I’ll never be Mother of the Year. For an innate perfectionist like me, this is a distinct disappointment. As a wife I’m nit-picky, as an employee I’ve been told I can’t play nice in the sandbox with others, as a daughter I’m the last to put out an effort. As a sister I’m apparently not someone my siblings wish to share company with, as a daughter-in-law I’m perpetually an alien in a foreign land, as a friend I don’t have the energy to bother keeping up. But as a mother… This is a place I’ll actively struggle, with all my energy and enthusiasm and might. All the other roles are just time-wasters to my real role as Justin, Ryan and Alyssa’s mom.
Today Stephen was sick. We’ve been struggling (and struggling and struggling) with strep and today Stephen wakes up with a sore throat and – in the way only Stephen can – admits he didn’t bother to take all of his antibiotics from the last round. He spends the day in bed and I spend the day with the kids, trying to clean up from our past two weeks of constant illness (read: who cares about the house?) while entertaining Alyssa, who still has strep herself, and Ryan, who’s not sick and full of vim and vigor.
I cleaned and cleaned and did untold loads of laundry. I placated a daughter whose mantra was “I want my Daddy” and tried to keep Ryan out of the Valentine’s Day candy, which he seemed to revel in sneaking into today. Breakfasts made, cleaned up from, lunches made, cleaned up from, and the whole time I’m thinking about this irritating presentation I have to make to a handful of General Partners at our firm on Tuesday – which isn’t shiny and perfect yet. Any time Stephen got out of bed he was generally cranky and irritable (read: irritating) and I was just frustrated that he was in bed to begin with.
Don’t get me wrong – in between the cleaning and the laundry and the cooking and the cleaning and the cleaning Ryan, Alyssa and I had great fun. Lyssa and I did puzzles on the floor, worked on our colors and our numbers, and had a picnic with plastic plates and bowls and cups. Ryan decided he wanted a special kind of breakfast, since he’d eyed a “Kid Cuisine” in the freezer. He happily ate fish sticks, mac and cheese and corn at 9 o’clock this morning. We took naps, we watched a little TV, we walked around the house, and played cars on our hands and knees. In the back of my mind, though, was the image of the presentation with a big hole in it, and seconds ticking away on the clock.
I wiped runny noses, cleaned up diahrrea, praised excellent toilet useage, and sent the children individually into time out perhaps a total of 6 times. We had yogurt all over the table, we had cookies being snitched off the counter, and a constant whine all day for more Valentine’s Day M&Ms.
Stephen dredged up about 4:30p, which gave me some time to go to the grocery store. Lucky for me (but not really for him) Ryan volunteered to go for a ride with me. Ryan’s my “goer” – he gets this from me. As soon as we’ve eaten breakfast on a Saturday he’s asking where we’re taking a ride to, and I’m willing to drive. We like to live life on the move.
After two hours in a grocery store with a child who’s sole purpose in life was to sucker me into buying more Valentine’s Day M&Ms, I was tired. Dog tired. The cereal aisle was a nightmare, a constant droning of, “I want this one, Mommy. I want this one. I want this one, Mommy. Can we get this one?” Like that old cliche, it’s not him, it’s me. My mind runs at about 200mph on a good day. I’m thinking of what we need to get, how fast we can get out of there, what food goes with what for dinners, trying not to forget anything on my list, and there’s this happy voice saying, “I want to try this, Mommy.” We chatted, I encouraged, I declined with an explanation. (As long as the M&M stayed in the cart, he was happy to be there, and a cheerful companion.)
We put the kids to bed around 8pm. We usually put Alyssa down first, and then focus on Ryan. By the time Ryan was tucked in, though, Alyssa had gotten out of bed and turned on the light in her room so she could read a book. Stephen scolded her and told her to stay in bed with the light off – it’s sleepy time.
After Ryan – who must have taken lessons from Justin on stall tactics – told me the 3rd story about “school” (daycare) and I was able to kiss him goodnight and mean it, I walked out of his room and found Alyssa’s light back on. Ryan’s bedroom door and Alyssa’s door are at a 90degree angle to one another, so it’s not like I was going to miss it.
I opened the door and she smiled at me, reading her book. (Curious George, by the way.) I scolded her once again, but in my psycho-mom-at-the-end-of-my-rope kind of way. “If I come back up here and find out out of bed again, I’ll spank your butt. Do you hear me?” She fearlessly nodded. “Fine. Goodnight.”
Less than 10 minutes later I hear them. Instead of letting a calm and rational Stephen take the next trip upstairs, I squared my shoulders and decided I would deliver to Alyssa what I promised. After all, I though to myself, she’s a willful child and has to learn I mean what I say.
When I opened her door, the room was lit. She was sitting on the floor at the end of her bed. “What did I tell you would happen if you got out of bed again?” She smiled at me, but when I turned her over on her tummy on her bed she started to cry. I spanked her, three times.
I spanked her through her diaper and pajamas. I didn’t spank to try to leave welts. But she cried – oh, she cried. And it broke my heart.
No one humbles you like your children. I will tell anyone who listens that I’ve learned more from my children – specifically so far, Justin – than anyone else in the world, bar none. If you can’t find humility in yourself around your children, you shouldn’t be a parent.
I tucked her into her covers and told her not to get out of bed again. Then, chest hurting, I left her room. Alyssa wasn’t the only one out of bed. Ryan dove back into his bed like the carpet was on fire. I gave him a stern warning that next time, the spanking would be for him. I told him I had to know when I left him alone that he would be safe in bed and not getting into trouble somewhere.
I checked on Alyssa before I went back downstairs. She had the post-crying breathing (like she couldn’t quite catch her breath yet) that broke my heart into even smaller pieces. I tried to cover her up, but she wanted to sleep in her princess slippers. I found the slippers and covered her up. I didn’t want to fawn over her, because she did break the rules and I had promised the consequence, but I left her room feeling empty.
Another ten minutes pass and I’m completely convicted of what I’d done. I went back upstairs and opened her door. I leaned over to kiss her. She had her eyes closed (a little too tight) but was breathing regularly now. I said, “Can mommy hold you for a minute?” and she reached out her little arms to me. At that moment my heart shattered into a zillion tiny pieces. I picked her up and sat down in the rocker. And cried. She snuggled into me and I told her I was sorry I spanked her. She rubbed my arm with her little hand and I hugged her close – and cried, under my breath, because I didn’t want to scare her.
I tried to sing her a song, but it was hit and miss:
You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You’ll never know, dear
How much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away
She fell mostly asleep in my arms. I gently laid her back down and covered her the way she likes it – first her blankie, then her sheet, then her quilt. Her Bunny-Bears were next to her, and she curled up on her side and fell asleep.
I was laying in bed tonight and realized I couldn’t let a moment like that go by without committing it to memory of some sort. When God reaches down and uses these little ones, so fresh from Him, to teach those old and worn and weary, it is a sight to behold.