I dunno, Milt.  Can I call you Milt?

Milt makes a good point.  For all of our technology and advancements here I am wiping noses and pushing juice like I’m sure any good cavemom did. The only difference is that instead of listlessly drawing antelope on the cave walls, my boys are halfheartedly playing MarioKart to amuse their equally sick sister.

My week, you see, has come to a screeching halt in the spacetime continuum known as Sick Cubed as explained by Einstein’s theory of relativity, whence one parent shares an illness with a child, who in turn shares with another child, who in turn shares with another child (let’s pause to admire the excellent example of SHARING that is occurring). In the scheme of things, it is definitely all relative.

Day has turned into night and into day once again, and we have yet to leave the house.  Much like the cavemoms of yore,  later today I am going to have to leave  to gather rations,  hunt down the almighty Goldfish beast, and go dowsing to find orange juice.  I will welcome the fresh air and have already washed and dried my hair for the big event.

And even though I have medicines to give them, and thermometers to find out just how hot they actually are, even though we have tissue with lotion built right in, and media to keep them entertained, there is a part of me that has enjoyed the stopping of time and space to just be with them in all our sick glory.  We’ve snuggled on the couch and they’ve asked for hugs and we’ve sipped water out of straws, so pitiful and barely moving.  Turns out we don’t need much, just a few extra cuddles and some patience for those times when I could use a few more hands.

So, Milt, evolution has not given us the gift of more appendages,which I admit, I could definitely use  from time to time.  But it has given us the gift of critical thinking and realizing that sometimes we just need to slow down, blow our noses and try to smell those roses.  Because as far as I’m concerned, any time my 8-year-old asks for hugs, we’ve not only evolved, we’ve arrived.

Now that I’ve lost all of my male readers, I shall continue.  This tends to happen at a baby shower, as the first time mom-to-be feels her nausea suddenly return and her eyebrows raise as the moms surrounding her tell the story of how big the fish was she caught.  This would actually be a lovely tradition if it were about the story at hand. I bring it up because it is a phenomenon that I see happening more and more between women:  competition.  All is going well until the one woman pipes up with, “I didn’t even have an epidural!”  followed by the woman next to her, who now feels invalidated, “Well, mine didn’t even work” followed by the supermom who delivers the final blow with, “I didn’t have an epidural, my labor lasted 87.5 hours and I did yoga the ENTIRE time…in WATER!”  Why?  Who do we do this?  What if the birth stories were actually about…I don’t know…the BABY?  What if we talked about how it was amazing/heartbreaking/wonderful to finally share the pregnancy with the world as the baby becomes not just yours?  What if we talked about the love and support that we had received from our friends, and sisters and women throughout the entire nine months and as we began to raise that child?

Competition.  I’m frustrated by it and yet I know that I participate in it every time I don’t ask for help, or trip over myself trying to help another mom when I have nothing to give.  We all want to be competent, and independent, and creative, and wonderful, and yet seem to want to be completely alone.  It is working mom, versus stay at home mom, versus work out of the home mom , versus, versus, versus.  Second vers same as the first.  Yet I know that none of us craves, “alone.”   We all want that village that we heard so much about whether it be in raising a child or going to the latest movie.  We go to book clubs where we haven’t read a book in years.  We join a church to be surrounded by people.  We crave together and yet push it away.  We are killing ourselves with competition when what we really want is cooperation.

Imagine what we could do together.  Imagine what we could do if we actually tried to emulate some of the values that we teach our children each and every day.  I truly hate to quote Wonder Pets when I’m making a rare attempt at being serious, but “What’s gonna work?  Teamwork!  What’s gonna work?  Teamwork!”  I want the proverbial village.  I promise to decorate it if you promise to help me figure out the math equations needed to build it.

And, should I ever decide to have another baby walking uphill both ways in a blinding snowstorm, I will only do it if you hold my cape.  Don’t even think about ironing it.

p.s.  Mom, that last bit was done for dramatic effect.  The rest of you, quit looking at my stomach.  I’m a Minneapolis girl and sweaters add girth, thank you very much.

