Dinner's Ready

I know that it is possible to raise children who are eclectic eaters. Who sit down at the table and welcome new and interesting foods. Who seek opportunities to expand their fledgling palettes. Indeed, I think that my youngest is growing up to be one of these eaters. I am so grateful for that. She will eat anything.

My oldest however, often eyes food as the enemy. Though he begrudgingly follows the family rule that every new taste needs to be sampled at least twice per meal, that doesn't mean he likes it. He'll do it though. He listens. He is nothing if not extremely well-mannered.

My youngest, the adventuress.
My oldest, the tolerant bureaucrat.
Together, they are the perfect dinner time storm.

Here's the deal: Every day at around 3 o'clock, Zachary is engaging in some sort of quiet activity. It could be a craft. It could be a book. It could be building with blocks. It could be watching Curious George. But, every day at 3, while Zoe naps and Zachary plays, I begin the dinner prep.

Usually, if I am not sucking too badly as Chef-Mother, I have given dinner some forethought. I have come up with something new (will they like it?) or old (they better still like it!) and am busily throwing it together before the Diva Dynamo awakes from her slumber.

As I cook, I fantasize about a dinner where everyone Comes-To-The-Table-When-Called and Eats-What-I-Have-Cooked while Engaging-In-Stimulating-Conversation. We will have a Toast (Zach does this nightly) and play a round of Best and Worst (we all share the best and worst part of our days) and then laugh about whatever it is we are discussing. The kids will listen as Tim and I catch each other up and will interject with tidbits related to what we are speaking about.

Sharing the nightly meal is a big deal to me. I've read the studies. I know that the more often families eat together, the less likely the kids are to become mass murderers or jump off a bridge or smoke some Crack in my bathroom. I also know that eating dinner together makes it more likely that my kid will be able to do long division in her head and be able to identify an escargot fork.

So, every day, I continue to prep a meal at 3 o'clock and serve it at 5:15ish (The time when old people without teeth and young people with toddlers sit down to eat all around America).
I do this 
every. 
damn. 
day.

It should come as no surprise to my family when I yell "Dinner's ready". They should be prepared for this, shall we say-- predicable --turn of events. 

But every night,
every.
damn.
night. 
The same dance occurs.

"Dinner's Ready!" I announce.

BAM! Like the 5 o'clock express train, Zoe streaks across the kitchen floor. She is first to the table every night. In fact, approximately 20 minutes before dinner hits the table, she starts circling her chair and shrieking like a wounded animal who is also starving and severely dehydrated. She makes this noise even if she has a snack in her hand. She begs to be buckled into her booster. I comply. 


Arrow starts whining and wiggling for me to serve him his dinner. I forget to set up his dish before dinner almost every night because I am too busy trying to feed the humans I call my family. I put two scoops of kibble in Arrow's dish. He sniffs it and dismisses it. He walks away.


"DINNER'S READY!!!" I shriek.


My husband saunters downstairs from his office. If it's winter he decides that right now, at this exact dinner time moment, is when he has to add three more logs to the wood burning stove. And he has to stand by the stove and watch the logs catch fire before he joins us at the table. This fire watching will last until he can no longer withstand my bitching. Only then will he join us. (If it is not winter he will do some other small project-- like beginning to Spackle the walls --immediately before the meal) When he finally approaches the table he will make a detour for an extra ice cube or a special spoon, and then he will sit down.


"Zachary! Get to the table" I demand.

Zachary drags himself to the table. Sometimes he crawls over while trying to dig up the hardwoods with the top of his head. Picture a large pig snuffing mud with its snout while sprinting. That's the image I'm going for. Finally, he sits down. He informs me that his milk isn't cold enough. He feels cold. His napkin is not folded correctly. Anything to delay eating.


But, success...right? The four of us are around the table. I get us to at least this point every single night. If it's a good night (and this has happened approximately 3 times in the past 4 years) everyone eats and shares and relates and laughs and stays consistent with my aforementioned fantasy. If it's a normal night, dinner falls rapidly apart.

Zoe (who can not yet talk) begins to shove food in her mouth so quickly her cheeks puff out like small hot air balloons. She chokes the food down and regurgitates whatever doesn't make it. She spots the dog begging for scraps and attempts to share with him by flinging her entire plate off of the table and onto the floor. Tim or I pick up the detritus and salvage whatever the dog doesn't steal. We place the plate in front of her again as she swipes a dinner roll and chucks it at Zach's chest. Usually her aim is dead to nuts and the two of them share in a round of hysterics.


Zachary (who can talk very well) calls out, "Cheers! To Family!" and then engages us with tales of fighter jets that can fly "60 and 100" miles an hour (four year old speak for reallyfuckingfast). He regales us with stories of a child at school who hit another child and received a time out. We beg him to take just one bite. We play a round of Best and Worst. He nibbles a morsel of food off of his plate. Picture biting a Cheez-It in half and in half again. Then, eat half of that half. That is a Zachary size bite.


