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As of 11ish this morning, Small turned 4. Yes, as his mother, I ought to know exactly what time he was born (along with how much he weighed), but I don’t. For me, it’s enough that I carried him in my uterus for 37 weeks and then birthed him.
Quite honestly, I barely remember what he was like as an infant (Henry, if you ever get around to reading these oinks of mine, you know Mommy loves you and just because her memory is crap doesn’t mean that you weren’t the most special 30th birthday present anyone could ever ask for).
I’m pretty sure that he was an easy going baby, but when I try and recall those special little moments with him—you know, the ones I should have recorded in a baby book—it’s as though I’ve been lobotomized. Medium was 20 months old when Small made his appearance; Large was in kindergarten. After struggling through the I-have-a-new-baby-who-doesn’t-sleep-at-night zombie phase, I returned to my human resources position where it was my job to fly all over the country and spank people (only in the figurative sense). Until recently, I had neither the time nor the inclination to look back; it was all I could do to look forward, put one foot in front of the other, and try not to drop any of the balls I was juggling.
You’d think that I wouldn’t wax nostalgic for those days, but sometimes, I do. I miss my co-workers and the easy banter that comes from working with people day in and day out. I miss the challenges of searching for the truth and articulating management’s best options for justice. I miss feeling that I am an expert at something—for God knows, I am no expert at parenting.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t regret my decision to take this hiatus from paid employment—I was lucky to have the choice. And I know I would be regretful had I kept on keeping on the way I was doing. Six months ago, my family was out of focus. Now, I am in the midst of an incredible opportunity to make memories with my children and to participate more fully in their lives.
There is a quote attributed to Oprah Winfrey but one I associate with Lynda Carter. Ms. Wonder Woman was attempting to revive her career after many years out of the spotlight—years in which she spent raising children. She told an interviewer, “I realized that you can have it all, just not all at once.” How that sentiment resonates with me!
So Small Henry, I may not remember our times as a nursing couple or when you cut your first tooth or what was your first word, but I know what you’re like now. And I’m writing it all down. Happy birthday, little man.
Then:
and now:
We spent the weekend in Boston with the kids—packing in the memories like sardines in a can. The Children’s Museum. The Barking Crab. Nantasket Beach. The Red Parrot. U2 at Gillette Stadium (this last was only for Liam and Brendan). We stopped fifty miles from home to return the borrowed stroller to my in-laws and to pick up our other car. I offered to drive the sedan in a selfish ploy for an hour of peace and quiet.
“Anyone coming with?” I called, hurling myself from the still moving vehicle. “No? See you at home!”
I was opening the car’s door when I heard the van pull in behind me. It had been too good to be true.
“Medium and Large are coming with you,” my husband announced, gripping the steering wheel with one hand and his Blackberry with the other. He continued perusing his email inbox and didn’t notice the glare I gave him.
“Are you kidding?”
“Nope. They want to be with you.”
I am almost never alone. This is one of the hard truths I have faced while morphing from Woman-With-A-Career to OINK. I am constantly accompanied by, or in the company of, others. Usually very small others. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a people person. I like people and I like to believe that they like me. But there are times when I pause to think longingly about closing the door to my office and sending the calls to voicemail; about the rental cars where I listened to whatever caught my fancy on the radio; about the airports where I sat blanketed in anonymity—just a speck in the endlessly amusing spectacle of humanity.
In those spaces, no little voices were ordering me to turn up the volume on “Crazy Frog,” whining about needing a snack ten minutes after we finished breakfast, sobbing that someone had poked them. And while I had other voices in my head—the ones reminding me to finish this proposal or that brief, nagging me to return phone calls and emails, chastising me for being the parent who was always late picking up her kids from daycare—they were all my own.
I miss my own company.
My husband interrupted my reverie. “Liam didn’t want you to be lonely.” The side of the van slid open and Liam jumped out, followed closely by his sister. In spite of myself, I was touched by my son’s thoughtfulness. He gave me an awkward, one-armed hug and ducked his head. He and Nora scurried off.
“Well, that was sweet of them.” I tried to sound positive.
My husband chuckled. “Nora is only coming with you because she wants to be with Liam. When Liam worried you’d be lonely, she told us, ‘Mommy’s not lonely–she’s fine! Liam, you stay with me!’”
Either she knows me better than I realize or she is more like me than I know.
I love my kids, but what I need is a Fortress of Solitude.
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?”
We were at my husband’s high school reunion. It’s been twenty years since he made headlines in the local newspaper for wearing sunglasses while giving his commencement speech.
My name tag read Mary [Not My Legal Last Name Because I Felt Strongly About Keeping My Maiden Name]. I smiled blandly at lots of people that I didn’t know and had heard hardly anything about. I shook hands and laughed politely at little jokes. And then it happened.
“So,” she said, “What do you do?”
It’s such an innocuous question. Much like, “How’s it going?” Most times, you don’t expect the respondent to launch into their life story, give you a detailed medical history, or share their actual feelings. What you expect is for the person to say: “Just fine. How are you?”
It’s classic small talk. The response to the question “What do you do?” is to simply give the person the label you’ve accepted and then ask them for their label.
But I didn’t know what to say.
The label I have accepted is not recognized as vernacular much less is it a vocabulary word.
I’m in the midst of a full-blown identity crisis. Dropping the word “Career” from “Woman” has been a daunting adjustment.
A little self-indulgent, self-analysis here … this blog is, for me, like therapy without the group. Writing helps me clarify my thoughts and when I post an excerpt from my life I am instantly gratified with the sense of having accomplished something, however small. It’s as though I’m pretending that raising my kids isn’t gratifying enough, that being entrusted with their lives isn’t responsibility enough, that shaping their characters isn’t the greatest challenge I have ever faced.
It’s as though I am trying to preserve some part of myself under the guise of chronicling my kids’ lives. How very humbling that is to see that in print.
“I, uh, I,” I stammered. “Actually, I, uh, just left my job…” and my words were trampled by someone else who thankfully interrupted our exchange to squeal over how much so-and-so had changed and how good it was to see her.
I felt ashamed of myself. Why didn’t I feel proud about my choice? For the rest of the evening I managed to avoid small talk in this direction and thought about ways that I should have responded when prompted.
Next time someone asks that question I’m going to tell them: “I’m on a semi-permanent sabbatical from my job so that I can try to enjoy the kids I chose to produce.”
Yeah. I’m still working on it.
OINKtales 
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