Terrible Mother

Fair and Safe

Monday morning, Thing One threw up at school so the secretary called me. Despite Ike's protests that vomiting wasn't that serious, I picked up the eldest monkey, took her home and spent the day with her. What became readily apparent was that she didn't have the flu--no fever or cough--and while her stomach was upset, she kept down soda and popsicles, and eventually a bagel. I could tell something was upsetting her by the way she stayed close all day, wanted to lay with me on the couch and watch me knit. Thing One is 8 the way other people are 21: she owns being that age and rules it with a kind of elementary-school confidence. So the mother need was unusual, though I thought it was likely just something more about the Girl Wars at school.

Then Tuesday night at dinner she broke. "Papa said he was going to marry Sara," she cried. "And that if Sara wants to, they'll adopt a baby."

There are a handful of times when I've been rendered speechless. This was one of them.

Thing One put her head down on her plate--empty because she had refused to eat much for the past two days--and sobbed. "Why does he need another baby?" she asked. "He has us. He has us."

There have been times when Things Two or Three get upset and cry about their dad, the divorce, any of it. And I've told myself that those times are hard because they lack the verbal acuity to voice their feelings. I realize now that isn't true. Watching Thing One grieve--she's the kid who, at 7, cried and said, "I want you to live together again, but I know you can't. And it makes me sad."--is a special kind of pain. I can't tell her everything will be alright because she knows better.

At the dinner table, I scooted my chair next to hers, put my arms around her. I rested my forehead on the back of her neck. At the nape her hair is still baby soft, thin and light and fragile. "I'm sorry," I said. It seemed like the only thing I could say that was true.

"I don't understand," she said. "He moved away from us."

"I know."

"If they adopt a baby, then it will get to see him more than I do. And he'll like it better than us. He won't be able to help it." Thing One's chest heaved when she talked and her body shook.

Right then I wanted to hurt John. I wanted to shake him hard. Look at this, I wanted to tell him. Look. This is what responsibility fucking looks like.

John didn't admit to saying anything at first, though now he says it was all a side comment, nothing important.

Last night, I asked him to switch weekends with me, since I have something going on in late April. He agreed, but noted that I would need to take them two weekends in a row. "Well," I said, "you'll be here Easter, so I'll get a break anyway."

He was quiet.

"Because you and Sara are taking them out, right?" Last year, when we were going through mediation and creating a parenting plan, he had argued to alternate Easters. This was because last year, when I asked if he wanted to come over for Easter, he snapped at me. "I'm an atheist," he said. "Why do I care about Easter?"

It was dig against Jon, who was in seminary. When I made plans for Easter that didn't include him, though, he was angry and then sad. So he wanted to alternate the holiday, argued for it in mediation. And now it's as though he can't remember why.

"I'll be there for a few hours," he said.

"I know. I'm just trying to calculate how I'm going to do this without a break for two weeks."

"Well, I'm not taking them three weekends in a row. That wouldn't be fair."

Fair. The word stuck. Fair. I had just asked him if he could manage to pick them up early that Friday in April, at 5:00 pm. He had sighed, said he'd have to check with his boss to see if he could get off early, but he wasn't sure, and wouldn't know until maybe that week. Fair. The word doesn't carry any meaning with me anymore. Does he want to talk about fair?

Nevermind that he does not pay for their prescriptions or doctors' visits, though he promised to, and Thing One's asthma medication runs $95 a month easy.

Nevermind that he does not help cover their soccer registration fees or uniform costs.

Nevermind that he does not pay child support on time.

Nevermind that he can drop emotional bombs like "I might marry Sara and adopt a baby" and then leave without having to deal with the repercussions.

Nevermind that he never shows up on time for his weekends.

It was then that I realized that 5:00 pm is the time he's supposed to pick them up. That's the agreement. That's in the stupid parenting plan we made. And he's broken it for months now because he gets off work later than that, sometimes as late as 8pm. What's worse is that it has become so regular that I've allowed him to redefine the terms so that 5:00 pm is early. I spend every other Friday driving up to Portland to drop them off, or I hire a sitter so I can go to a reading, and then I drive them up Saturday morning. He drops them off early on Sundays too sometimes. I get 48 hours of child-free time every two weeks, and even that he tries to cut in on. "I appreciate you being so flexible," he says frequently. And I fucking let him get away with all of it.

This is what I do. I wouldn't let my friends get away with this, even my male friends. If Friend R were to ever pull something as crappy as this, I'd box his cute little ears and then I'd be done with him. I never have to worry about this, though. My friends are loyal and good and kind. They take care of me and they take care of me well. But while I wouldn't tolerate such behavior from my friends, the men I'm either romantically involved with, or were, somehow get carte fucking blanche. And part of the reason is that they're sort of emotionally crippled or something. They always seem unaware of what they're doing or what they've done.

Fair.

The Nefarious Poet and I have been trying to repair our friendship, despite what happened at AWP. He said he wanted something "safe and manageable," and I missed him, missed just talking to him, missed that connection, the way he got me, understood me. So we started emailing. But his words stick the way John's do.

