 |
Beloved cousins Sam, Grace & Issac Ellis sporting their Krispy Kreme hats with Spencer
Notice all the donuts are long gone. June 2010 |
On a lazy summer afternoon several years ago, I
watched as my two year old son Spencer raced from the kitchen to where I sat nursing
his brother Logan on the couch. He barely paused in front of me before tossing a
can of Spahettios into my lap (narrowly missing Logan’s head…sorry in advance
third child) while crying triumphantly, “I want donuts!” After reminding
Spencer once again that it was a family rule not to give our brothers
concussions, I picked up the can, registered the Chef Boy R. Dee symbol and laughing
said, “Oh Spencey, these aren’t donuts, these are noodles.” “NO!” He replied
stubbornly, shaking his red head from side to side for emphasis, then, pointing
to the picture of the yellow bloated circles on the front of the can, said, “DO-NUTS!” I traced the same picture with my finger and
with the air of authority borne from my reign as a parent said, “NOO-DLES.” Spencer sighed heavily (as if
to imply I was the most taxing person he’d ever been forced to reason with)
then he scrambled into my lap, (sorry once again third child) put his hands on
either side of my cheeks, pressed his forehead to my forehead and said slowly -one
dimple winking while he talked- “Help you me get the donuts mom?” I smiled,
said, “Ok,” stood and laid Logan on a blanket, then scooped that little boy
into my arms and carried him to the kitchen. I sat him on the counter top; his
little legs dangled over the edge banging against the cupboards like a
metronome while I foraged through the drawers for the can opener. Spencer clapped his hands when I found one and
watched fascinated as I slowly opened the can; but when I pried back the lid and
little Spence peered inside, anticipation wetting his perfect lips, Instead of
exuberance, betrayal register on his face as he starred at the watery red sauce;
then he looked at me, his mournful eyes filling with tears, his bottom lip
quivering as he reached his arms out for me to pick him up and kiss it all better,
to magically restore order from chaos. I gathered him into my arms, he burrowed
his head into the crook of my neck and after a moment of silent heaving cried
out on a broken sob, “But I wanted donuts!”
 |
| Logan eating celebratory "I just graduated from elementary school" noodles. June 2013 |
And this was the exact phrase I uttered (BUT I
WANTED DONUTS) as I pushed my way into the Costco bathroom in Henderson Nevada to
try to wash the orange vomit out of my hair; it was orange of course because
all Spencer had eaten that morning were items from the orange food group;
goldfish crackers, cheddar cheese chunks, (no pun intended) orange juice,
cheetos, orange crayons…the usual. So when on mile 357 of 853 he’d projectile
vomited from the backseat of the van like something out of the Poltergeist, and
since there was no Priest handy to perform an exorcism (he having willingly
jumped from the car at mile 103 of 853) I got the brunt of the vomit force
(which is similar to the Star Wars force, minus the light sabers). In case you were confused on the timeline, the
vomiting happened before Logan had gotten loose from his car seat and tried to
open the van door while we hurled along the freeway at 69 mph, but after Alex
had -in a fit of rage- thrown his hamburger patty at the windshield because it
had pickles on it, then cried out in frustration and threw his drink cup too
because he was mad he didn’t have anything to eat.
 |
Is that a full glass of aspertame filled Diet Dr. Pepper at 6:40 am for no special reason???
Oh Spencer...you are a boy after my own heart! October 2013 |
In Costco, (the closest building to the freeway exit) I cursed the day I ever thought taking a
road trip alone with three boys ages 2-5 would be a good idea. Keeping my boys
in the cart while I raced towards the bathroom was like trying to keep water in
a colander, they all but poured from the metal squares like shape shifters. They
wanted to sit on the riding lawn mowers I said “NO!!!” They wanted me to buy
them ice cream, I said, “NO!!” They wanted a stuffed dog the size of their father;
I said “NO!” They wanted spaghetti samples I said, “FINE” and handed them
little plastic cups of pasta, then Alex threw his spaghetti sample at Spencer
and Spencer threw his back at Alex and I said, “ENOUGH!!” Which made everybody
(including their mother) start to cry as we made our way into the bathroom.
