Uphill Both Ways

The aspect of reducing my carbon footprint that I’m having the hardest time embracing is transportation. The only place I can actually walk to from my house is the general store/archery supply, which is fine for those times that I need a twinkies or turkey call, but for my other travels, I’m pretty much reliant on four wheels and an internal combustion engine (we can walk to the daycare center as well—once I was walking M there and we found ourselves surrounded by a gang of five-year olds on bikes who asked us, “Why are you walking? Why didn’t you come in a truck?”)

My neighbors down the road also work where I do, and occasionally I’ve walked all the kids down to the daycare center and hitched a ride with them, but with their kids’ schedules and my kids' schedules and running errands it just hasn’t worked into a regular thing. Excuses. Excuses.

So when Commute Another Way Week came around this year, I decided to plunge in and try alternate modes of travel. I signed up for two days of telecommuting (my two days off—ok somewhat disingenuous, since I drive a lot on those days), two of carpooling and one of biking. It turned out I wanted to pick M up from gymnastics yesterday since it was his last day, and tomorrow I planned to leave early to shop and pack for our camping trip, so I had to postpone the two carpool days (but I’ll do them, I swear), which left only the bike day.

I rode my bike to work several days a week the summer before I got pregnant with M (which didn’t do much for the environment, since C and I carpooled back then, and he did NOT ride his bike), when we lived a bit closer to work. After I had the baby, though, I placed a higher value on staying alive (the route was kind of scary), and I no longer had the time or energy to fit in the bike ride with daycare dropoff and pickup. I went for a bike ride with some friends the summer M was three—before I got pregnant with the twins—and haven’t been on one since.

I carefully mapped out my route while driving back and forth to work over the last couple of weeks, noting the distance (13.5 miles), the terrain (it appeared to be uphill both ways) and the porcupine carcass. I would be following three stretches of winding back roads, a long straight stretch of busy road with wide shoulders, and two more side roads with a short length of dirt path in the middle. I did not get out my bike and try getting in shape—I only wanted to feel the pain once, rather than over and over again for weeks. C got my bike out Sunday and pumped up the tires (when I said I would have to dust it off I was not kidding—the thing had ¼ inch of grime on it). I did not go out and try it out because it was Mother’s Day and I was busy trying to enjoy myself.

I did agonize a bit about what to wear—I don’t have those shiny black biker pants, or one of those bright yellow jerseys that alert traffic 5 miles away that a bike is on the road. This morning I put on a pair of tan leggings from the days when I had time to take yoga classes, with a pair of light purple shots, because no one needs to see me in leggings, and a long-sleeved polyester athletic shirt that C bought for me inexplicably last Christmas. Before I walked out the door, I glanced at the thermometer—42 degrees—and tossed a fleece on top of it all. I figured I could take it off if I got hot along the way.

I had been worried that I might prove wrong the old saying that you never forget how to ride a bike, but I got on and pedaled and balanced all at once. I did forget which gears did what—is the easy one the small to big or small to small? I quickly discovered my derailleur was out of adjustment and I only had about half my gears. By the time I got to the end of my road, I wanted to turn around and go home. But I rested at the stop sign and started up the next stretch, trying to notice the good parts—it was quiet, I could observe flowers growing along the road and hear birds singing. I heard red-winged blakbirds, an oven bird, a robin, something that made a series of bright chirps interspersed with some buzzy sounds, a veery harmonizing with itself in the treetops, and, later on, saw a turkey vulture soaring over a field and watched and listened to the bobolinks and grackles dart from the fences into the fields.

I tried to think about inspiring athletes of my acquaintance. I thought about the guy at work who does the Trek Across Maine on a one-speed bike. I thought about how in college I used to ride up Cadillac Mountain—for fun!—with my roommate, who called me “the tortoise” because she would ride way ahead of me and wait at the pullouts, but I came slowly, steadily along behind and never stopped once all the way up the mountain, because I knew if I did I would never start up again.

I walked up a few hills—and did not even feel wimpy for doing it, because the only people who would see me were sitting on their fat a*ses behind the wheel of a car. I coasted down the hills, taking three deep yoga breaths before tucking in and pedaling down. I wished I had brought water. I never got hot enough to take off the fleece. All that was left of the porcupine was the hide. I did not get run over by a dump truck. By the time I pulled into my office parking lot I felt great. I figured I could do my two make-up commute days by bike instead of carpool, and maybe even bike once a week all summer. I went inside, ate a bagel and chugged water. An hour later I felt light-headed. By lunchtime I wanted to crawl under my desk and sleep for a week. I hope I make it home.

