From: Lindsay W.
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: Screen time
A gentle reminder to one another that it’s possible to care about two things at once, and a discussion about screen time does not mean we are not passionate about our kids’ reading lists!!
To: McKinley Mom Squad
From: Katie T.
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Screen time
As someone who works in tech, can I just say that I find it really shortsighted to prevent our children from engaging with technology in a meaningful way? How can we expect our children to be leaders on the world stage if they’re so far behind their international peers?
To: McKinley Mom Squad
From: Emily J.
Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Screen time
I have no idea how I got on this email chain but please remove me immediately. I’m begging you. You’ve been clogging up my inbox all summer and just seeing these subject lines gives me anxiety. I’m not even a mom!!!!
10
Kiki
It all happened so fast. I’d dropped Bernard at school and Clara at hip-hop dance class. The twins were with Kent’s mom, who flew in just to spend time with them before she gets too old and useless.
There was a dog—a beagle? No. A shih tzu—just sitting in the middle of the street. I swerved the van just in time to spare its life, and then I woke up here.
It’s quiet. And calm. The sheets are soft and clean and there is a vase of peonies by the window. My favorite.
“Honey?” I hear his voice before I see him. It’s Kent. There are tears in his eyes, and even though he doesn’t want me to see him cry, one tear rolls silently down his cheek.
He carefully brushes his hand against my cheek and bites his lip.
“There was an accident, Keeks. You saved the shih tzu, but the van was totaled. It’s going to be replaced—with the new model, the one that has a built-in vacuum and a cooler in the center console—so don’t you worry about that. You just need to focus on getting better.”
Before I can ask about the kids, he says, “The kids are on a plane. My mom took them back to North Dakota to stay with her for a few weeks so you can lay here and focus on getting better.”
He’s interrupted by a team of nurses. “Kiki?” one asks. “Would you like a special coffee?” She pushes a button, and the bed sits me up . . . just like in the commercials with the elderly people! A second nurse is holding a bottle of Aveda foot cream. “You just relax,” she says.
MY FANTASY IS INTERRUPTED BY A HAND GRAZING MY FOOT. It’s small and sticky, a disembodied appendage sliding under the bathroom door, searching wildly for me. Gwendolyn recommends that you take five minutes a day to visualize the life you want, but that is very difficult when there are three small children who have a psychotic obsession with you, and another child who may just be psycho. I’d sat the three girls on my bed in front of my iPad to play an educational game, but they’d apparently lost interest already. It has been two minutes, and I didn’t even get to the part where the nurse gives me the remote and tells me that there’s a twenty-four-hour marathon of Property Brothers on.
“MAMA? MAMA. MAMA!!!!” IT’S ONE OF THE TWINS. SHE BIRD-DOGGED me, and now there are several small hands reaching underneath the bathroom door. The physics of this barely make sense, but children are kind of like mice. They can squish their bones to get into anyplace you don’t want them to be.
In the minuscule amount of time I was allowed alone in the bathroom, the girls have made their displeasure with me apparent. Somehow, even though they each tend to go completely limp when it’s time to get dressed, they’ve all managed to get completely naked. The basket of clean clothes I just folded is now upside down, and one of the twins is standing on it proudly, like she has just scaled a mountain. Kent’s socks, which I had just finished ironing, are unpaired and littered around the bed.
Naptime isn’t for another two hours, and I can tell that this will not be the kind of day where the girls fall asleep sweetly after lunch. This won’t be the kind of day where I stand outside their door, missing them, wishing I could be in their little unconscious brains.
No, this day is going to be a fight. And even if your opponents’ combined weight is half your own, three on one is an impossible fight to win.
DO OTHER MOMS FEEL THIS WAY? BECAUSE IT SURE DOESN’T look like they do. On Instagram, the other McKinley moms all seem to love their days. All their days. They actually post things like that on Instagram: captions that say, literally, “I love all our days,” right under beautiful photos of their clean and smiling children. I look at my girls, whose faces are crusted with the remnants of this morning’s attempt at yogurt parfaits. I got the idea from Pinterest, from something titled 100 easy breakfasts your kids will love!!! I spent the morning spooning full-fat, hormone-free unsweetened yogurt into little ramekins, alternating layers of expensive yogurt with homemade granola. On the top of each little parfait I placed thinly sliced strawberries, fanned out to make a flower. I had them sitting at the table, with real cloth napkins, when the girls came down for breakfast. The twins cried because they wanted toast, and smeared yogurt on their cheeks while I rushed to the toaster. Clara took a single bite and gagged, which I thought was a little dramatic. I ended up eating what was left, scrolling through Instagram trying to imagine if this would ever happen to the McKinley moms who were always at playdates and special coffee dates, who take their well-behaved children to lunch at the diner where they still serve milkshakes in old-fashioned glasses and give you the big metal tin they mixed it in.
Kent says that eating out is a waste of time and money, and that if I wanted to spend my days eating fancy lunches, I should have been born the Queen of England. He also says that joining a gym is a waste of time and money, because he spent all that money on the Chuck Norris Total Gym and if I watched the DVD it came with, I would totally get it and I would also trim inches off my buns, waist, and thighs. He also says that I’m starting to sound like a real feminazi, and that if I’m so unhappy we should switch places. “I’d love to spend my day finger painting and taking naps!” he joked the other night. “But, Keeks, someone has to keep the lights on. You like electricity, don’t you?” I do like electricity, so I nodded.
I actually do like electricity. I was considering a major in electrical engineering at the University of North Dakota, but my mom told me I should focus on getting my MRS degree. I got a BA in elementary education, and I got Kent. I thought I’d work for a few years, but when I was pregnant with Bernard, Kent pointed out that my salary wasn’t all that much more than we’d be paying to put Bernard in daycare, and that I may as well stay home with him. Not forever, just until Bernard was in kindergarten. But then I got pregnant with Clara, and then the twins. And after being out of the workforce for five years, what are the chances I’ll earn more than it costs to put the three littlest ones in daycare?
The chances, I’ve learned, are not great.
I practice the deep breaths Gwendolyn talked about on her blog, and repeat my mantra for the day:
I love my life. I love my life. I love my life.
* * *
To: McKinley Mom Squad
From: Megan W.
Subject: Playdate
Hey, Mamas!
Just wanted to let all of you know that Praydon and Aubrianella have openings in their playdate schedules coming up. Please be in touch if you’d like to arrange a time with either of them.