Starring at my haggard, orange dye #40 stained form in the Costco bathroom mirror,
I wondered who this woman looking back at me was, certainly no one I recognized.
Spencer climbed out of the cart and slid under a bathroom stall, I didn’t even
try to stop him, I wordlessly grabbed wads and wads of paper towels and wetting
them started rubbing at my shirt, my hair, the side of my neck while Logan
continued to cry. “Cheer up little boy” I said over-cheerfully (and by over
cheerfully I mean maniacally), “We only have 488 miles left to go!” Then I may
have burst into tears. Again.
 |
| Mother's Day Ego waffels from a bear cub? Yes please! May 2013 |
Amidst my crying and Alex’s ranting about how hungry
he still was, a bathroom stall door opened and a sweet white haired lady emerged.
She stepped over Spencer’s jerking legs, walking calmly to the sink and while
turning on the water said, “You have the most beautiful children. They are exquisite!”
I confess at that moment I may have looked at her like she was speaking Cantonese
and I couldn’t quite process the words in my simple mind. Or certainly she must
have been being sarcastic, but she spoke with a tender sincerity that split me
apart. “You must be such a talented mother to be able to raise such fine sons” (And
cue stage left; Logan climbing into the sink and stepping directly into her stream
of water). “Would you mind” she continued, patting Logan on the head, “if I
gave them each a dollar to buy a treat?” She opened her purse and continued to
talk to me in low soothing tones, like one would talk to a skittish animal, or a
person standing on a ledge, “Energetic boys take so much work. I had energetic
boys when I was your age.” She pulled some dum dums, from her purse and asked,
“I just got these from the bank…could I give them to your beautiful boys?” Upon spying the candy, Spencer scrambled from
the germ infested floor and climbed back in the cart she was pointing to. Logan
(now soaking wet) climbed back into the cart and sat down too. “You are doing a
fantastic job. Don’t you think mommy is doing a good job boys?” She asked. The boys, who were busily unwrapping their
suckers, paused, looked up at her with wide, unblinking eyes and nodded
silently.” She finished drying her
hands, handed me the three dollars and said, “Don’t give up. This is the most
important thing you will ever do, and you’re doing it.”
 |
| Logan eyeballing a "succulent chocolate -no sprinkles mom-" donut. October 2013 |
Her words, balm to my soul, stayed with me the rest
of the day, and even still I can close my eyes and remember the way I was buoyed
up, re-inflated, soothed by a papery skin pat on the back; a catalyst of kindness
that enabled me to move forward. But I think even more than I needed her
soothing words on that long ago day in Costco (and I did) I needed the lesson
of how to respond to others in their moment’s of crisis even more. To contrast
the reaction of the Costco grandma, I offer the reaction of another mother,
during another moment of crisis (lets be honest I am in a state of constant
crisis. I have a lot of examples to
draw from). Fast forward six years into
the future to a Sunday afternoon in church; it was Mother’s Day in fact. Nothing
dramatic about the setting and honestly not even a crisis moment, we were just sitting
in a pew -and by sitting I mean flopping spinelessly, my boys flung like boneless
chicken cutlets against me- like any Sunday. Alex, A.K.A. Captain Autism,
continued to find the semantics of church -the crush of people, crying babies,
the prodding to sit up, be reverent, be still, whisper- to be overwhelming. He
has a hard time adjusting the volume of his voice (meaning he doesn’t) and was
upset and was expressing his frustration to Russ, who consequently had taken
him out of the chapel. I was sitting
with Spencer and Logan slumped against either side of me. Logan, also autistic,
spilled out even further onto the bench, crying, “I don’t know if you’ve
noticed mother, but I am dying of starvation here. Unless you want to carry a
corpse out of the church will you please find it in your heart to give me some
morsel of nourishment?” I was smiling at Logan, about to tassel his blond hair,
tell him I was proud of the way he had made it through the first two hours of
church without incident, tell him I had a string cheese in my purse, and a Hershey
kiss in my pocket and could he just try to be quite a few minutes longer? I was
thinking what a great Sunday it was turning out to be when I overheard the
clucking of the woman behind me. She was hissing into her husband’s ear “What
kind of mother lets her children behave this way in the House of the Lord? Hasn’t
she taught them anything? She is ruining them! I would be ashamed if I was her!”