Underdo

To Do List, May
Potty train two two-year-olds
Plan camping trip
Three birthdays
Make gifts
Dust off bike for Commute Another Way Week
Take online writing class
Mothers Day—make gifts
Start gardens

My first yoga teacher often told us to “underdo”—instead of pushing yourself to the max in a pose, ease only partway into it, and relax there. Underdo. She suggested we underdo in our lives also. I totally agree with this philosophy, but I can’t seem to institute it. Although I think of myself as a generally lazy person, I have a tendency to bite off way more than I can chew.

Now, I realize that my to do list is totally self-inflicted (except maybe the fact that all three of my kids have birthdays within a three-day time span), and that it pales in comparison to what my friends who are in medical school or nurse practitioner school or post-grad school have to accomplish in a given month and that compared to moms who have children with serious disabilities or diseases or major financial problems, I’ve got it pretty easy. Still, when I mapped out the month in my brain I saw the potential for a minor breakdown.

So last night, as we sat down to dinner, I tried to underdo. I asked M, “You know how we’re having a big birthday camping weekend? And then on the night of your actual birthday, we’ll probably go out to dinner and/or have grampy over for cake and ice cream? Is that enough birthday celebrating?”

He started to agree, but then asked about the big party with all his friends.

“Well I was thinking, what if instead of a big party, we invited one or two friends for a playdate? Maybe a trip to the mini golf course?”

Tears appeared at the corners of his eyes (this kid really knows how to weep) and C piped in, “Why don’t we just have a small party at home?”

I tried to point out that once we make a list of all of M’s friends, it would be impossible to keep it small, and that even a small party requires a lot of planning. He suggested we have his mother plan it. I shuddered picturing kids nibbling on week-old, dried-up pound cake, playing “sit silently with your hands folded in your lap or I’ll smack them with a ruler” and taking home rusty scissors or live chickens for party favors.

“C’mon, how many birthday parties does a kid get, anyway?”

“At the rate we’re going, 21,” I responded, but sitting there, facing them across the table, I could see I was outnumbered….the boys versus the Voice of Reason. Within 20 minutes we had a list of invitees more than 20-kids long, had ranged through party themes from camping to nature to The Dangerous Book for Boys to fighter jets back to nature. We decided on hiking to the stream for an activity (and time-killer) and walking sticks and GORP for take-home prizes. C accused me of trying to keep up with my friend B, but I am perfectly capable of having Martha-Stewart aspirations all on my own, thank you very much. Besides, M has been to some pretty lame parties…where all the kids sat down to watch cable TV for an hour or the parents stood around smoking and drinking beer while the kids ran wild for two and a half hours before anyone made any mention of food, cake or any other party-like activities. I don’t want to underdo quite that much.

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P.S. New post over at Capital Walks.

Can someone please explain to me

why "go get your pajamas on" sounds like "keep refining your marble run until you get it exactly right, which should take at least half an hour, and then drag yourself upstairs, where you can arrange 23 matchbox cars on the bed in precisely the order you want them," in the ears of a six-year old?

Or why "good morning, time to get up and get ready for school" really means "pull the covers over your head and close your eyes" and "get up and get dressed now" means go in your closet and make some adjustments in the arrangement of the items on your desk" and "get your clothes on right now and go downstairs to eat breakfast" means "lie back down on your bed and unzip your pajamas at the rate of one zipper tooth per minute"?

And why does "put on your coat and go get in the car" translates to "run upstairs and get just one more thing out of your room...because you really need to take a toy to school today even though the rule is no toys at school...but this isn't really a toy...it's a marble, or a box or a car that you're only going to take out on the bus."

And while you're at it, can you also tell me why this makes me so angry my head feels like it's going to explode? And then I scream and yell and rant and rave, and yes, I have to confess, sometimes spank? And then I feel like a real a**hole, because really, is missing the bust that big of deal? Is staying awake an extra fifteen or thirty minutes all that much (even though that extra fifteen minutes will absolutely guarantee a missed bus the next day)? Especially when the yelling and screaming doesn't improve the outcome--the words translate just the same coming from a loud angry voice as a sweet, quiet one.

And one last question...why do we teach our children to do things themselves, when it would be faster and easier and less crazy-making than doing it ourselves?