Safe? Safe? No one gets safe, NP. Who would want safe? No relationship, not even a simple friendship, is safe, let alone this one. And I don't want safe. It's not worth my goddamn time. And it isn't worth yours either.

Last weekend Tim-Tim told me, over dinner at an Italian place, that pouring anything more, even friendship, into the Nefarious Poet was useless. "He's like a piggy bank with the plug pulled out. Whatever you put in there isn't going to stick."

After NP sent me a photo of an ex-girlfriend making eyes at the camera for him, I began to see Tim-Tim was probably right. Like John, he doesn't know any better. It's fair and safe. Everything fair and safe. Fair and safe. Meanwhile, the balance goes on my account, it's my job to deal with the fallout, to deal with the repercussions, to hold up the illusion of fair and safe for these men. I can't do it anymore. And I don't want to.

*tm

(listening to a playlist which includes the not-oft combined "Irreplaceable," by Beyonce, "Chan Chan," from the Buena Vista Social Club Soundtrack, "Jackson," by Lucinda Williams, "Someone to Pull the Trigger," by Matthew Sweet, and "Black Sheep" by Martin Sexton, among others).

Remainder

Last night I helped Thing One finish her math homework. She's learning division, but they're still at the stage of using remainders. I had forgotten about remainders until I saw her mark one with a capital R. I miss them. They make more sense now. When did we start to think we could figure everything out, carry something down to the last digit, the 1000th place or the 1000000th place?

It never works. There are always remainders.

"What's zero, really?" she asked, halfway through.

"It's not really a number," I said. "It's an idea."

"What does that mean?"

"It shows absence. It symbolizes what isn't there."

Thing One thought about this for a minute. "Yeah," she said. "Like it's a circle around nothing. Like, 'look, here's nothing!'" She laughed.

I nodded. I thought about the Chudnovsky brothers who built their own computer to calculate pi. When I last read about them, they had calculated out 2 billion places, with still no pattern found, no final number. There has always been something strangely comforting to me about that, about them. The faith it takes to keep going. The fact no end is in sight.

"I like the remainders," I said.

But Thing One had already gone on to the next idea. "Zero is like tomorrow. Like the word tomorrow."

"What?" I said.

"Tomorrow is an idea, too," she said. "So it's like zero. There isn't a real tomorrow. You never get there."

Remember how I was all "Thing One isn't as smart as I was, wah-wah-wah"?

Now? Now I have to DESTROY her!

*tm

The Gloves Are Off

I finally snapped regarding the First Name School, the place where Things One and Two attend. Thing Two, as you may have remembered, had a bus incident earlier in the year, and I've been trying to get some response from the school. But mostly, I've been overworked, overwhelmed, trying to deal with parenting three kids, launching a freelance career, and working a full-time straight job.

But yesterday, Thing Two brought home another bus referral, which is a form indicating his misbehavior on the bus. They want to suspend him from taking the bus for 10 days. While reading the referral, I realized that the bus driver had no idea Thing Two is autistic despite the fact we requested special transportation for him at the beginning of his Kindergarten year. At that time, the school deemed it "unnecessary," though now it seems it is. He's autistic and is bothered by ambient noise. So getting on the bus after a full day of school, a noisy bus, and spending 45 minutes on said bus? It's a recipe for disaster.

At the same time, Thing Two did misbehave. So my attitude is to find a workable solution. Still, I've gotten nothing, nothing, from the First Name School. Nothing but dismissals.

I'm fuming. And I'm ready to box now.

*tm

Bribery en Tableaux

Last week, Thing Two’s after school program called Monday. Thing Two was running a fever of 100 and was tired, had spent the afternoon laying on the couch. I had the day off (President’s Day. Government employment has its pros and cons. So putting up with a boss who tends to channel Ike Turner is sometimes offset by the fact I don’t have to work holidays like National Watermelon Day), so I picked up Thing Two early.

He was cranky and when I took his temperature at home, it was 99 degrees, otherwise known as the Single Mother’s Official You’re Going to School Anyway Temperature. I contemplated calling in on Tuesday; after all, I had the time off accumulated. And Thing Two was on the cusp of being legitimately too sick for school. The borderline fever, the crankiness, the cough.

But the potential consequences were high. We had an important event on Thursday at work and my coworker Kick-Ass Receptionist was in Chicago and there wasn’t anyone else to cover our job. If I had called off, I would have felt the repercussions for weeks, and they would have sucked, and sucked mightily.

I wanted to stay home with Thing Two. Sick days are one of the few times I get to spend one-on-one time with the Things, and part of me looks forward to them, looks forward to the quiet days, the doling out of comfort and spoonfuls of cough syrup and the afternoons spent curled on the couch watching movies. But the truth is that I’ve been moderately harassed about staying home, and I worry about losing this job, about losing the benefits and pay I’ve lined up for myself. The things I need to keep to just maintain a safety net. So I did what any single mother in my situation would do. I resorted to bribery.

“If you go to school every day this week,” I told Thing Two, “I’ll buy you a Tamagotchi.” Thing Two lost his Tamagotchi about six weeks ago, and has been pining for one ever since, so the moment I said it, I knew I was golden. Thing Two agreed, and the next morning, I dosed him with children’s cold medicine and layered him in clothing.