 |
| Sam Ellis about the same age as Spencer when Spencer had his Aha moment.... Love this boy! June 2010 |
There’s a line from the Apocraypha that reads, “The stroke
of the whip maketh marks in the flesh; but the stroke of the tongue breaketh
the bones.” And in that moment my bones felt ground into a fine powder like an aphrodisiac
you would find at a Chinese herb shop –ground bone of guilt bound failure
mother- it’s very potent and in large supply. In this scenario I remember
feeling like all the air was let out of me. All the fight. All resolve to do
better, to try harder, to keep moving forward. I remember gathering up the scattered
books, the paper and pens, the boneless boys and leaving church before I could
get my Mother’s Day flower.
It has been said the greatest need of the human soul
is the need for kindness, and with Mother’s Day, now come and gone, I was
thinking about kindness, and the way we treat our fellow mothers and the way we
treat ourselves.
 |
| I love Grace's face in this pose... been there Grace (WHAT?!! THE DONUTS ARE ALL GONE!!) June 2010 |
Russ used to come home from football practice and he
would tell me about lining up against opposing players, he would paint a dismal
picture declaring, “The guy across from me had me by fifty pound and three
inches at least! I mean he was a monster!” “Were you scared?” I would wonder. “Nah,” Russ
would answer like a typical man, “I knew I could take him.” Men think differently
then woman, they compare strengths to strengths. If a woman was to line up toe to toe against
another woman they would immediately compare their perceived weakness against
another woman’s strengths and feel at once defeated; “Oh my gosh. Look at her
arms. Does she go to the gym every day? Her teeth are so white! She must not
drink Diet Dr. Pepper like its water? Her skin has such a healthy glow…I guess
she doesn’t have aspartame poisoning (curse you delicious Diet Dr. Pepper!!) Is
she wearing heels on the grass? I would break my ankle…” And sometimes I
confess, the person I am most critical of, the person who gives me the most angst,
the most guilt, the greatest pause for regret, remorse, sadness (shall I
continue?) is when I line up against my
reflection in the mirror. What the visitor behind me in church didn’t know is
that there wasn’t anything she could think of or say that I hadn’t already
thought of or said to myself.
But here’s the deal, this destructive pattern of
thinking -especially when extended to the lives of others- is never productive,
it never ends well and is not a club I want a membership in. To coin a phrase
from Oprah, here is what I know for sure: We are all on the same team so there’s
no need to line up against each other. Everyone has moments when they are drowning
in puddles of red sauce (which is especially hard to get out of white jerseys)
even (gasp!) those people perceived as being flawless and leading perfect pinterist
worthy lives. The truth is, you never know
what’s going on in someone else’s life, and you never will know unless you ask.
I believe the only way we will make it through this life with any degree of joy
is if we drop our stones so our hands can be free to lift up those hands that hang
down.
Like Spencer, I was shocked to learn the contents of
my can of motherhood were not the contents I was anticipating (and in truth NOBODYS ever is). But this life jammed packed and vacuum sealed
with noodles (when all that I ever wanted was donuts) has taught me that when all
else fails, love never does. Love makes everything taste like it’s covered in
glaze. Even Spaghettios.
 |
| MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM Nothing says LOVE like SUGAR! Feburary 2012 |
