Some days are better than others

Some days I am on top of the laundry, and some days the laundry is on top of me.

Some days a blog post comes to me fully formed in the shower. Some days I have to hiccup it out like a cat barfing.

Some days I go for a run or do a whole exercise video and then saute kale for lunch. Some days I stop after five minutes and have a muffin instead.

Some days my children climb trees and run outside and I show them how to make leaf rubbings, and feed them meals that have components from each of the food groups. Some days they sit in front of the TV for too long and get a waffle and five frozen peas for dinner.*

Some days I am fired up with efficiency, and the kitchen is clean and the dentist appointments are scheduled and the new season's clothes are sorted and I am superwoman.

Some days I'm not.


I think the key is not to give up after one - or many in a row - of the off days. Just keep swimming.

*Obviously, I'm talking about Mabel here. For Dash, eating from all the food groups means a peanut-butter sandwich and a juice box.

Inter-

We went to the theatre a while ago, my husband and I. Say it the posh way, thee-ate-er. We left the children in the capable hands of a babysitter and took our cue to pretentiously discuss Beckett and Joyce on the metro into town. We even had a drink before the show. We'd never have had the audacity to book ourselves tickets for something like that - a real play, at night, in the city, no less - but we'd won the tickets so we had to go.

It's been so long since I've been to a live production of anything other than a tantrum being thrown that I'd forgotten all the things that make theatre such a different experience from a movie, even though on the face of it you might think they're much the same. This was a great example, though: a very intimate production, in the round, so that watching the audience opposite us react was as much part of the play as watching the actors. And being so close to the protagonists that you could reach out and touch them as they went by (if you wanted to; of course, I would never do such a thing) and admiring the grace and speed with which the actors moved the sets and props around between scenes, like a dance.

I love those moments when they're between selves; they're not quite in character yet, but they're about to be. The curtain call is the same, of course: it's the actors, not the characters, who are bowing to our applause. I strained to see if I could hear them speak as they went by, because the play was done with British accents and I'm sure the actors were American - but I didn't catch any hint of their real selves' voices to lift the veil a little further. I think this is why I love the blooper reels on a DVD so much: it's not just because they're funny, but because we see the actors being themselves just for a moment.

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I am between selves at the moment, I think. With the kids in camp for six hours a day, parenting is not the immersive experience it has been and will be for the rest of the summer, but I'm not quite sure what else it is I do; other than rush around getting last-minute things I might need for BlogHer. Once I'm there, I'll be a new self, or an old self - a new old self, perhaps. A professional amateur blogger, doing whatever it is such people do, in the company of many many others. A writer among writers, or a mommy-on-vacation. A woman among women (and some men, but not many, I'd say), without children.

Just me, Sheryl Sandberg, the Pioneer Woman, thousands of other women, and Queen Latifah too.

That which is not happening

Yesterday I thought for a while that I might have to fly home to Ireland for a few days as soon as this weekend, to sort out some family stuff.

This morning, I found that wouldn't be necessary, and took myself off high alert. So that's all right then.

A lot flew through my mind in a very short space of time, though. I've never left the children overnight, not even for one night, not even when giving birth to the second one - we were only at the birthing center for five hours or so before we came back again with a brand new baby. I've flown with my children plenty of times, but I've never flown without them. That would be a totally new experience.

My initial reaction, of course, when the possibility was raised, was "Noooo! I can't! It's impossible!" Because I am a planner who fears change, especially change that comes quickly. I don't much like surprises, either. All the reasons why I couldn't crowded down on me: Mabel can't get to sleep without me; everyone has a cough and might be getting sick; Halloween; Mabel's birthday; B can't cook; B doesn't know that they have to go to the bathroom before dance class and I might forget to tell him; I'm tired...

In the brief periods last night in between Mabel-waking no.1 (quick and easy), Dash needing to be shepherded to the bathroom because he'd had three last drinks of water, and Mabel-waking no. 2 (prolonged and terrible), I couldn't fall asleep because my brain was busy outlining all the things that would need to be done, all the things that would make it impossible, and all the things I would need to remember; as well as all the things I wasn't looking forward to or didn't know about once I would get there.

But I cannot tell a lie: some of my thoughts drifted in other directions. What would it be like to catch a plane on my own? Could I just bring a carry-on? Should I invest in a decent pair of black trousers to look respectable and not like a harried mother of two caterwaulers? Should I bring my black boots? Might I, perhaps, pick up a neat little backpack with a padded section that would hold my laptop in REI before I left?

Would I be able to steal wi-fi from my parents' neighbours if I asked them very nicely, assuming there was some signal I could pick up from the house, if I was staying there? Should I actually put some books on my under-employed Kindle, because I'd have a lot of time on my hands in airports? How would I cope with all that free time compounding the guilt of leaving B to cope with everyone for four whole days? And four whole bedtimes and four whole (long, long) nights?