We made it through the week, and Thing Two managed through. His fever never went over 99, and while he was a bit cranky, he adopted a stoicism born of meeting his goal and soldiered through with phrases like, “two more days!”

This is the place where I'd normally make some political statement, and I'd raise my fist in Single Mother Anger, but I'm sorta "feh" about it today. Okay, so I bribed my kid, spread germs all over, and all I can muster is some vague sense of "oh bite me, Life." Not even an exclamation point at the end of that.

Yes, I know. I know. If there’s ever an Internet award for the most boring mother, I’d win. Hands down.

*tm

Miscellany: The Love Edition

December 2005:

Jon took me out for a birthday dinner and Christmas celebration where we had planned on exchanging gifts. I had picked my favorite Thai food place—the one with the complicated cocktails called “Thai Me Up,” and “Phuket Passion”—and we were both dressed nicely, happy to see each other.

For some reason, though, we decided to exchange gifts in the car before going in. Maybe we knew something, sensed something, because this proved to be a good choice. Jon gave me my gift first. That is, to say, he reached behind the seat and pulled out a stuffed animal (unwrapped!) then handed it to me. “Happy Birthday.” Long pause. “And Merry Christmas!”

It was a stuffed cheetah. With a garish pink bow around its neck. I momentarily considered tying it around Jon’s.

But before you collectively string Jon up, you should know that I then handed him my gift. Perfectly wrapped with thick blue paper covered with embossed silver snowflakes and tied with glittery ribbon, it made a pretty picture.

Then he opened it. I had given him two books. Two literary books. “These were my favorite books this year,” I said proudly.

One of those books was on the Rwandan genocide. Because you know nothing says “I love you, Merry Christmas!” like a book on the Rwandan genocide. The Rwandan fucking genocide.

We both sat in the car for a full minute, staring at the peculiar gifts in our laps, wondering at them like an archeologist might wonder at some newly discovered specimen of invertebrate.

Yes, it might have been a sign. Probably several. One of which is definitely that no one should ever have to date me.

*****

Today, on a marquee of an adult video store called Imagine That!:

“Back Door Outlet Store”

I nearly drove my car into the median.

*****

My high school sweetheart, Olney, and I regularly broke up during the three years we dated. Often it would happen right before a formal dance. Which seems rather suspect, especially as I go through the dances I went to, the dresses I bought, and I realize we never attended one together. Highly suspect!

Regardless, on one such occasion, my friends and I were planning an elaborate dinner party for eight before the dance when Olney and I broke up two days before. “This is crap,” I said. “I’m going to find another date.” My friends were incredulous, but I did.

I took the butcher.

The night before the dance, my friend Nicole and I were buying some complicated red meat product, when the butcher (who was 22 and cute) asked what it was for. We explained, he flirted with me, I flirted back (as I am wont to do), and once I explained my predicament, he offered to escort me to said dance.

I distinctly remember doing some sort of jump-for-joy in the cereal aisle of Fry’s afterwards*.

The night of the dance, though, all of my friends had convinced me, during the hours of hair construction and makeup application and shoe discussion, that there was no way The Butcher would show. But show he did.

The other guys were in the front room of my house (my parents had taken my brothers out so that we’d have the space to ourselves) when The Butcher showed up. They all made small talk while I sent the other girls out to do a little recon. “Find out what he’s wearing,” I said. “And what kind of car he’s driving.”

Nicole and Tiffany conducted said recon, then came back with the goods: He had brought a dozen beautiful roses and was smartly dressed in a new shiny suit (this was 1990 people). But there was one detail that was too much. When Tiffany whispered, “Camaro” to me, I was overcome, and yelled out “CAMARO!” with the same joy the anunciador yells GOAL at a futbol match. Sadly, at that exact moment The Butcher was telling the other guys: “I hate it when girls just like me for my car.”

Then they all looked down the hallway where we girls were whooping like we’d hit the lottery.

*****

This is the place where the secret blog entry would go. If I had a secret blog. Which I don’t. So there.

*****

Me: I need help.

Friend R: Okay. With what?

Me: Don’t laugh.

Friend R: It’s that bad?

Me: I want help buying underwear.

Friend R: What?

Me: I want help buying underwear. Picking out cute underwear.

(long pause)

Me: What?

Friend R: I was just going to ask if you really needed a support system for buying
underwear. But then I realized you did.

Me: Happy now?

Friend R: Yes. Let’s go. And I’m making you go to the sword store!

*****

In the car, a few months ago, as we drove through Salem near where Jon lives:

Thing One: Why did you and Jon break-up?

Me: It’s complicated, Thing One.

Thing One: Why is it complicated? Didn’t you guys love each other?

Me: Yes, but sometimes things just don’t work out.

Thing One: Why?

Me: You’ll understand when you’re older.

Thing One (gently, and with great care): Do you understand?

*****

Months ago, on a marquee of yet another adult video store:

“Now we have gift cards! Buy some for Christmas!”

