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Even if my children are fully engaged in projects of their own, I can count on at least one of them interrupting me with someone’s urgent need the minute I sneak off for some time to myself.
I consider this psychic phenomena to be one of Life’s small mysteries.
I was busy with a project that I wanted to complete before dinner. As my stolen minutes slipped away, I became increasingly irritable. Determined to complete my task within my self-imposed timeframe, I quietly asked for reinforcement.
My obliging husband came over to help. Ungraciously, I disapproved of his action plan and we bickered over how best to proceed. This is when I heard the phone ringing.
“Don’t answer it!” I shouted to all persons within earshot. “Let it go to voicemail!”
Unwisely, Liam approached me with the phone.
Seeing him coming, I warned him away. “Whoever it is, please tell them that I will call them back.”
“It’s Nana,” he said.
“Liam,” I said, grasping at at a civil tone but not catching it. “I am busy; tell Nana that I will call her back.”
He returned fifteen seconds later. I dropped the heavy object I was carrying but managed to avoid stepping on his foot. Totally exasperated, I yelled at him to get out of the way.
“Nana just has one question!”
“I. Will. Call. Her. Back.” We glared at each other.
“Jeesh,” he muttered as he slunk off with the phone. Taking a deep breath, I knew that the Catholic principles I had spent my childhood steeping in were about to resurface. Guilt lapped over me.
A shower, followed by a glass of red wine, improved my mood significantly. The phone rang. I went out onto the porch to take my mother’s call. I apologized cheerfully for not calling her back right away. Was it something important? What did she need?
Her voice was frosty. “I just wanted to know: Did you watch Kennedy’s funeral?”
Squeak. Rattle. Rattle. Squeak. Rattle. Rattle. Squeek. I looked up. Liam was planted in front of a friend’s supersaucer.
“Aren’t you a little old for that?”
Without looking up, he flicked the spinny-thing. He shrugged.
“Simple things amuse me.”
She’s only 75 feet away from me but I know that she has gone further. Much further.
She’s with a group of kids we met just a few days ago. This amalgamation of youth is camp magic: 5 + 2 + 3 + 1 = 11 children, ages 3 to 12; separate clusters now established as a pack. I hear her voice lifting above the indistinguishable murmur of sopranos and altos. They are gathering sticks to roast marshmallows. Her words are an incomprehensible string, but her timbre is unmistakeable. She sounds thrilled.
The screened porch is my observation deck. I trust that I am unseen in the shadows of the gloaming. She is holding hands with two girls, a forever friend and one newly minted. They are skipping together. Their giggles tinkle on the breeze.
She is delighted by this spoonful of independence.
I am struck with melancholy for the baby she was. She who clung to my breast in what I grimly referred to as my “fourth trimester,” who flatly refused to acknowledge strangers’ salutations even when prompted by a parent, whose outraged screams reverberated in my head long after I had departed from her daycare.
She’s growing up. She’ll need me less in some ways, more in others. My heart swells and minutes pass as I stand motionless.
I dislike being asked questions with obvious answers. It makes me incredulous and cross. In an effort to hold onto my sanity, I often cloak my irritation with sarcastic humor.
It must be said that I am not always troll-like. I do try to modulate my exasperation levels and I will make allowances for persons in my company who have just begun using full sentences.
But when my patience evaporates, and it inevitably does, these are the kinds of exchanges my kids and I have:
“Why do you have to get out of the tub? Because if you don’t, you’ll get sucked down the drain.”
“Are we leaving now? No. We’ll wait until you scrub the floor on your hands and knees with toothbrushes and your brother licks the toilet clean.”
Recently, the kids were dancing on my last nerve. It was bath night and things weren’t going well. Multiple objections, unresponsive zombie stares, and various forms of dilly-dallying had me at wits’ end.
“Liam!” I hissed through clenched teeth. “For the last time, stop reading and go take your shower! Do you want to keep smelling like a goat?”
Unperturbed, he placed a bookmark between the pages of his book and casually closed its cover. Looking me straight in the eye, he shot me a wicked smile. “Ma-aa-aaa,” he bleated.
I started laughing. The kind of laugh that makes your belly hurt. He got me. He gets me. And with that, my goat-boy ambled off to bathe.
Freedom! I was thrilled to be out with my husband, without our kids, for the first time in what seemed like a long time.
Our kids, safe and happy in the bosom of our extended family, were unlikely to miss us. We had spent the day in the lake and on the beach, alternately soaking up water and sunshine like sponges. They were wiped out.
What to do with ourselves?
Dinner? Definitely. Drinks? Absolutely. Parking? Err….excuse me? Parking? Really?
I am not old in the sense that my joints are still working properly; I can choose to participate in athletic activities without fearing a total body breakdown. I like trying new things and consider myself relatively adventurous—rock climbing, skydiving and bungee jumping are all bumps in my past. But truly, I feel too old to go parking.
My husband shrugged. I reconsidered. Exhaustion and excitement dueled with each other. He glanced at me sideways and raised his eyebrows suggestively.
Oh hell. Why not.
We cruised around searching for a secluded enough spot. In the deepening twilight, we traversed the back roads of my youth. He stopped the car and reached for me. And then…headlights appeared in the distance.
Sadly, the moment was gone. We laughed about having to explain ourselves to some law enforcement official or concerned citizen and then drove back to camp.
Fortunately, we had our own bedroom.
OINKtales 
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