Of course, B would be fine. He's known these children just as long as I have, and loves them just as much, and if his culinary skills are lacking it's only due to my own orneryness in not wanting to share my kitchen, and he's perfectly capable of making pasta and opening a tin of baked beans, and he scrambles a mean egg to boot.

What's more, when I floated the idea to the children yesterday afternoon, Dash was fine with it straight away. Mabel was resistant at first, but after an hour or so mulling it over she was already telling me how she'd draw me a picture to take with me and how she'd go to bed nicely for Daddy. It would probably be a huge turning point in her sleeping/weaning.

So this morning when it turned out I didn't need to go at all, my feelings were just a tiny bit mixed.

Mostly I was relieved, of course. Relieved that the emergency was not really an emergency after all, that the sky hasn't fallen just yet. Happy that I didn't have to run round like a headless chicken booking a ridiculously expensive last-minute flight and trying to stock up the fridge with easily prepared food and writing excessive lists of information. Very pleased not to be trying to predict when exactly this incoming hurricane of ours would be making transAtlantic flights at best unpleasant or else totally unviable.

Suddenly, my life looked laughably easy. I could think about Halloween costumes! I could continue to plan Mabel's birthday party! I could clean the toilets! (Yes, really, for one fleeting moment I almost thought that.)

But then, I would quite like a cute little backpack with a padded space for my laptop. Maybe for Christmas.

Bumpy lines

At some point, I realised that when visiting friends' houses and looking interestedly at the photos on their walls, I was curious to see what they'd looked like when they were younger. Not younger like when they were children, or teenagers, but on their wedding day now that they have three kids, or when they first met their spouse, or on whatever other occassions might be marked with a photo nice enough to display for random nosy guests like me. Because - here's the thing - they, we, look older now.

For a long time, from about 20 till 35, I'd say, I felt that I basically looked the same. My haircut may have changed, I may have dropped or gained a few pounds, but my face was my face and that was that. I buy the moisturizer, I use the sunscreen, but it all seemed very hypothetical until I found myself looking in the mirror and thinking that I should buy some of that serum stuff I've been hearing about, because I need all the help I can get. (That's not true. And what about ageing gracefully? I believe in that, don't I? Still, no harm trying.)

Mabel looked at me quizzically one day and said "What are those lines?"
"What lines?"
"Those ones on your forehead where it's bumpy."
"You mean bumpy like this?" I raised my eyebrows. She laughed and traced the ridges on my brow with her finger.
"Those are my wrinkles," I said.
"Do it again!" She was delighted with them. Now when she and Dash get out of the bath or the swimming pool, they examine the pads of their fingers for their own pruney wrinkles. So exciting, so fleeting.

Those diagonal lines from the sides of the nose to the edges of the mouth: they're coming. They're not here yet,  but I can see the shadow of where they will be, inexorably, in a few years.

It's very odd to be approaching 40. (I'm not. I'm approaching 39, but there's a certain inevitability about what follows.) It's very... middley... I was thinking yesterday. I can't honestly claim to be a young adult any more, but I'm certainly nowhere near old. I suppose they call it middle age for a reason, but I absolutely refuse to consider myself middle-aged until at least 50.

But it's odd because I don't feel any more sensible. I don't feel any more boring or more staid or more responsible. I was always fairly sensible and responsible to begin with, I suppose, and it's true that I have lost a little segment of information about what's current in music and reality tv, but that's only because I moved to America and stopped listening to 2FM, and because we happen to get most of our television from the Internet. I listen to the classical station in the radio because it has no ads and I like to think it calms and educates the children, not because I dislike popular music. I certainly haven't started gardening yet. Knitting is way out. (Not that liking gardening or knitting makes you old. They're just two things I always think I'll probably get around to wanting to do eventually, some day in the far distant future.)

Are all octegenarians actually experienced 25-year-olds with bumpy foreheads who have lost touch with popular culture and like to garden instead? It's not how I thought it would be, is all.

Wherein I confess how ill-informed I really am

If we didn't have children, I'd be a lot better informed. Or, perhaps, if B and I went on more dates - but not ones to see a movie.

Backing up to explain my point. (Beep beep beep.) I'm not good at politics. My brain tends to curl up in a little ball (even more, I mean) and sing "la la laaaa" when people talk about politics. I don't know why, but it's always been this way. When I read the newspaper, in hard copy or online, I scan the headlines and look at the pictures, and then skip to the Style section. I am much more likely to retain a quote I saw in passing about Christian Louboutin's red-soled high heels than who has dropped out of the Republican race and who's still in the running.

(Partly, and I have to parenthesise even more here in a whole paragraph of its own, this is because they all have stupid pretend names that I can't distinguish from one another. I mean: Mitt (short for Mitten?), Newt (short for Lizard?) - what's the difference? I only discovered this morning that Rush Limbaugh is not actually another candidate - he sounds like a candidate, doesn't he? And I know Rick Santorum because of the Dan Savage thing years ago, but I still have no clear idea of how their policies stand or what they're like as people. Admittedly, this is because I don't read the articles, but it's also because even if I did I'd forget whether I was reading about Mitt or Newt or some other guy. As far as I'm concerned they're all crazy right-wing Republicans, and that's all I need to know. Surely none of them will ever actually get into power.)