Coming Out

Yesterday I was in the waiting room of my dentist’s office, writing some notes for an essay idea I’m toying with. I was there to get fitted for an occlusal guard—yes it is a new purchase, and yes it is plastic, but hopefully it will save my crowns and my remaining uncrowned molars, and cut back on all those rubber gloves they wear when re-cementing lost crowns (have you ever noticed how many pairs of gloves they go through during one visit?)

I have spent a lot of time at the dentist’s over the last few years getting crowns put on broken teeth and getting crowns replaced when they fall out, in addition to the usual checkups and cleanings for both me and M. When I was pregnant with the twins, I went in every week for six weeks because the temporary crowns kept breaking. So I know the dental assistants pretty well.
When A, my dental assistant for the day, came out to get me, I stuffed my notebook in my bag and followed. “What are you writing?” she asked.

I tried to change the subject. “I’m here on country music day again?”

“Oh no, did I do that to you? Is that your journal?”

“Just writing some notes. At least it gives us something to talk about.”

“Or complain about. Is it for work?”

“Oh, no. I never take work out of this office.”

“I know what you mean. When I’m not here, this place doesn’t exist. So do you just write about life and stuff?”

“Yeah, my kids mostly.”

And then she was stuffing the plastic mold in my mouth and I was freed from this intensely uncomfortable conversation. I don’t like talking about myself. I’m perfectly happy telling stories about my kids or my husband or anyone else I know, but I don’t like talking about me, and I especially don’t like talking about my personal interests.

No one I work with knew I taught the Writing Motherhood class, until I ran into a co-worker who is on the school board at the high school after class. He asked what I was doing there.

“Adult ed,” I evaded.

“Do you have to pay for that?” He asked, because I’m not in the district. And then I had to admit I was teaching it, brushing it off as “a writing class.”

I have always been a little embarrassed by my interests, I guess because what I’m interested in is not considered “cool” by the mainstream. I still feel a little jolt of surprise when I find out other people like to read or write or sew or camp or draw or bird watch. Really? I’m not the only bookworm with a sewing machine, ink stains on her fingers, a tent and birdsongs of North America tapes?

My other issue is I’m not especially skilled at any of these activities. I would never dream of calling myself an artist or birder or a seamstress. I do dream of being a writer, but I certainly do not label myself as such, not yet. I guess in the same way that I would want to be Georgia O’Keefe before I would sit in the park with an easel, I feel like I should be Virginia Woolf to presume to scribble in my notebook the dentist’s office. But all of these activities bring me pleasure, which should be enough for me to do them, and admit it.

I’m not proud of this character trait. Especially as a mother, I want to be able to model for my children pride in what I do, the value of process over product, and just plain liking myself, because I want them to feel that way about themselves.

It’s time for me to come out of the closet as the nerd with the pens and colored pencils, needles and thread, binoculars and hiking boots. I recently read an interview with a publisher who says she expects potential writers to have active blogs, MySpace and Facebook pages. (Until I read that sentence I thought MySpace was just a place for teenagers to post pictures of their boobs on the internet…so I’m not quite ready to go there yet.) And as much as I say I’m not in this to become published, I really would like to be published someday. So I have decided to come out on my blogs and you can now read an actual profile of me over there in the right sidebar.

Potty Trials

If I were the advice-giving type, and you were to ask me advice about potty-training, my advice to you would be: wait. Wait until you are so sick of diapers you want to drown yourself in the diaper bucket (or smother yourself in the diaper genie), and then wait some more. Because no matter how awful you think changing diapers is, potty-training is a million, billion times worse (this coming from a woman who uses cloth diapers—and air-dries them, in Maine!). When you change a diaper, you just have to change and wash a diaper. When you have a potty-training incident, you have to change and wash underwear, pants, socks, and shoes, mop the floor (thank goddess we don’t have carpeting) and, eventually, move to a new house.

I had planned on waiting with the twins. Hell, I was willing to wait until they went to college and let their RA train them. But C has been hot on the potty training trail for more than a year, and because their birthday is within three days of M’s, I unwittingly compare all their milestones to his based on the seasons. I can remember training M in April because we went to our friends’ wedding in Bar Harbor in early April just before M turned three, daycare had pushed the potty-training issue the week before, and I was stuck traveling with an underwear-wearing, untrained toddler. My friend ML, who drove with me, and I would stop every half hour along the way, set the potty chair next to the car and try to convince M to do his business—which he refused to do, of course. He wet through every extra pair of underwear and pants I took to the wedding and ended up spending most of the reception unclothed from the waist down (good thing it was a hippie-type gathering).

