The kids are asleep, as of 11:55 p.m. EDT. I’ve got candles burning in the same tealight candelbra that did a job on Grey Kitty’s whiskers, lo those many years ago. I sit on the front porch as the rain cascades around me, letting me and my candles burn.
Oh, and I’m wearing a bathrobe, just to confirm that most hoary of prejudices against bloggers.
The kids will wake soon, and when they do, I’ll be presented with offerings. One involves dirt. Or earth. Or something that requires earth. I’m all for it, though I nearly managed to kill my ‘mater seedlings this weekend through a deadly combo of drought, too-close grow lights, and lack of fertilizer. (When my own fumbling incompetence rains down, I do wonder how my children continue to thrive. It helps that their CNS trumps the tomato’s defense mechanisms. I guess opposable thumbs don’t hurt, either. At any rate, my earth mother cred is shot to hell; just ask my ‘maters.)
I will tear up at my children’s sweet offerings, no matter that they felt obligated or spurred by a class assignment at school.
I will hug them and kiss them and keep their presents forever.
And yet, I still have a wishlist.
1) Can we get beyond the idea that women are uniquely suited to multitasking? Cordelia Fine just bulldozes this stereotype in her book, Delusionas of Gender. And more: Kevin Drum marshals the evidence that multitasking is folly for everyone, irrespective of gender. No wonder I still have a florid scar from the time when I tried to pull a baking sheet from the oven while ensuring that the mini-Tiger (aged not-quite-three) wouldn’t get burned. (Guess who got schorched instead??) I keep multitasking, I’m liable to lose that opposable thumb. Picture a dog watering a tree. Picture a dog baking a souffle. The intersection of that? Um, that would be me. Multitasking. The combo of onions and knives is a particularly foolhardy ideas.
2) Can we please just “be excellent to each other,” as Bill and Ted would say? The one thing I truly want from my beautiful boys is kindness. Toward each other. Toward me. They have mad skillz with their friends, so can we please bring those skillz home? Because, y’know, rudeness is a neurotoxin, especially when rudeness is spread among peer or near-peers. I’m well aware that another camp of researchers regards sibling arguments as healthy, spurring on their verbal development. May God, or some benevolent goddess, or my pal the Ceiling Cat save us from further precocious verbal development. We’re already at a point where the least bad outcome could be a Amero-Germanic version of Alan Dershowitz. But back to the neurotoxins. My kids appear to bee more than fine. They chat; they argue, they wear me down. But my brain? It’s in acute danger of rotting! Neural termites and mad-cow disease could hardly hollow it out any faster than the daily squabbles! No wonder the Red Cross recently rejected my blood on suspicion of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakobs disease, aka mad cow for homans. (True story.)
That’s just my very personal list. I know theere’s ooodles more to say about what other kids and mamas need – not to mention daddies. I realize that my personal wishlist is very much formed by the concerns and privileges of educated, middle-class mothers.As for what less-privileged mothers need – well, Katha Pollitt pretty kicked it into the goal with her commentary on the “Tiger Mother” flap.Please read what she has to say about class,mothering, and solidarity, and I’ll just leave it at that – with the injunction that we should all be excellent to each other, to our parents and our children, tomorrow and always.
Happy Mother’s Day to you all, be you bio-mother, step-mother, adoptive mother, other-mother … or just another exhausted multitasker of any age, gender, or species. May your day be crowned by candles, flowers, champagne, and the survival of your opposable thumbs.
And on those days when excellence turns to flatulence? Well, you’ll still be welcome here at the Kitteh, where we recognize that being a child or a parent or just a fallible hooman is simply who we are. Welcome to the club. I’d light a candle for you, but I must admit it’s rather perfumed, and you might just prefer eau de methane.
(Next up: our local Mama Robin, if I can manage not to terrify her.)
Patron cat of Kittywampus (1985-2001)
Happy Mother’s Day. I am “celebrating” by being up at 6:30 a.m. with a baby who is fussing whether on the tit or in arms, in the high chair or on the floor, obviously exhausted, yet unable to sleep for any length of time. She was like this all day yesterday for my husband while I was at work (substitute bottle for tit), so I’m giving him a break this morning.
From her daycare, I have a paperweight. It says Happy Mother’s Day in glittery bubble paint and has her handprint in the middle. My son made me a card. He makes me a lot of cards. They usually have random collections of letters. He tells me what they say. The one that is P-dominated that I keep in my cubicle at work says, “I wish you could eat dinner with us every night.” This card has mostly Ms. It says “Happy Mother’s Day. I love you.”
It’s looking like it will be a lovely day. We’re supposed to have a picnic later with my husband’s family. I hope I can get a nap in with this little girl before then.
Chingona, Happy Mother’s Day to you, too! I so empathize. This will get easier, I promise. (My friends with teenagers say it then gets harder, but in other ways.)
The Tiger made me a garden stone in school with really pretty marble-like insets. Pretty nice – certainly looking better than my straggly tomatoes, so it will class up my raggedy garden.
Now we are off to the zoo and then to pick up my husband. I really hope you’ll get a nap. That would be a very fine present, indeed.
Oh, and I liked the Tina Fey piece. Makes me want to read her book. Thanks for linking it.
And at the risk of being spammy, I laughed out loud and then nearly cried at Tina Fey’s “A Mother’s Prayer for Her Child.”
An excerpt:
May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.
Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen.Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.
O Lord, break the Internet forever, that she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.