The average member of the Irish general public knows a lot more about the American political situation than I do right now. This was made painfully clear when B's uncle asked me while we were in Ireland what I thought of the candidates, and I really had nothing to say. I mean, I still have nothing to say. What is there to think, other than that no reasonable person would vote for any of them? Do I really have to waste time finding out more? I tried to fall back on a joke, saying that I look to my husband for guidance in such matters, but unfortunately I was seated on the side of the uncle's deaf ear, and by the time I'd repeated it clearly, it made me sound like just the sort of wife these candidates seem to want me to be, which I promise was not my intention.

But the thing is that B is one of the few people (as well as all of you, now, but you don't exist in real life, do you?) to whom I'll admit the depths of my ignorance on subjects like this, and let inform me of all the things most people know already. He's very good at explaining things from first principles, which usually leads to more information than one needed, but in this case is exactly what I want. I mean, I know the basics of Democrats v Republicans, and which one Obama is and which one the Bushes were, but beyond that whatever you can tell me is probably good information. And I respect B's principles and we have pretty much the same views on things, so to be honest, if he told me how to vote I'd probably find after doing some research that I came to the same conclusions.

And then, of course, there's the fact that as non-citizens, neither of us do have a vote of any type in this country. As non-residents, we don't have a vote in our home country either, as Ireland does not do postal votes. But there's an unofficial online voting campaign that has happened for the last two elections, and I have researched the candidates running in my home constituency and decided who I would vote for there. Exercising my right to vote has always been important to me, even if all I could do for sure was to help try to keep the obviously crazy candidates out of power.

So when I see headlines like this one (pulled from my Facebook feed just now): "Alabama State Senator Proposes Legislation to Prohibit ‘Women and Non-Whites’ From Voting," I go, "Oh, come on," and don't click it because I don't even want to validate its existence by reading about it. And, I suppose, as a married woman for whom another pregnancy would not be a wholesale disaster, I'm in the happy position of not feeling too immediately personally affected by all the utter bullshit that the old white men are trying to come up with right now. But I have a daughter, and if the US turns out to be more backward about women's reproductive rights than even my home country,* I'm going to have to start paying attention.  

(*Did you know that abortion of any kind is still illegal in Ireland? (Read this. It's an eye-opener.) Before 1985 you needed a prescription to buy a condom there. Divorce came in in 1996. Most of the schools are run by the Catholic Church... all this I'm used to, this I can deal with, though it's far from ideal.) 

Which brings me to today. Today I put on what I believe are called "dress trousers" - that is, the sort of thing I used to wear to my semi-casual workplace, and a necklace (and also a top and a cardigan, and a bra too, but I'm just not mentioning that because I do usually wear a bra and also a top, as opposed to the other things which are less frequently disported these days) and boots with a bit of a heel, and tried to look like a responsible adult, because B and I went to talk to a lawyer about doing that ultimate responsible adult thing of making a will. (Finally. After meaning to do it for six years or so now. I know, I know.) I suppose I could have gone in my jeans and my sneakers just like any other day, but I felt the need to be in my "professional" guise. It's funny, it had been so long since I'd dressed that way that the word that came to mind when I looked in the mirror was "mannish". I changed my cardigan for a lighter colour, put on the jewellery and some lipstick, and hoped for the best. I think it was just the unfamiliar silhouette that wierded me out.

Anyway, we dropped the children to their respective schools and went to meet the nice man, who turned out to be the perfect conjunction of older enough to make us feel like he knows what he's talking about, and not so old that we felt he'd be better engaged polishing up the codicils of his own will rather than ours. As we left, he congratulated us on doing the responsible adult thing. I felt like wailing, "But we're nearly 40!" At what point do we actually become responsible adults in the eyes of the older generation?

And then, since we still had half an hour to kill, we went and had a coffee date at Starbucks and pretended to be having a business meeting like the other businessly-dressed people there. I have no idea when the last time I sat and had a coffee in public with my husband without fielding constant demands for chocolate milk and lemon pound cake was, and it was very nice. It also enabled him to give me a quick overview of the Republican candidates, and a quick update on the fact that Rush Limbaugh isn't actually one of them.

As soon as we got Mabel from school though, the discussion was peppered with "Mummy!" and "Stop talking!" and "When I was in the sandbox I looked for Anne but I couldn't find her..." and "Nobody is allowed talk!" and other such imperious demands. Which is why we don't usually get to have conversations.

Now, where's that babysitter's e-mail again?
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Note: I hope I haven't offended anyone with my offhand dismissal of all Republican politicians as crazies. Your views are your own, and mine, as I am pointing out, are all but non-existent. I'm trying to remedy this, so that I have actual opinions the better with which to offend you. I mean, other people who aren't reading this.