life sentences
Which is Crazier, Chaos or Control?
et me just start by telling you about my morning. I had not slept deeply, but I had an appointment at 9 a.m. That meant getting two children ready by 8:45. One was up at 6:45, doing laps around the kitchen table with his iPod plugged into both ears, smiling, eyes pointed to the angels above, tuned in to a rarified sphere that only the innocent can hear. He is a big guy. His feet are 4W, quadruple wide, and when he moves to the music, it sounds like war drums beating in the hills. He is happy, but if I don’t come downstairs soon, he will greet me with a goodmorning head-butt. The other child was burrowed down into her covers; windows open behind the blinds, overhead fan on “whip,� humidifier cranked up high, even though it was not moistening the air because the tank was out of water. Again. This child had chosen not to face morning until her alarm played its electronic reveille, which it did not because she forgot to set it. Again. When I finally wrench her from a determined slumber, it is late and she is in a rage, and it’s all my fault because I didn’t wake her up.
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I think these children are gems, I really do. They are funny and sweet. But sometimes I do wonder what planet they are from. I’ll give an example. I met my sister on a Sunday to have lunch and shop, and my daughter, out of boredom, came along. We were in the dressing room at L.L. Bean, waiting for my sister to try on a shirt. My 11-year-old imp started swinging on a garment rack—with wheels. “Hey Mom,â€? she said. “This thing really moves. Push me around!â€? “Honey, get off that thing. If the saleslady comes in and yells at you, you’ll feel awful.â€? She hopped off, but then she said something that chilled me: “No I won’t. I feel absolutely no guilt. About anything.â€? That’s it, the difference between me and my girl. For years I have wondered: what can I do to make her clean up after herself? Why is this child so defiant? How can I make her cooperate? The Beatles wrote a song about our relationship: You say yes, I say no you say stop and I say go go go‌I don’t know why you say goodbye I say hello.
No guilt? Totally foreign concept. I wake up every morning berating By Fran LoBiondo myself for some shortcoming. I fall asleep counting my inadequacies. When bad things happen, like the tsunami in Asia, I feel I should apologize. The stress is killing me. Yet my child repels guilt like a shield of steel deflects flaming arrows, and she’s happy. Maybe I’m the crazy one. I am going to stop picking up her shoes and start walking in them. I want to enter the house, drop my bag in the middle of the floor, eat the last cookie and leave the box out. Pour the last of the milk, drink only half and leave the empty carton in the fridge. Blame someone else and go watch TV. Who says you can’t learn from your children? Fran LoBiondo of Vineland has children in grade school, high school and college. A Purdue University graduate with a degree in Journalism, she has written about parenting, food and fun for 25 yrs.
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www.petrosh-bigtop.com 6 | August 2010
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