Because, certainly if a book on the Rwandan genocide says Merry Christmas, you can say it about 10 times better with a gift card from a porn shop: “Let’s celebrate Jesus’ birthday! Here’s a gift card so you can buy yourself some glitter lube!”

*****

An email from Kari:

Every girl worries about the first date and all that. It’s natural.

And if she doesn’t, then I hate her already.

---

And finally, an old IM I found between Friend Omega (who became convinced that what I needed was a good sex rebound post-separation instead of dating anyone aka Jon) and I, circa 2005 about love, marriage, sex and fucking:

Friend Omega: Damn it TM why didn't you wait until you'd gotten dick like I said?

Terrible Mother: From whom?

Friend Omega: Anyone!

Terrible Mother: Well, I have been flirting with this grad student in the English department.

Friend Omegas: NO GRADUATE STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON, TM!

Terrible Mother: I thought it was just for sex!

Friend Omega: NO!

Terrible Mother: And really, if it's a grad student, it doesn't count as sex. I'm pretty sure about this.

Friend Omega: Maybe, maybe, a graduate pharmacology major.

Terrible Mother: A pharmacology major?

Friend Omega: But English, Creative Writing, these sorts of things? No.

Terrible Mother: I'm not talking about marriage! I'm talking about SEX!

Friend Omega: I know what you're talking about. If you were talking about marriage, that'd be okay.

Terrible Mother: What? Why?

Friend Omega: Because marriage doesn't involve awkward avoiding-eye-contact moments until YEARS after the fact. Sometimes months, but months we can work with. Hours are tricky.

Terrible Mother: but you typically HAVE SEX sometime in marriage.

Friend Omega: No you don't.

Terrible Mother: I know this. I once had sex in marriage. That was a long time ago, though. I think The Spice Girls were still together.

Friend Omega: You had “married-sex.” You made love.

Terrible Mother: Shut up, Omega.

Friend Omega: “What are you making for the bake sale, TM?"
"Love."

Terrible Mother: I don’t see your point, frankly.

Friend Omega: My point is that one night of naked debauchery makes for awkwardness the whole year round, not just at holidays like marriage does. Marriage is sustained debauchery.

Terrible Mother: is that what you're calling it now?

Friend Omega: Marriage is bauchery.

Terrible Mother: I knew you were typing that.

Friend Omega: You knew because I hit "Enter" and it showed you. That's no trick. You're no David Copperfield.

Terrible Mother: Well, you're no Siegfried and Roy!

(long pause)

Terrible Mother: Oh. Well…

*tm

*Before Fry’s became the individually-themed-mega-computer and home store, it was a grocery store. In Lodi and Stockton. No, I’m not kidding.

Listened to "Chan, Chan" from the Buena Vista Social Club soundtrack while writing this.

Secrets and Lies

Most of my friends, at some point or another in the past year, have asked me to start a second blog. A secret blog. “So I can get all the inside dirt on the people you never write about.” If this sentence were to continue, the ending clause would read something like “except when you’re tipsy at McMenamin’s after a reading and we’ve gotten you to say what you really think*” And because it would save them time pestering me for long emails, which I’ve been neglecting the past few months.

Of course, none of these friends ever thinks about the possibility that he or she would be a subject in the secret blog at some point, which would force me to have a secret blog which no one could read (also known as, at least pre-2001, a “journal” or sometimes a “diary”), or I’d have to write numerous secret blogs where I’d keep track of who had access to which and when, and in the annals** of which I’d construct many a clever sobriquet, things that would not be easily googled or attributed.

I’m getting tired just thinking about it.

And there’s plenty of my life that doesn’t get mentioned here (and probably more than one person is squinting at the screen right now, hoping I don’t mention Friend X or Friend Q and what he or she did, and when). But the truth is that my secrets aren’t what you’d expect.

Last week, I listened to a voicemail from Thing One and Thing Two’s after-school care center. I knew the call would come eventually and was dreading it. I knew it because I’ve fallen so behind in paying the monthly tuition, thousands of dollars behind. Thing Three’s pre-school tuition is $144 a week, and that adds up quickly to a pretty good chunk of change, and I cover that every month, more or less, and then send a little towards the other care center***, which runs about $450 or so a month. Every month, the center sends me an email saying they’ve transferred the amount to my university account, and every month I delete that email as quickly as I can. I hate thinking about it.

But there was Christmas, Thing One’s expensive asthma medication, her glasses, groceries and gas and the electricity bill from the cold months, the days I missed work without pay (a snow day, a few sick kid days) so the tuition, it got away from me, despite my best efforts. John hasn’t shared the medical costs like he promised, nor come through on his smallish child support. So I’ve been stuck. I’ve muddled through the best I can, but that effort isn’t always enough anymore.

So when I listened to the center’s accounts manager, I knew what it was about before she finished, knew I’d reached the end of my bad-credit rope. At the same time, I knew my hefty tax return was on the way, money I was counting on to catch up, at last, to buy spring and summer clothes for the kids, a few niceties for myself, and to fund my short trip to AWP. All I needed was to make it to the tax return and I’d be home free. Or close enough to breathe a little, finally.

