“Y-O-U! S-T-E-N-K!” my 8-year-old son shouts at me, then hunches down in his seat,
as far away from me as he can get. I’d laugh out loud if I wasn’t busy using my old
Lamaze breathing to keep myself from pushing him out of the car at the next street
corner.
Oh, I’m the mean mom, all right. And you’d better believe I hear all about it.
Big breath in. Slow breath out.
This child was an angel as a baby. I’m not exaggerating. He rarely cried, smiled
constantly, nursed like a champ, dropped both the breast and the pacifier on his first
birthday with nary a complaint. Golden-haired, easy-going, loving. Patted and
crooned over at every party, the darling of the play groups. Where did he go?
Officer, someone’s taken my baby! And they’ve left me with this argumentative,
angry, wild-haired kid who comes up to my shoulder and thinks that boarding school
is a better option than living with the shrew who won’t buy him the basketball-planner
clipboard or the half-priced snowshoes. Sorry kid, these are the breaks. Shut up and
eat your gruel.
Big breath, through your nose. Small breath, through your mouth.
Things changed slowly at first. He started to get a bit wilder at preschool. He wouldn’t
sit still. He got more sensitive and became more easily upset. Still, he was happy,
happy above all else. Still smiling, still golden-haired—just not quite so easy-going.
Things got tougher, little by little. There was a baby sister, and we blamed it on
sibling rivalry. There was a divorce, and we blamed it on us. There was a bout of
depression, and we blamed it on me. There was Sensory Integration Disorder, and
ADHD, and strep-soaked tonsils, and swollen adenoids, and we blamed it on
diagnoses. At some point, I got sick of the blame game.
Who’s to blame, and for what? This is who my child is. He’s quiet. He’s way too loud.
He cries over stories in which animals are hurt. He chases the cats until they hide in
terror. He reads for hours, an entire book in one sitting. He can’t sit still for 10
minutes at dinner. He hugs his little sister when she falls down. He yells at his little
sister when she falls down. He’s sweet. He’s moody. He isn’t the child I thought I had.
He isn’t the child I thought I wanted.
I’ll tell you this: He teaches me who he is, every day. He teaches me who I am, every
day. But oh, those lessons are so easy to forget.
Go to your Happy Place.
Right now, my Happy Place is about 50 miles down the highway with no stops in sight.
I guess some things don’t change, because I seem to remember that Happy Place
being my destination 8 years ago, too. Remember that feeling? When the confusion
of why someone would send you home with a baby—an actual human being! Home,
alone! With you!—wears off and the sleep deprivation kicks in, and on the way to the
pharmacist to pick up the lanolin cream for your bleeding nipples, it suddenly hits
you: You could just keep on driving. Sure, you’d have to pull over eventually, but until
then, it would be just you and your nipples and Tom Petty blaring out of the radio.
You don’t even like Tom Petty that much, but right then, you and Tom in the middle
of Utah sounds pretty damned sweet.
Focus. Focus. Breathe.
Right now, I think Tom and I could have a future again. Because I’m angry, now. I’m
hurt. I’m holding it together, but I wish I didn’t have to. I’m not thinking about my son’s
strengths, or the silver lining of everything that makes him who he is. What I’m
thinking is this: I drop the kid somewhere near his dad’s house. I make a run through
the Starbucks drive-thru, and I head for the border. (North or south, doesn’t matter
which. Beer or margaritas: Is there a wrong choice?) I’ll pick you up on the way out of
town; grab the Fritos, fast. We’ll pretend that the only muffin-tops are the ones on
our, well, muffins. We’ll pretend that our babies never break our hearts.
Free-falling. Breathe.
But of course, they do. That’s part of the deal, isn’t it? And no matter how far or how
fast I drive, I’ll always be a mother; the mother of this marvelous, complicated,
contradictory child. Just as no matter how old or how obstinate he gets, he’ll always
be my baby. Even now, even when we’re both furious, I manage to remember those
lessons. I manage to remember that he’s in there: My baby, in the middle of this
lumped-up kid, like the prince in the frog, like Kay in the Snow Queen’s palace. I
remember this, too: How I held the ice on his head after he tried to jump the ditch on
his bike. How hard he laughed the first time he told me a joke. How insightful he can
be. How in his face I see a fierce, shining person who might be driving me up the wall
but who knows how to stand up for himself. How every weakness hides strength,
every challenge holds a promise.
“Mom? Mom, I’m sorry I got so mad. I’m sorry I was mean. I love you, Mom.”
Never mind, Officer. I see him. There he is.
Lisa Gorsuch is a writer, editor, and mother of two awesome kids who never cease to
amaze her, even when they're driving her to listen to Tom Petty. You can read her a
llgorsuch @ comcast.net
as far away from me as he can get. I’d laugh out loud if I wasn’t busy using my old
Lamaze breathing to keep myself from pushing him out of the car at the next street
corner.