I would count that month of potty training among the most horrific mothering experiences I have had with M (running a close second to the nightmare being a mother of two newborn babies and a very forlorn, displaced, formerly-only-child four-year-old). I know that a month is a very short period of time, as far as potty training goes, but it felt very, very long at the time. Nothing previous had driven me closer to rage than asking, “do you have to pee?” Hearing, “No.” And then less than a minute later, “I peed.” Which, when I look at it objectively, it doesn’t really warrant my reaction, but there it is. In the end, after we got through our weekend wedding trip, and the rest of the month, M was potty trained and almost never had an accident. My biggest fear, which was what do we do when we’re away from home and need a toilet, just never materialized as an issue. I held off on night training until after we took a three week road trip that summer, moved M into undies at night as soon as we got home and never had a problem either.

So I shouldn’t be worked up about training the twins. But they have very different personalities than M, and very different physiologies. Where M would daintily sip from a single cup of water or juice throughout the day, E and Z guzzle down cupsful of water, milk, or juice, when they can get their hands on it…and their output equals their input. With M I could get away with the cheapo Gerber prefold diapers, but with E and Z, I have to fold a Chinese prefold inside of a Gerber, or use the thick terrycloth fitted diapers a friend handed down, and they still soak through regularly. I’m tired of the soak-throughs. I’m tired of swishing and rinsing and soaking and washing and hanging and folding. I’m tired of the diaper buckets and the smelly covers. M trained at this time, E and Z have shown “readiness” signs, and so I’ve plunged in full speed ahead.

We’ve spent a few days here and there diaper-free, when we’re hanging around the house, with varying degrees of success. Z, who seems to be part Labrador retriever, has delighted in running outside to pee on the deck (right outside the door) or even pee in houseplants. E, while he likes wearing “un-ear,” had shown less proclivity. I decided that this weekend, after a week when all three boys suffered a distressing gastro-intestinal illness, which steeled my resolve to be done with diapers, we would quit diapers cold-turkey. After we got home from M’s art class and the Children’s Mueseum Friday, I changed E and Z into underwear and only put diapers on at night all weekend. Let’s just say they wore, and I washed, every pair of size 3 Thomas and Bob underwear that had been M’s and most of the tighty-whitey size 4 undies that still linger in M’s drawer along with the size 6’s, several times. But I persisted. Yesterday, after a #2 incident first thing in the morning, E wore the same pants all day, even while spending the morning at the in-laws. Z, on the other hand, who had forged ahead with interest and awareness of this whole potty thing well ahead of E, had a major setback and seemed to not only be uninterested in using the toilet, but intentionally wetting himself just to make a statement.

Then last night, just before the baths, I was straightening up in the livingroom when I could hear noises from the bathroom. “Is Z in the bathroom?” I asked C, who was in the kitchen (right next to the bathroom). “I don’t know,” he responded, as he continued to rinse dishes. I raced to the john, where Z was emerging, “My pee potty,” he said. Only he didn’t quite make it and there was a puddle of lakelike proportions on the floor. I wasn’t mad, because clearly he had tried (my mother anger, while totally irrational, has its own irrefutable logic). I filled up a bucket and Z set about washing the floor more meticulously than your average 1950s housewife, and I said to C, “When they’re in the bathroom you’ve got to go right in and help.” He replied that he hadn’t heard him, and when I pointed out that I had heard from the next room he responded, “I’m just not trained to rush in whenever I hear them,” which is true; he has never been the one to rush to the crying baby, which in some cases is a good thing, but in potty training it’s not an option—you have to drop whatever you are doing (even if you’re the one on the potty) and rush to the aid of the trainee.

This morning I had a taste of what it will be like to have two more toilet-users in the house. I took E, who seemed to be doing the pee-pee dance into the bathroom to “try.” My came in saying he had to poop. When I told him to go upstairs to the other bathroom, he said he could hold it. E gave up on trying. M took over, and then I got the sense Z needed to go, so I rushed him upstairs, where he tried unsuccessfully, and came back down to find M emerging from the bathroom and E going in for a repeat, but successful, attempt. I had to wait till I got to work for my turn.

Dust to Dust

My house is a mess. Even if I were to spend an entire day cleaning (as I often do, much to my dismay) it still looks like the bulls of Pamplona just ran through. While I scrub the bathroom, toys fly in the living room; while I pick up the living room, dishes pile up in the kitchen; while I clean the kitchen, couch cushions become a fort; while I put the couch back together, muddy feet tramp through the house; while I mop the floor, the dresser drawers empty their contents. You get the picture. I spend so much time just trying to keep a few clean dishes and some baskets of clean clothes and a path we can walk through, I never get to actual cleaning. The only time the walls get washed of their crayon marks and finger smudges and the windows get wiped of their smears and mildew is in October, before the Solar Home Tour.