The accounts manager told me, on the voicemail, that if I didn’t come up with a significant payment, Things One and Two would be cut off from care starting the first of March. I begin dialing her number, slowly, though I dreaded it. Partly I dreaded it because to admit you’re broke hurts. We’re not supposed to talk about money, especially not in polite conversation. But it cut to something deeper than that. Admitting I couldn’t foot my own kids’ bill meant I might not be responsible. I might not be a decent provider. I might not be a good mother.

I stopped dialing. The thought of owning up to the debt, calling her and doing it, even though I could shortly pay her, made me feel ashamed. The same way I felt when two friends, in the past few months, lent me money, significant amounts. One friend sent me money by Western Union just hours after I admitted I had nothing in my checking account, 1/8 a tank of gas, no milk in the house, and a paycheck still a week away. My cheeks burned as the cashier counted out bills, laid the fifties and twenties in a neat little stack at my hands. But I bought cereal and grapes and milk, put gallons of gas into my car. And with my typical humor, I joked to my friend that I was sorry, but I’d gambled all his money on a pony named “Lil’ Britches.”

I tucked the phone away. I was on my lunch hour and had errands to run, but instead drove east, out of the city, into the mountains that edge Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

If I was going to fix this now, with the accounts manager, I’d not only have to call her, but I’d have to call the university’s accounts office too, and explain why I had fallen so behind. Does it matter that I knew I had a lock-tight excuse? Recent divorce, three kids, a new job, ex not paying child support? The only way I could have made it better is if I said one of the kids was a leper.

But I still thought I should be able to pull it off by myself, that it said something about me, about my character, if I couldn’t.

Last night, Thing One laid in my bed, coughing with the cold she’s caught, when she mentioned her classmates’ projects. I was proud of Thing One’s oral report—the kids were to think of a topic along the theme of “Land and Water”—and the work she put into it. The First Name School gives an inordinate amount of homework (Thing One routinely does 45 minutes to an hour a night), and this oral report was in addition to that. Between the kids’ homework, Thing Two’s speech therapy, making dinner, washing and folding laundry, baths and books, it was near impossible to get that stupid oral report done. I enlisted the help of Fort Awesome, who spent an afternoon at the library with Thing One, helping her research hurricanes, how they form, where they hit, the damage they do. And I was proud of this, that Fort Awesome was helping, but also proud of the fact I spent the entire time playing puppets with Things Two and Three without getting bored while Fort Awesome and Thing One worked. Proud that Thing One was smart but also inquisitive, that she thought of the topic herself, that she was using it as a means to bring up Hurricane Katrina (and mention her dislike for President Bush and his policies, heh).

Then last night, Thing One mentioned the four parents who, that day in class, told the teacher their kids would need a computer set up for their oral reports. Because they were giving PowerPoint presentations.

Third graders. One of whom is going to give her oral report (replete with PowerPoint slides, natch) on that very elementary topic continental drift.

I called Fatally Hip Mrs. Friend Two to rant about the First Name School, the Coterie of Married Mothers there, and my general malcontent.

She said, “I think learning PowerPoint is good for kids.”

What the fuck, I thought. Doesn’t she get it? She’s a single mother. Fuck me.

“Well I don’t,” I snapped.

“Why?”

“It isn’t fair! It isn’t fair that those parents did all that work for their kids!”

“Of course it isn’t fair,” she added. “I just don’t think it’s all about that.”

Then I started crying. “I hate this,” I said.

These are the moments where I see all the work I’ve done to hold this together, all the effort it takes, all the time and energy, and I feel despondent. The threadbare, stretched-thinnedness of everyday life is hard to look at, especially when it costs so much to maintain. And if I’m honest with myself, it wasn’t just that I hated the barely veiled competitive nature of the parents, and their lackluster ways of showing it (will anyone ever think of a way to be competitive that doesn’t involve doing some assignment for her kid?), it was also that I couldn’t compete on that level. It wasn’t fair they did the work, but the thing that hurt was that I didn’t have anywhere near the resources to do what they did. Who has three hours to sit and make a goddamned PowerPoint on continental drift for their 8-year old?

I hate admitting that, too. Hate it as much as admitting I’m broke.

A secret: I haven’t sent, even written, a letter to the First Name School about Thing Two’s bus incident. The day after it happened, the principal turned on his heels when he saw me, walked quickly away, then closeted himself in his office. His secretary took care of me. I felt dismissed, excused. It’s the way I’ve felt the last 18 months there.

In second grade, Thing One’s reading and math scores were abysmal. “Her father and I just separated,” I told her teacher. “I think that might have something to do with it.”

I can’t remember what her teacher said, but she used the same kindly dismissive tone month after month. Thing One was distracted, couldn’t concentrate, her scores fluctuated wildly. Second grade ended with her scores low, and Thing One being convinced she wasn’t that smart. Over the summer, the school sent a tutor to help her with her reading, and I looked into vision therapy for her, though I couldn’t afford it then.

This year, her teacher suggested Thing One should perhaps be tested for special ed services, jumped more firmly on the bandwagon when she learned her brother was autistic. “We just moved,” I said. “Her dad and I were just divorced. She’s had a rough couple of years.”