Nevertheless…I search on.  I am interested in something part-time since Child #3 is still at home with me.  These jobs seem to be particularly awful, as if they feel they can be really, really crappy since you will only be doing something really, really crappy for 18-20 hours a week.  They soften the blow by not offering benefits. (Applying for health care would only be admitting that you took such a crappy job.)

I wish to share the best of the best with you.  I did not make this up, because who could, really? Craig should take care of his list.  It isn’t good.

*****

“looking for someone with ethnics as a priority.”  Well yes…I am fiercely Caucasian.  It is very important to me.

“You MUST be able to handle a variety of tasks.”  This particular listing never goes on to indicate in any way, shape, or form what those tasks might be.  For all I know it is juggling lions and filing them alphabetically.

“Must possess good oral skills.”  Pretty sure you can’t advertise that!!!!!  Verbal.  You mean, verbal.

“Compensation: n/a”  Um, why would I take the job then?  Perhaps TBD is a better description.

“Get paid to waive!” This was a position as a costumed character.  Apparently you are forgoing your right to a career.

“Are you an experienced physic?  Are you ethical, reliable and work only in light energy?  Then we may be a great match for you!” I’m thinking not if you don’t already know this stuff.  Obviously the psychics don’t work there yet.

“Clean houses…NO nights…NO weekends….NO days!” So NO job, then?  I’m so confused…

In a listing for “All Natural Buffalo Meat Sales” (I had to look). “I just got my jerky of the week!” So did I buddy, you’re lucky I didn’t punch the guy.

And my all time favorite listing was for donating sperm. The requirements were quite extensive including needing a “post-secondary degree to be able to donate.”   Proving men think with their…um…bachelor of science degree?

And so the search continues.  Luckily when I got my BFA in music theatre I also learned to type, so there is hope.  Maybe I could get a position writing job list postings…

I don’t know why it is as a mom that you can accomplish 20 things by noon and still feel as if you’ve done absolutely nothing, but that was definitely the way I felt yesterday.   After getting all said children dressed and fed, I decided to pretend to be domestic diva and make banana bread.  I threw in some chocolate chips so the children would love me more and then decided that I should clean out the fridge.  Cried a little over my spoiled organic spinach, chastised myself for not composting, and accordingly, dumped it down the garbage disposal.  And broke it.  Green goo flowing up from the sink and fear of husband wrath later, decided to continue on with fridge cleaning.  It took me an hour, but hey…I had bread baking so that is multi-tasking, right?  Got it all done except for one shelf of condiments, took the raspberry vinaigrette off the shelf, it slipped out of my hand, shattered in a million pieces and splattered dressing alllllll inside my newly sparkling fridge.   Since I hadn’t actually gotten to making the bed at that point considered getting back in it.

The day continued as I dropped off the boys  for school, planned dinner and shopped in between drop offs.  Things were looking to be back on track.  But when I picked up middle child his teacher says to me, “I thought I should mention that J peed on another child today.”  Awesome.  Apparently peer pressure is well underway at age 5 and when two other little boys want to pee outside it is a grand idea.  When another little person happens to walk by it gets dicey.  Although, middle child seemed indignant because he “told him he was gonna get peed on.”  Ah the compassion.

Playdate between school pick ups, get everyone home, baby down for nap, dinner started at which point oldest child comes up crying hysterically covered in blood.  The acrobatic trick of walking on the back of the couch was a failure and he graced the radiator with his face.  I’m going to pause for a self-indulgent moment of I Told You So as this has been mentioned as a possibility once or twice or twenty gazillion times.  Bit right through his lip he did with three angry red lines and a fairly loose top tooth.

Moving on, I decide to cut my losses and let the boys watch tv after their dinner so hopefully they will be in one place and not vault from furniture or urinate on one another (the things you think you never need to mention).  The baby stays with me in the kitchen where she quickly dismantles two food cupboards, covering herself head to toe in corn starch and making an elaborate structure out of 500 toothpicks.

The day culminated with bath time at which point my daughter pees all over the rug.

The point of my ramblings?  Well hopefully maybe a moment of empathy or a long pour of Shiraz, but mostly just to say that the sun did indeed come out today.  It is lovely…and with any luck I will switch back from the day of hockey back into a good old soccer mom.