Oh, I’m the mean mom, all right. And you’d better believe I hear all about it.
Big breath in. Slow breath out.
This child was an angel as a baby. I’m not exaggerating. He rarely cried, smiled
constantly, nursed like a champ, dropped both the breast and the pacifier on his first
birthday with nary a complaint. Golden-haired, easy-going, loving. Patted and
crooned over at every party, the darling of the play groups. Where did he go?
Officer, someone’s taken my baby! And they’ve left me with this argumentative,
angry, wild-haired kid who comes up to my shoulder and thinks that boarding school
is a better option than living with the shrew who won’t buy him the basketball-planner
clipboard or the half-priced snowshoes. Sorry kid, these are the breaks. Shut up and
eat your gruel.
Big breath, through your nose. Small breath, through your mouth.
Things changed slowly at first. He started to get a bit wilder at preschool. He wouldn’t
sit still. He got more sensitive and became more easily upset. Still, he was happy,
happy above all else. Still smiling, still golden-haired—just not quite so easy-going.
Things got tougher, little by little. There was a baby sister, and we blamed it on
sibling rivalry. There was a divorce, and we blamed it on us. There was a bout of
depression, and we blamed it on me. There was Sensory Integration Disorder, and
ADHD, and strep-soaked tonsils, and swollen adenoids, and we blamed it on
diagnoses. At some point, I got sick of the blame game.
Who’s to blame, and for what? This is who my child is. He’s quiet. He’s way too loud.
He cries over stories in which animals are hurt. He chases the cats until they hide in
terror. He reads for hours, an entire book in one sitting. He can’t sit still for 10
minutes at dinner. He hugs his little sister when she falls down. He yells at his little
sister when she falls down. He’s sweet. He’s moody. He isn’t the child I thought I had.
He isn’t the child I thought I wanted.
I’ll tell you this: He teaches me who he is, every day. He teaches me who I am, every
day. But oh, those lessons are so easy to forget.
Go to your Happy Place.
Right now, my Happy Place is about 50 miles down the highway with no stops in sight.
I guess some things don’t change, because I seem to remember that Happy Place
being my destination 8 years ago, too. Remember that feeling? When the confusion
of why someone would send you home with a baby—an actual human being! Home,
alone! With you!—wears off and the sleep deprivation kicks in, and on the way to the
pharmacist to pick up the lanolin cream for your bleeding nipples, it suddenly hits
you: You could just keep on driving. Sure, you’d have to pull over eventually, but until
then, it would be just you and your nipples and Tom Petty blaring out of the radio.
You don’t even like Tom Petty that much, but right then, you and Tom in the middle
of Utah sounds pretty damned sweet.
Focus. Focus. Breathe.
Right now, I think Tom and I could have a future again. Because I’m angry, now. I’m
hurt. I’m holding it together, but I wish I didn’t have to. I’m not thinking about my son’s
strengths, or the silver lining of everything that makes him who he is. What I’m
thinking is this: I drop the kid somewhere near his dad’s house. I make a run through
the Starbucks drive-thru, and I head for the border. (North or south, doesn’t matter
which. Beer or margaritas: Is there a wrong choice?) I’ll pick you up on the way out of
town; grab the Fritos, fast. We’ll pretend that the only muffin-tops are the ones on
our, well, muffins. We’ll pretend that our babies never break our hearts.
Free-falling. Breathe.
But of course, they do. That’s part of the deal, isn’t it? And no matter how far or how
fast I drive, I’ll always be a mother; the mother of this marvelous, complicated,
contradictory child. Just as no matter how old or how obstinate he gets, he’ll always
be my baby. Even now, even when we’re both furious, I manage to remember those
lessons. I manage to remember that he’s in there: My baby, in the middle of this
lumped-up kid, like the prince in the frog, like Kay in the Snow Queen’s palace. I
remember this, too: How I held the ice on his head after he tried to jump the ditch on
his bike. How hard he laughed the first time he told me a joke. How insightful he can
be. How in his face I see a fierce, shining person who might be driving me up the wall
but who knows how to stand up for himself. How every weakness hides strength,
every challenge holds a promise.
“Mom? Mom, I’m sorry I got so mad. I’m sorry I was mean. I love you, Mom.”
Never mind, Officer. I see him. There he is.
Lisa Gorsuch is a writer, editor, and mother of two awesome kids who never cease to
amaze her, even when they're driving her to listen to Tom Petty. You can read her a
llgorsuch @ comcast.net
| All rights reserved. |
| DRIVING by Lisa Gorsuch Spring 2008 |
