2000-12-22 - 2:26 pm
Sigh.
I take my children's behavior way too personally. They are little, all of them. With minds that only want to learn and feel and find out why. Why? Why is there stuff in that? What are you making? Are we going somewhere? They take things apart. They try their best to put things back together and complete their attempts all askew.
Basically, the thing that pisses me off the most is when they touch my stuff. My stuff is forbidden. My stuff is breakable and not theirs and doesn't mean squat to them compared to what it means to me. My stuff is shiny and secret and intrigues Mommy's attention so long and is all each a special size and shape and each has a special reason for being around.
My oldest child doesn't just touch MY stuff and use it and eventually break it or render it no longer useful, she also has the desire to find out how her OWN toys work. And once she realizes that the magic of the toy that she wanted for so long does not contain the magic any longer once it is in pieces, she doesn't want it anymore. I try to explain to her the basic philosophy/evolution/scientific premise of the sum and the whole of its parts etc. thing, stating that, toys are fun and magical and work right only if you don't take them apart to see all the inner workings. You need to leave them TOGETHER.
But, alas, that is also a concept that deceives them. Together is not in their vocabulary. They have trouble when playing together, sharing together, eating together, bathing together, sleeping together in the same room in the same bed. But, I am stubborn and I will not seperate my Boppsey Twins or however they are spelled. My two girls share a room and they do everything basically at the same time, and I don't introduce any other way, because it's easy for me to just have them together. All the while, I insist on their diversity and individuality. They are probably so confused.
My second child doesn't infect her own toys with her curiosity instead she just goes for MINE, trying to figure out how mine work. She digs into the objects of my possession searching for the magic that bespells her Mommy and diverts the attention away from the children. She undoes whatever I work so hard at to do. She turns off the TV that I turned on. She takes out the pictures from the frame that I inserted once I received it for my birthday. She slips my all-important bookmark out by the tassle of whatever book I might be reading so I lose my place.
I take all these things very personally as silly as it may seem.
My youngest is just doing what he needs to survive. But, I see it in him already, too. However mild. I go to change his diaper and he rearranges his hips in the wrong direction. I put him on the blanket, he rolls until he is on the carpet. He fights me when I burp him and cries as if I have refused to feed him for hours on end.
I give these children nearly everything they need. They really should have no complaints. Amongst it all, I still try to be nice and fair. They can be complete BOOGERHEADS sometimes. My middle child is the kind that in any other person's care, would have probably been shaken to death. I would never hurt my children.
Even through all the attacks of rebellion from them, I simmer down occasionally and hold on to the things I know they'll never know and never remember. The things I love about them. I remember everybody's births and how long it took, who was there and how their first cries sounded. I remember what happened when they first looked around to realize how they got under the bright lights and away from all that wet and warmth. I remember my silent remarks I gave to each of them about how much I didn't realize I would ever love anyone this much, these silent statements as I held their clean, pale, little, fragile bodies for the first time while I looked back into their eyes to let them know I would always listen to them at their most distressed moments. My silent vows of how I would always try to be fair and good and take care of them and always feed their hunger and always warm their chills. I am Mommy and I am good to them and I am here for them. I will always remember how they looked back into my eyes with each of their own slightly formed personalities, as if to tell me that I better help them when they need it and teach them what they are dying to learn and know and that they, yes, they do feel my love for them and they accept me for the Mommy I am and that they, yes, they do love me very much, too.
As I scream for them to shush their darn screaming voices, and groan about having to get up YET AGAIN to give 'em somejuiceplease, each time they drive me crazy enough to walk out into the garage hoping they didn't notice me escape and sit heavily down on the stool out there while I imagine the years that are still to come, and all the fights I will still have to break up, and all the damn slumber parties that will give me headaches and a new gray hair and the horror of boyfriends and short skirts and girlfriends for the boy (or vice versa--I'm not a homophobe...) and make-up and sports team tryouts and dance classes and homework and packed lunches and missed school busses and giggles and complaints and whines and tattling and holiday mornings...I take a deep breath and swallow the choke back down my throat as I remember each and every little one's eyes who looked up at me and into mine as if to remind me that no matter how bad they get or ornery or wild or however much they make me question my reality and my sanity, they are here on loan from the angels of heaven and I get them for as long as the Great Spirit wants to allow and only for as long as He sees a need for them to be in my care. (I'm not a religious freak, but, I know where those kids came from.)
I call them my little bunnies, cuz everyone knows I'm as fertile as a rabbit. Their little eyes, wide and perfect and their skin with the only scent that smells that way, of birth and beauty, and total love, right there and forever to be loved. Their skin so smooth like silk and their hair like velvet. Absolute velvet and silk, my little bunnies, already equipped with everything they need to be a big body, only in miniature and fragile porcelain. My heart pressing against my ribs like the only way to show how much I really love them is for it to pop right out of my chest and land inside of their heart.
Then, I walk back inside from the garage and get all the questions scooped right back up into my face. Where were you? Where'djew go, Mommy? Mommy, I want a drink. I'm hungry, can we watch cartoons? Will you read us a book? What are you cooking? What are you making? Is it ready yet? What is it?
Sigh.