The amount of time I spend in the car pains me greatly as I try to leave as small of a carbon footprint as possible, but somehow having three children makes a bit of a combat boot impression, despite my best efforts.  All this time in the car forces one to be prepared for every situation.

Which makes me  admit I was never a Girl Scout.  I had a brief stint as a Brownie, but, upon learning that no chocolate was involved, dropped out.  However, I would wager a guess that most moms can accommodate nearly every scenario out of their diaper bags and minivans.  Be prepared is a mom’s survival mantra.  Leave the house without Cheerios?  Rookie mistake.  No blanket in the back?  Asking for trouble!

As my husband will attest I am horrendous at putting things together.  Twelve years ago my best friend and I put a microwave cart together completely backwards…and I’m still hearing about it.  This being said, I can pretty much MacGyver anything out of the contents of my diaper bag.  There is almost no potential meltdown situation that can’t be solved without a notebook, a receiving blanket and a straw.  And I am happy to say that there was a time when a mere bottle of bubbles and a fleece blanket solved the Traveling on Easter With Nothing but a Gas Station Open Crisis of 2006.

So make fun of me all you want when you see my diaper bag that barely qualifies as a carry on.  Snicker when you see the contents of the car spill out onto the parking lot.  But next time you need a band-aid, sunscreen, washcloth, soccer ball, air pressure gauge, map of Wisconsin, calculator, beach towel, baseball hat, pen, McDonald’s bobble head Star Wars toy, or fruit roll up…I got ya covered!

It is a daunting thing, this heredity.  I may have doomed my children to a life of always putting things together backwards and an inability to keep characters from movies straight.  They may turn up their nose at eating pig and have to have their hair off their face when they go to bed.  They may be prone to fits of giggles at the most inopportune times and organize their crayons by color.  But with any luck they got my hairline.

Truly some weird and wacky things happen when you have kids.  How else can one explain the fact that my crazy handwriting resembles my mother’s or the fact that I find my dad’s horrible puns amusing? There have been many times that I’ve thanked my parents for some good genetics they were kind enough to donate to me.  I’ll take credit for all of my bad traits mom and dad…no worries.

So I will ponder heredity and hope that I may have passed on a good characteristic or two to my children.  Otherwise it is just ineffective recycling.  And the next time my daughter throws her food with a flip of the wrist I will try to admire her passion as I go to my very organized closet and get the broom.

I recently had a discussion with a dear friend about how you can’t be both a realist and an optimist and about my desperate wish for more optimists.  I’ve even recently been called a “glass half full girl” which I’m choosing to believe is a compliment.  For it truly depends on what is in the glass, right?

Regardless of your feelings for our current president, you have to admire the Audacity of Hope.  Because it is just that – Audacious.   To be Audastic (my optimism wants that to be a word) is to embody the very idea of being a parent.  Your children are your hope.  Sometimes that hope is in the form of a wish that they not hurl off the top bunk of the bed at 4 am, but nevertheless, it is hope.

And so it is hard not to “hope for the best” for them.  For that is, after all, presumptuous and audastic (see…that could totally be a word) to even remotely know what is best.  But it is without second thought that my three little ones inspire me to get out of bed in the morning.  And between the laundry and the carpools and the patching skinned knees I’ve got the enormous task of trying to make their paths to “the best” become more clear.

Because of this I am Tired.  You could probably run the Indy 500 on the circles under my eyes.    But I’ve got great expectations, some of which are realistic, but all of which are optimistic.  I’m in the spring of hope and I’m choosing to skip the winter of despair.  And should you get in my path I will try to convert you like any good Evangelical Optimist would.  After all, I owe it to my children, and that somehow seems like the best of times.

The reality of it is that I became a mom from the very whisper that I dreamed about them.  From the moment that I started looking at the fridge as an art gallery rather than an appliance, it happened.  From the minute that my late nights transferred from bar to crib (and I really literally mean “crib” and not some MTV version…does MTV even still exist?  Note to self…”go out more”), it started.  From the minute that I caught my breath from that  first ultrasound picture…

So it becomes not so much an identity “crisis” but the inherent dilemma between church and state.  They are what I believe in, they are what I do, they are my identity.