I’m not sure she even heard me.

Last night, Thing One’s report card came home. In every area, she met the expectations, except in a few of the reading areas. In those, she exceeded the expectations. A note was included, detailing her performance. It said Thing One was expected to surpass grade-level benchmarks in most of the areas by the end of the year. This past week, she picked up a 5th-grade level book and started reading it without a problem.

I kissed Thing One’s head, told her she had done well. I was happy, proud of her. No, that’s a lie. I was angry, too. I told Friend One later, on the phone, “I hate the way that school makes me feel, how they dismissed me. Two years. I kept saying the same thing. They have a full-time behavioral specialist. Why didn’t I tell them to send Thing One to his office? Why didn’t they think of it?”

Friend One asked me what it was I wanted.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Friend One was quiet, an unusual state for her. Usually when she's quiet she's either angry or asleep. Sometimes both.

“I mean, all that worry I had. They didn’t help me. It didn’t matter what I said. They didn’t help Thing One.”

“What is it you want?”

“I want a fucking apology.” I said.

This is true in one sense, and when I said it last night, it hurt. But it’s also true that I want an apology for being forced to face the fact I wanted a daughter who was as smart as I was when I was 7 or 8. That I only know one kind of smart, and I don’t know how to gauge or value the rest very well. Maybe I deserve to be dismissed, I had thought. I’m afraid if I write that letter, they’ll dismiss me again.

Out in the hillsides, that was what I feared when I thought of calling the accounts manager. I don’t want to be thought of as just another irresponsible parent. A single mother. A welfare queen****. I wanted to shake the accounts manager, say I’m trying so she’d know I meant it, so she’d understand how much work I was doing.

What to say? Another secret? I called her back, of course. At the end of the day, I’ll only abdicate responsibility for so long. I hated the way she started the conversation, the way, when I explained the situation (sans leper child), I could hear the pity in her voice. So I did something unusual for me. I stopped her and said as gently as I could, “I don’t need you to apologize. I just want you to help me find a workable solution.” The pity dried up. She was kind to me, helpful even. Not dismissive.

And, you know, I think I feel that strongly worded email coming on.*****

*tm

*As if that requires the consumption of alcohol on my part.

**No, it isn’t that word. Perverts.

***The Things Three attend two different care centers, something I hope to change this summer.

****The only kind of welfare I ever received was food stamps, and man do I miss those sometimes.

****Listened to The Postal Service’s version of “Against All Odds” while I wrote this, and God Damn, it rocks.

Conversations I've Recently Had, All of Which Ended with Me Saying "Motherfuck"

Tim-Tim and me after a Saturday night of cooking, child-wrangling and bribery (as it pertained to getting the Things to eat eggplant) together:

Me: That was a lot of work. Thanks for helping me with the dishes.

Tim-Tim: You're welcome. But yeah, the Things were a little wound up tonight.

Me: One thing's for sure. I'm never introducing them to any man I'm dating until I have a ring on my finger.

Tim-Tim: Well, you should probably super-glue it on first.

******

IM'ing with Fort Awesome:

Me: Way Too Bashful to be a Republican told me to tell you hi. He's a sweet guy.

Fort Awesome: Who voted for Bush twice.

Me: Nobody's perfect, Fort Awesome.

Fort Awesome: Right. Did you know Hitler was great with animals and small children?

Me: I hate when you say that. Anyway, I have poet gossip.

Fort Awesome: You do?

Me: Yeah. I heard that This Famous Poet likes to get it on in a specific bathroom in a specific fast food restaurant in a specific city. Isn't that gross?

Fort Awesome: Nobody's perfect, TM.

*****

Friend Omega: I have my first Obama campaign meeting tonight.

Me: Cool. I'd love to work with him.

Friend Omega: Hey, if I get hired to Obama's White House, will you be the Donna to my Josh?

Me: I would be the Donna to your Josh.

Friend Omega: But not annoying like Donna.

Me: What? But I want to be annoying like Donna. Will you do that thing that Josh does, where he pretends to get flustered?

Friend Omega: I don't pretend. I actually get flustered.

Me: Can you make it cute?

Friend Omega: No. And anyway, my boss won't make the stupid bank deposit. Call him and say something, would you?

Me: Would Donna?

Friend Omega: No. She'd have some very annoying parallel to draw about it. Like "I didn't give you the change for your sandwich because you'd spend it wrong, like you say people would do with their taxes." Stupid girl.

Me: But then why would you want me to be her? This is a very confusing scenario.

Friend Omega: I want you to fulfill her role, not to actually take on her characteristics.

Me: I see. So we would just banter for years and carry on a mostly sexless relationship for others to appreciate?

(pause)

Friend Omega: Maybe this would work better if you were the Sam to my Toby.

*tm

Goddamn First Name School

Yesterday, Thing Two showed up at his after school child care center. He ran into the lobby, red-faced and sweaty, breathing hard. He was trembling. He told the shocked staff, "I ran all the way here and I didn't get killed by a car."

Thing Two takes the bus from school to the after care center every day, and somehow he didn't get on the bus yesterday. What we think happened is that he walked three houses down from the school with one of his friends, then realized he missed the bus. There's some confusion over what happened next, but apparently his friend's dad let him walk to the child care center by himself.