Yesterday, I went to put on a CD for the kids while I made dinner and noticed, thanks to the angle of the afternoon sun, that the CD player was coated in dust. "Someone should dust around here," I commented to no one in particular. "I will!" M exclaimed, "Will you pay me fifty cents to do it?" "Let's see, I'll give you 25 cents for the desk and 25 for the book case." "I need a dollar." So I proceeded to put coin amounts on various pieces of furniture--ten for the TV, ten for the secretary, five for the mantle, five for the legs of my desk (the top is protected from dust by the piles of paper that I need to sort, file and otherwise deal with) and twenty for all of the windowsills. I gave him a pair of old flannel boxers and he got out the feather duster and went to work.

As I returned to the kitchen to chop onions, I had a vague recollection of a book I once read (possibly All-of-A-Kind Family), in which the mother hid pennies throughout the parlor, so that when the children dusted they would do a really good job hitting all the nooks and crannies to find the pennies that were their reward. "I should do that someday," I thought. Then I figured, why not now? I ran upstairs, emptied a dollar in change out of my Dumbo bank and hid the allotted amounts on the various pieces of furniture. It took some prodding to remind M to actually dust and lift up picture frames, rather than squeezing the duster between them, and he didn't quite get the part about taking the dust cloth outside before shaking it out, but he industriously worked over every piece of furniture, finding his dollar, plus another 17 cents. As he found each coin, he would get more and more wound up (nothing energizes that kid, like making money!) And I got to sit back on the recliner while my soup simmered and watch him.

I'm not sure if this technique will work again, but I'm willing to give it a try, just to keep the dust layer down below an inch in thickness. And if that works, I might start hiding coins among my other unpleasant household chores, like at the bottom of the diaper bucket.

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In honor of spring, I'm back on the trail. See Capital Walks for a new post.

Rude

So lately I've had experiences with rude people and I'm wondering, is this a national illness? a cultural fact of the East Coast (I grew up in the West where it was a known fact that Easterners are rude)? me being overly sensitive?

Exhibit A: E, Z and I were watching M at gymnastics. The twins grabbed a couple of books off the book rack for me to read. We read Peter the Puffin and then moved onto Dora the Explorer. As class neared the end, a woman and her 3 or 4-year-old wandered into the viewing room. It sounded like they're looking for something. She started saying, "Dora, Dora where are you." I assumed they had looked at the Dora book the previous week and now wanted to read it again. A few minutes later, she and her kid appeared at our side, taking the book out of E and Z's hands. "Do you mind?" She asked. "We're still reading it," I sputtered. "It's OUR book," she responded and swooped out of the room with daughter and book. Ohhh-kaaaay. I was completely taken-aback. Class ended five minutes later, M emerged from the gym and we rounded up his outdoor gear. The woman and girl were sitting on the stairs, reading the book. So, they hadn't been in a big rush to leave, and needed to get the book first. Just her daughter wanted the book NOW and so she made sure she got it, rather than saying something like, "Excuse me, just so you know, that's our book. Can you bring it out to the lobby when you're done reading it?"

Exhibit B: M, Z, E and I stopped at a small bakery for lunch in the middle of a zillion errands Saturday. The bakery has three tiny cafe tables--one tall one with two stools, and two low ones with a total of five chairs between them. Z, E and I positioned ourselves around one table, occupying three chairs and pretty much all the tabletop space. M sat at the other, even smaller table next to us. About 3/4 of the way through our lunch, a woman came over and said, "Excuse me, can you all sit together at one table so we can use this one?" M immediately got up, and she and her husband commenced to sit down at the two chairs, leaving M chairless. Before I even had a chance to process what was going on, a couple at the high table got up and said, "You can take this table; we're on our way out." So because they are kids, they don't deserve their own chairs?

Even at work, I've noticed people barrelling through doors, despite the fact that a pregnant woman, or the custodian with his arms full of trash bins, or anybody is coming through the other way. Are we just so consumed by spring fever that we have forgotten our manners? Do people take for granted that if you have kids with you, you are a second-class citizen? Am I just feeling overly sensitive or, worse, a sense of entitlement for special treatment because I have three kids?