But I Wanted Donuts!!

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