The Minefields of Motherhood

Happy Mother's Day!

What can I say about motherhood? It's exhausting, dirty, ear-splitting and frustrating, and it's often terrifying.

But that's just most of the time.

The rest of the time, it's the kind of joy that makes your chest feel like it's expanding out of your body and being sucked into a central database that contains everything in the universe that is good and beautiful. And then you have to release that aching pressure in your chest, so you pull your darling one away from her watercolors so you can hug and kiss her. She wiggles and screams and struggles against your kisses, which land in awkward places, like her eyeballs and teeth, while her elbows and knees land in yours. That's when things slide back to normal, you get your equilibrium back, and maybe it's better that way. Too much love writhing around in your chest like fat worms can drive a person mad, usually your child.

I understand that for some, motherhood is a beautiful, religious experience described perfectly by those precious memes you see on Facebook with instructions to "share if you love your son/daughter with all your heart." And while the underlying message is generally true, yes, we do have unconditional love for you and yes, you are the most precious thing in the world to us, it doesn't even come close to the daily reality of parenting, which is all about getting through the immediate future without injury, meltdown, or destruction on their part or self-mutilation on yours.

And that takes a lot of work. It takes foresight, intuition, good timing skills and a constant rotation of aces up the sleeve (okay, bribes) to keep things from getting ugly. Because when they get ugly, they get really, really ugly. Try reasoning with a bad, angry drunk. That's kind of how it is.

Lately, Ruby's been into screaming. Like, seriously ear-splitting, top-of-her-lungs screaming for bloody murder, and you can hear it all over the neighborhood when she's outside. Heck, I can hear the daycare kids a block away laughing at recess, so I'm sure that they can hear her screaming on this end of the block.

Yesterday, I heard Ruby fall down on the concrete patio. By the time I got to her, she had her hands clamped over her leg, and she was screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming. I was pretty sure I was about to see a bone protruding from her leg and took a moment to thank Jesus Christ for giving Obamacare to the poor. When I finally pried her hands away, I got a little dizzy.

There was nothing. Not a scratch, scrape, bruise or mark. "Seriously?" I said, drily. "This is barely worth a simple 'ouch.'"  I told her to stop screaming this instant, that screaming is for blood. A lot of blood.

"Buckets and buckets of blood had better be pouring out of your body before I ever hear that kind of screaming again," I think is how I put it.

That's just a brief glimpse into a single moment among scores of similar single moments in a day:

• "I know there's soap and glue in your eyes. How did you think rubbing an entire bottle of glue in your hair was going to turn out for you?"

• "What exactly do you want me to do? We don't have any strawberries. Screaming at the top of your lungs and throwing your cup across the kitchen is not going to suddenly enable me to conjure up strawberries out of thin air."

• "That's what happens when you wear my high heels down the stairs."

• "I just don't understand what made you think that stirring your pot pie into your milk and hiding it in your bookshelf for a week was a good idea."

Motherhood is a sneaky test. What kind of test it is for you depends on your weaknesses, of course. For me, it's a test of my ability to overcome my first instinct to yell, "What the fuck have you done?!" and instead respond to disaster by grabbing the camera first and then turning my attention to the Sharpie graffiti on the kitchen cupboards or the bottle of glue dripping from her hair. It's a test of my willingness to see the art in her messes, the humor and humanity in her absurd behaviors, and appreciate the curiosity behind some of her more inexplicable choices.

Because when it all comes down to it, motherhood is an endless parade of hair-raising adventures, every single day. You never know what you're going to be doing or feeling from one minute to the next. You're sitting under a tree with a good book right now, but in two minutes, you may be elbow-deep in the toilet trying to retrieve Miss Cakes or combing soggy Cheerios out of the dog's fur.

This morning, we snuggled in bed for awhile, playing and making rhymes and telling secrets. Her hot breath in my ear, her skinny little limbs wrapped around my neck, absolute heaven. Moments like this make all the fresh hell of motherhood worth every disastrous moment.