Thing Two should have gone back to school and had them call the after care center, but he thought the school was already closed and the teachers had gone home. He thought, essentially, that he had to make it to the after care center on his own.

Which he did, although last night he told me four times, four, "I didn't get hit by a car, Mom. I didn't die. I crossed the street okay." He had to cross a couple of intersections with some traffic, and that scares me to death, but he did it.

This morning, the First Name School's staff didn't apologize. In fact, their policy is to not walk kids to the bus. The kids are responsible for getting themselves where ever they need to be, whether that's on the bus, the YMCA van, or the correct adult. Even the first graders. Even the autistic first graders. They contend that Thing Two broke the rules, and while it's terrible that he walked by himself, he should have gotten on the bus.

I think I feel a strongly worded email coming on.

*tm

A Belated New Year's

Friend Two and Singing Love stopped by my house last week, fruit basket (replete with grapes, citrus and biscotti) and bottle of wine (Zinfandel) in hand. I had just put the Things Three down, so was more than happy to let them in. “We’re here to celebrate New Year’s with you,” said Singing Love. “We know you didn’t get to go out or really celebrate.”

This is true, of course. Part of being a single parent to three children is that a: the opportunities for fun activities like drinking, pool and sexual congress are limited; and b: almost all opportunities require the hiring of a sitter; and c: even the hiring of a sitter will only get you drinking and pool. Sexual congress is almost always out of the question unless the cherubs are with their other parent, or at a friend’s house, or you sexual congress away in the back of a Subaru, which is sophomoric and lame. And I know. Because I’ve done it.

Point being that Singing Love was right. My New Year’s Eve consisted of homemade pizza, Cranium Cadoo, and repeated viewings of The Justice League and A Series of Unfortunate Events, followed by much gnashing of teeth as each of the Things approached exhaustion. Libations with names like “Mango-Licious-Panty-Dropper,” or drunken female dancing to “I Will Survive,” were nowhere to be found. So, a few days later, I was more than happy to let Friend Two and Singing Love in, sit them in my kitchen, and pull down the dusty wine glasses.

We sat around one end of my table, sampling grapes from the fruit basket, and drinking the wine. We talked. And talked. Thirty minutes in, we had finished the first bottle of wine, so I pulled out a second, a Shiraz* I was keeping around. We drank that while Singing Love and I discussed politics and then sex. Friend Two became very interested, suddenly, in the fruit basket, finding the price tag and tearing it off before settling on picking lint out of the cotton lining.

We were flush with the wine and conversation, so when Singing Love asked us to come outside while she had a cigarette, we agreed. Yes it was freezing. Yes it was black and dark and, yes, I have no real porch, only a carport in front of my cute 50’s ranch house. But we bundled up anyway and headed outside.

I let Friend Two and Singing Love out first, then stepped out onto the front steps, shut the door behind me. And then it clicked. Locked out.

“Guys,” I said. “We’re locked out.”

Singing Love started laughing. And then I did. I thought of calling my landlord at 11:45 on a weeknight to ask for a key. Irish Landlord is cute and an older hipster, with two teenage daughters, and I am halfway smitten with him. But I have it on authority that such cries for help to the cute older landlord can lead either to the altar or an eviction notice. Since I want neither at the moment, I decided that was a no-go.

Friend Two was nonplussed at our laughter. “Just get the extra key,” he said.

I shook my head. No extra key.

“Alright, which window should I get into?” .

“They’re locked.”

“What? They’re all locked?”

“I’m a single mother with three kids! Of course they’re all locked!”

Friend Two sighed, audibly. This was akin to his version in Hell: 20 minutes of your best friend and girlfriend engaging in tipsy sex banter, followed by getting locked out of a house in the freezing cold with no open windows, followed by said best friend and girlfriend laughing uncontrollably, probably at your expense, and being not at all helpful.

It was then that the genius idea hit me. “I can bang on a window and wake up one of the kids.”

Friend Two and Singing Love considered this for a moment, and then Friend Two walked to a window, tried to pry it open. This is because he loves the Things, and he didn’t want to take part in a mission that might frighten any one of them.

Singing Love looked at him, then turned to me. “Let’s do it,” she said. Not because she doesn’t love my kids, I’m sure, but because she wanted back in.

It should be noted here that I knew it would scar whichever kid I woke up. But I also knew that there was no other reasonable way to get into the house. My windows are new and I make sure they’re always locked. Irish Landlord, while sweet and kind, would not appreciate being roused from his bed late on a weeknight, and I didn’t even have his number on me since my cell phone was, of course, locked in the house.

This is the essence of parenting. Sure, sure, our generation has a plethora of parenting magazines to choose from. We can read, in minute detail, how to pick toys to encourage the development of language, music or mathematical skills in our Max. We can read about the newest teaching philosophies, decide if our Emma would do better in Montessori or Waldorf. We can even read about birth options, debate on epidurals and waterbirths, to our little pregnant heart’s content. But I’ve yet to read an article that has been able to delineate wisdom on how to solve the small crises parents face on a regular basis. Crises that involve the everyday minutiae that is parenting: the half-life of dirty laundry, the mind numbing repetition of diaper-feeding-diaper-sleep; the months where even sex seems impossible under the weight of all that tedium. Crises that involve a constant battle of choices, the weighing of options and costs against your kid’s well-being, against yours. Crises, in other words, that involve two bottles of wine and a set of keys on the wrong side of a locked door.