I’ve decided that isn’t limiting but limitless.  Just as I encourage them to be whatever it is that they want to be so can I do the same.   So if today I am silly or serious, beautiful or ugly, flexible or unyielding, responsible or crazy it is still me and being “me” is the best that I can give them even if it isn’t always the”best” in the strictest sense of the word.

And so dear children, stop looking for that big fat college fund, do not expect that you will be receiving some giant inheritance (although I will really try to pay off my Gymboree card before I kick it).  Your gift that I give to you is to be true…even though I know you so desperately want that Lego Millennium Falcon.

And now  I’ve concluded my identity crisis and have thus far prevented identify theft.  I’m ready to hit the second half of my 30′s with the same confused, childlike wonderment that I have lived life so far.  And I’m prepared to be just as blown away with life as I have been up to this point.   And should I have another identity crisis I will TOTALLY be able to identify with that.

I do blame my children.  You might be thinking that this is because I spend my days talking to young kids and that my days of critical thinking and feisty discussion are over.  In actuality, they are just sucking all the smart right out of me.  I’ve no doubt that by the time eldest child is 10 and I’m 39 he won’t even want to have a conversation with me, as I couldn’t possibly comprehend what he is saying.

Despite this, I’ve really tried to maintain some level of decorum.  I’ve never engaged in “baby” talk mostly because I sincerely feel it is the most annoying thing on the planet, but also because I feel as if it doesn’t give kids the credit they deserve.  Can you imagine looking up at this person you are supposed to count on for food, shelter and guidance and they are telling you that they “wub you and do you want a wittle binky?”  I don’t want my child’s first text to be OMG, PIR  RME!

So one might question why do crossword puzzles at all?  Certainly world peace shall not be attained by solving a four letter word for “iditarod.”  And, although I can answer easily that an Indian nursemaid is an “ayah” this doesn’t in any way make me smart…it is just one of those clues they give every week.  This should not be confused with an “amah” which is a unit of measurement.  I’m not going to lie…I confuse those all the time.  So now I’ve just admitted that I’m not smart and I can’t remember squat.  I’m never going to make it until Wednesday at this rate.

Luckily eldest child has taken up crossword puzzles.  I’ve hope that someone in the family will be able to grow to love a thesaurus like I do.  Let’s just hope by the time I’m 80 I can still comprehend the comics because no one ever told me that with age came wisdumb!

Cross words indeed.  Hmmph.

But I decided instead of  turning the channel and watching a rerun of Frasier, I myself would be the Good Wife.  So I turned to my dear husband and asked if he wanted to watch Victoria and all her enormous secrets.  In all fairness, he said only if I wanted to…which is the guy’s version of when you are asked what is wrong and say ‘nothing’.  He was kind enough not to drool on the couch and I decided that I would take my self deprecation and silently depreciate faster than a car as you drive it off the lot.

Knowing that dear husband was only watching it for the articles I didn’t at all feel threatened, but decided to dazzle him with my 50′s housewife drink mixing skills and my ability to fold fitted sheets with a nice crisp edge.  So up the stairs I trotted to make a cosmopolitan and grab the laundry basket full of linens.  I tried to hurry so that I wouldn’t miss the testimonials of the two runway contestants and their tales of fighting over the last rice cake.

And there I was, drink in one hand, basket in another, working those slipper socks slyly down the stairs two by two when it happened.  My catwalk turned kittywampus and my tailbone hit the stair.  The laundry made a beautiful  arc as it scattered like confetti down the flight and the cosmo baptized  me on my fall into grace.  But as I slumped on the stairs, it suddenly occurred to me that my husband wasn’t watching the Angels on the screen but attending to  his, or rather my, own pain in the ass.

So there you have it, Julianna.  I’m stealing your title and shall now be referred to as the Good Wife.  Just as long as I can accept my award in bed with a heating pad, you can count me in.  And I do believe that next time I get the bright idea to offer to watch Victoria’s Secret I shan’t even whisper the invitation.