(Here is how to get Sharpie off of your kid's face.)

(This ended exactly the way you think it did.)

An hour before this picture was taken, the room was spotless.

Almost a whole bottle of glue.

Four Going On Sixteen

Ruby has this creepy new game she calls "Jack and Girlfriend," in which she wants me to pretend to be her boyfriend Jack. She wants me to call her "babe," although she makes me pronounce it "behb," which conjures up a grease monkey with a mullet and a stained wife-beater. Ruby gets all dramatic and says things like, "Jack, I'm going to be so sad if I lose you," and, "I love you so much, Jack!" Has she been sneaking in some soap operas among the Aquabats and Super Why?

During "Jack and Girlfriend," Ruby makes me talk in a really low boy voice. She tries to kiss me, although I adamantly draw the line there, because when I fell for it the first time, she tried to stick her tongue in my mouth. It's just all very gross, everything about it. You know that skit they do on "Portlandia" where Carrie plays Lance and Fred plays Nina? My impersonation of Jack is the embodiment of Lance. I'm suddenly some douchey little scrapbag who's dating my daughter, and I can't stand me.

To make matters worse, I endlessly analyze how Ruby's responding to this guy, and I swear to God, she acts coy and plays dumb. WTF? This is not how I raised her.

I hate that game, and last night I told Ruby I wasn't going to play it anymore because it creeps me out. "Fine," she said. "I'll just get Daddy to be Jack." A little later, I heard Gerardo call her "behb" and enjoyed imagining his reaction when she went in for the kiss.

I can't pinpoint when she started becoming fascinated with all things romance, sometime in the last couple of weeks for sure, but it's been steadily developing for some time now.

We recently pulled into a downtown alley to pick up Gerardo from his studio. A young couple was sitting on a bench making out. Like, really going at it. Ruby was just absolutely fascinated by that.

Ruby: What are they doing?

Me: They're kissing.

Ruby: Why are they kissing like that?

Me: Because they like each other. Quite a lot, apparently.

About two minutes later, she's still staring, open-mouthed.

Ruby: They sure are kissing a lot, aren't they, mom? They must reaaaalllly like each other! They're kissing like this, watch!

And then she made this god-awful, scrunched-up face and moved her head in circles, wiggling her tongue around.

Last week in Target, she was enthralled with a package of men's underpants, presumably due to the half-naked man on the packaging:

And then I came upon this, to my horror:

I couldn't say, "Put that down! That's inappropriate!" because I don't want her to think nakedness and body parts are inappropriate. So she proceeded to point out all the parts and I had to label them. That's a vagina. That's a penis. That's also a penis. And that's a penis too. Vagina. Boobs. Penis. Butt. Boobs. Butt. Butt. Vagina. And so on. I made sure that book made it back to the studio with Gerardo the next day.

At the risk of going f*ing ape sh*t, I did some research this morning to help me decide if I should just cash in Ruby's college fund now and invest it in a sturdy pole, or if her new fascination with nudity and boyfriends is normal. I mean seriously, how is this normal behavior for a four-year-old? This obsession with boyfriends and girlfriends and French kissing and underwear models? And girl parts and boy parts and dog parts and doll parts?

What happened to princesses and superheroes?

According to a million mommy forums and pediatric and psychiatric websites (yes, I was a little concerned!) it's perfectly normal behavior. Disconcerting for the parents, but normal. You should see all the panicked posts from parents! Whew! Glad I'm not alone. Make a mental note of that, new parents, and save yourself some sleepless nights.

The advice is clear across the board: Don't panic. Don't overreact. Stay calm, honest and matter-of-fact. Which is always how I react on the outside. But on the inside, I'm kind of gagging. It's icky when your four-year-old puts her little hands on your cheeks, looks you deeply in the eyes and pulls you in for a sloppy tongue kiss.