Singing Love and I went to the back gate and Friend Two soon joined us. We pried it open (it helped when Friend Two suggested, quite lucidly, “Maybe we should open it with the hinges, instead of against.” Ho, ho. He’s a funny one.). We decided that I’d go do the dirty deed (since I’m the one the one the Things Three know the best), while Singing Love and Friend Two would stay by the front door.

My bedroom enjoys a cornered window that looks out into the verdant backyard. Thing Two and Thing Three were both asleep in my room. Thing Three, being five, still sleeps with me, as she’s done since her dad and I split. And every once in awhile, Thing Two pulls up camp and heads into the Terrible Mother den. This was one of those nights where they were both in my room, and as I watched them through the window, I thought it was good they were both there. Less chance of long-lasting fear.

Let me say this. If my house were ever on fire, I think the Things Three would sleep right through the alarm. Because I banged on that damn window for 3 or 4 minutes, yelling even, “WAKE UP!” to no response. None. Unless you count Thing Three snoring, which I don’t.

“Wake up!” I yelled, and this time, I flattened my palm and hit the glass, hard. Thing Two sat up.

“It’s Mom!” I said. “Thing Two, it’s Mom! Let me in.”

Thing Two looked at me for a moment. He considered me the way one might consider an exotic animal you happen upon at the zoo. There was a moment of recognition. Then he rolled over and went back to sleep.

“Thing Two!” I yelled.

He covered his head with his pillow.

This was not going as expected. I had been prepared to cash in scarring of children in exchange for a ticket into the warm house. But I hadn’t been prepared for the wanton disregard of my well being by Thing Two. I put my forehead against the glass.

I tried once more, this time with my effort aimed at the youngest. “Thing Three,” I yelled, “wake up!” I banged on the window and this time, Thing Three opened her eyes. She looked at me. Then she started crying.

“It’s Mom!” I said for the umpteenth time. “Open the front door.”

Thing Three, to her credit, chose a different route than her sibling. She pulled the covers over her head and hid.

So, to recap: one child annoyed and asleep, one child crying and traumatize, three adults locked outside. Thing One was the only kid I hadn’t tried to rouse yet, and I wasn’t about to take that tack. Who knows what response that kid, the kid who loves politics and sushi and knitting like any 8-year old going on 28 does, would’ve come up with.

“Thing Three. Go to the front door.”

Wailing.

“Please! Let me in.”

Keening, followed by the thrashing of bed linens.

At that moment, Friend Two and Singing Love must have realized what was happening, because they started knocking on the front door. Thing Three sat up. She screamed at me, then she ran into the front room, and let Friend Two and Singing Love in.

And what were her first words to her saviors? “There’s a scary woman outside.”

*tm

*How do you know this is written by a thirty-something, Oregon hipster? I don’t say “white” or “blush” or “red.” I say “Shiraz” and “Zinfandel.” And it was only through heroic restraint that I kept from including the winery and year.

Rewrite: The Tooth Fairy

Last night, Friend Omega and I had a conversation about the Tooth Fairy. You can read his version here. And then read mine:

Terrible Mother: Thing Three lost a tooth today.

Omega: Yeah?

Terrible Mother: Yeah. So she was all excited about the Tooth Fairy.

Omega: Oh God. Tell me you don't do the Tooth Fairy thing.

Terrible Mother: Of course I do. Why?

Omega: You tell her that some mutant fairy breaks into her room and steals her body parts? It's awful.

Terrible Mother: Body parts? It's just a tooth!

Omega: What, does she hang out at the leper colony after hours?

Terrible Mother: Do they even still have leper colonies? Who has leper colonies any more?

Omega: It's disgusting, TM. I mean, where did this story even come from?

Terrible Mother: When Thing One was little, she asked me what the Tooth Fairy did with the teeth. And I was a little caught off guard, so I made something up.

Omega: What did you say?

Terrible Mother: I said she built her house with them.

Omega: THAT'S HORRIBLE!

Terrible Mother: What was I supposed to say? I made up more about it. How she used the canines for fence posts.

Omega: This is awful. Some fairy thing is going to break into my house* and steal my body parts. And how do you even assign monetary value to the tooth? Do you set a market price with other parents? Do you have to check with Billy's dad to see if he gets a dollar a molar?

Terrible Mother: My kids all get a dollar a tooth.

Omega: A dollar a tooth! That's insane!

Terrible Mother: Inflation, Omega. Inflation.

Omega: If my parents had given me a dollar a tooth, I'd have knocked out all my teeth!

Terrible Mother: That's because you have to over do everything.

Omega: A dollar a tooth! I might just do it right now to see what happens.

*tm

*Omega was really upset by the breaking and entering part of the equation, for some reason.