunday.

But when it comes to love and grief, time means nothing and everything. Those sentiments would make him crazy, but that's also a way for me to honor my father. I loved prodding him with such lofty, abstract thinking. 

Nevertheless Dad, I miss you every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of the month.