In the Interests of Balance....Or....What You Learn After You Say I Do

Some of the comments on my last post......which never set out to depict a smarmy, holding-hands-in-the-moonlight couple......made me squirm, as that seems to be how it was interpreted. I probably should just move on and do a post about butterflies, or playing on the beach with grandkids, but,in the interests of fair and balanced reporting, I need to shake it some more, like a dog with a bone. So here’s a glimpse between the lines, where nobody but the canny, if sarcastic Rise, thought to look.

Love in the early years is all dewy eyes and worshipful devotion. Which lasts a while. Then, after you’ve washed his underwear, and listened to him belch, and worse, and he has endured the raging, monthly hormone storms, you slowly float back down to terra firma, to a comfortable level of fondness and tolerance. You think you’ve got it all figured out. But you’re wrong.

Along come the babies. Who demand all of your time, deprive you of sleep, and render you comatose by nine every night. While he is in the throes of advancing in the work world. All those long, involved discussions, late into the night when you were the girlfriend? Devolve into grunts and monosyllables and vague “hmmms?”

When he comes home at the end of the day [he’s been at work with grownups], and you’re so happy to see another adult [you’ve been tripping over toddlers all day], and he asks “How was your day, dear?” he’s looking for the five-words-or-less answer, NOT the dissertation. The glassy eyes are the giveaway. Them and the furtive glances towards the living room, the TV, the newspaper, the sofa, and the dog, whose only demand is to be scratched behind the ears.

But nobody goes hungry, except, perhaps, for the onset of intellectual starvation brought on by hours of scrubbing [cloth] diapers and mopping up pureed peas. Neither is anyone outside, shivering in the cold. We’re all inside with warm beds and stories to read. He’s steady and reliable as a rock, and makes it possible for you to be a full time mom. Which is good. Because if you had to go out and work, as well as raise five children, they might as well shoot you now and be done with it.

Toddlers turn into children, who variously turn into soccer players, swimmers, runners, dancers, martial arts practitioners, artists, musicians, bikers, hikers, bookworms, comedians, scholars, and at last, into teenagers. Oy. With opinions of their own. Often counter to the party line. They believe that their parents are SO out of step. So pathetically uncool. Oblivious to our wisdom, they must try everything out for themselves, and in the process, turn our hair white. Mine much faster than his. Because there is no justice in the world.

To our amazement we produce a gaggle of free thinkers. Our dreams for them are not necessarily the same as their dreams for them. Hmmm. Back to the drawing board. When they‘re babies you can’t wait for them to be toddlers. When they can’t talk, you can’t wait for them to start. When they start, you hold your head in your hands and wonder what was your hurry. You wish you had more time for each one, but hope they’ll be there for each other. The in-laws are appalled. Five children! Those Irish are like rabbits. What was he thinking?

Hot tempers and cold shoulders and extended sojourns in the guest room. But always, eventually, back to cooler heads and calmer waters. Laughter saves us from ourselves. It's tough to keep your seat on your high horse when you’re laughing helplessly. It all adds up to life, feverishly lived, without a script, making it up as you go along, ad libbing to beat the band, so no-one will find out you're groping in the dark. Not exactly a Cinderella story. But Cinderella is hogwash. Living happily ever after is only the beginning.

There. I feel better now.

Been There

I never thought the word "poop" would appear on a post here, let alone be the main feature! But after reading some intensive and hilarious discussions, cruising through "mommyblogland", the hour is at hand. As starry-eyed new parents, thirty some odd years ago, we quickly discovered that poop, henceforth, would be looming large in our lives. We had just come in the door from the hospital with our first wee bundle and were standing, still in our coats, not sure how to proceed, when said wee bundle let fly. Through diapers and receiving blankets the yellow, breast- fed- baby poop shot noiselessly out, all over my nice grey wool coat. We looked at each other, aghast. For five days we'd been cosseted and babied at the AF hospital. We had been shown how to hold, nurse, burp, diaper, and bathe the baby, but it didn't prepare us for the enormity of the realization that we were alone now; this tiny scrap of humanity was totally dependent on us [ yes US! Had God lost his mind??] for survival. And next thing I knew, the Old Curmudgeon , who was then only a trainee curmudgeon, was cackling maniacally. Why not? the alternative was uncontrollable weeping....

That first wee bundle grew and thrived, to our delight and amazement. She has always been a very private person, even when she was a very small person. Her grandmother, who is a very clean person, could spot the poop clouds gathering when she was a toddler, and would try to scoop her up and get her to the toilet before another diaper was soiled [no Huggies or Pampers in those days!]. But she would knit her brow and frown, and intone, as she disappeared under a table or to some similarly private location, "Go away Grandma, I don't like you anymore!" This same clever child later coined the word "ire-a-dia".

When the first wee bundle was fifteen we brought home the fifth wee bundle who, upon attaining toddlerhood, developed his own line of "alphabet poop." Every day the siblings would be summoned to the bathroom by his excited cries, so they could take their best guess at the featured "letter" of the day!

Reading all these "mommyblogs" is a trip down memory lane. I'm so happy to no longer be intimately involved with anyone else's personal plumbing. Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt!

Heather in the Hills

In the summer of 1989 we spent some time in Ireland en route to a new AF assignment in Germany. Today, on a purge of piles of scribblings, I came across a journal I kept that summer. Several hours slipped away while I sat on the bedroom floor reading and reminiscing.... one of the places we visited was the village church at Cratloe, where we got married . It's a tiny church, out in the country, up on the side of a hill where heather grows wild and thick and plentiful. The girls picked armloads of wild flowers with lots of heather mixed in, and Liz announced to her aunt, myself, siblings and cousins that if she ever got married she wanted heather in her bouquet!

Today she and her husband have been married nine years and I'm wondering, did the heather ever get in there? And you're wondering---hmm, mother of the bride---how come you don't know? Well, nine years ago, we had been back from yet another overseas assignment [this time four years in Belgium] for just one month before The Big Day. We were still living out of suitcases and could still be described as being "of no fixed abode". So, I wasn't exactly in the loop for flower selection! And if I had been they could not possibly have been more beautiful. Certainly the color of heather was there..... She was a beautiful bride and married a lovely guy and I'm wishing them "Happy Anniversary" and many, many more.