Tim and I have not yet taken a mouthful. Our food is congealing.


Zach announces he has to Pee. Zoe rubs salad dressing into her cheeks like it's Creme De La Mer. Tim's boss sends him a critical email. The cat meows a hello on the way to her litter box. Arrow farts.

Zachary takes a final bite and, ever the rule follower, clears his plate and places his milk back into the refrigerator. While he is on his way to the sink, Zoe tries to take his head off with a flying, half-eaten, Brussel Sprout.

She nails him.


My fantasy collapses.


But, I'll keep trying because I know that practice makes perfect and someday, before my children turn into surly teenagers, we will master the art of The Family Dinner.We already kinda have, don't you think?


Until then, I'll be here in the corner eating my Pasta Primavera.

Om.

I have anxiety.

Sometimes it's better. Sometimes it's worse. But it's always there. More and more lately, it seems to take over what I am doing at the most inopportune times. And it always drops in to say hello when things get chaotic.

There are times when my anxiety is social in nature (like at those big parties where I know some people but not others), and times when my anxiety is directly related to all that I feel that I have to do to feel calm again (Dry my hair. Fold the laundry. Write a thank you note.) Anxiety has the ability to make things that may seem small to others-like returning a phone call-feel really big to me. I don't feel anxious because I don't have confidence that I can do the things that need to be done. I feel anxious because even a small task gets added into the bucket of all tasks. I have a hard time differentiating which should take priority. All things on my things-to-do list feel big.

I have recently noticed that the sense with the ability to send me spiraling into a frenzy is that of sound. When there is too much noise, I start feeling anxious. If, say, the news is on in the kitchen and Tim is listening to music and the kids are playing loudly, I feel the need to put my hands over my ears. I have been known to turn down the volume on the television in other people's homes. Not because I am trying to demonstrate my dislike of T.V., but because I know that turning down the sound is directly proportionate to turning down my anxiety.

My battle with anxiety kicked into gear after Zach was born and the baby monitor found its permanent place on my night table. I don't know about you other mothers out there, but when both of my children were babies, I was able to identify and hear a distinct change in their breathing that would signal to me that soon, soon, they would be awake. And if they were awake, that meant I would have to be awake too. And I didn't want to be awake. I was tired. So, that thought of the change in breathing caused me anxiety.

I hope I haven't lost you non-anxiety sufferers here.

In other words, just the thought of that change in breath, the thought of that sound, made my heart beat faster. I am willing to bet that if you hooked me up to a heart monitor, you could track the physical changes. The sound, the experience itself, doesn't even need to be occurring. Simply the memory of the experience can cause an attack.

Sure, there are lots of things that make me anxious and there are lots of things that I do to mask it. Take, for example, the fact that I do not use my hands for the first few minutes after arriving somewhere or doing something important. That means not holding a drink or a plate of food when I first arrive at a party. Even if I am not afraid-anxious and I am just excited-anxious, my hands are a sure tell. They shake. Uncontrollably. At my most recent job interview, (a few years back) I had to keep them folded in my lap and stall for time instead of handing out the lesson plan I had brought to share because I knew that my hands would tremble as I distributed the papers to the panel of interviewers. I didn't want to give myself away.

With the realization that I need to soon do something to help me better cope with feeling anxious (something other than cleaning or writing) I have been repeating a little phrase to myself every so often: Stop. Breathe. Listen.

This is something I tell my son to do all of the time. Something I tell my daughter to do-though she might still be too young to understand. I liken it to the cliched phrase of taking time to stop and smell the roses. I am trying so hard to slow down.

This evening as Tim and I were cleaning up after dinner I focused on the sounds around me. I heard my children laughing, then screaming, then laughing again. Zachary said to Zoe, "Come on, you can try to hold the broom!" Arrow made a weird moaning sound as he stretched out in front of the fireplace. The dishes made that clank (that always makes me feel happy) as they were placed in the dishwasher.

That dishwasher dish clatter noise has the power to whisk me back to laying in my childhood bed and listening to my mother in the kitchen. It's a good noise. A safe noise. It's as good as the return of the peepers to our stream in the spring. As good as my fingers clicking on this keyboard. As the sound of my ceiling fan turning.

Sounds are closely linked to memory. I often set a scene in my home by setting the sound. Try to think of what I am doing as being akin to selecting a playlist for a party. You probably don't want to get things bumpin' by queing up some Enya. It's kind of like that for me. I purposely work to create an environment that is audibly friendly. I don't necessarily try to control what happens. I just try to shape it.

Humor me for a minute and stir up some happy childhood memories of your own.
Go to that moment.

You there?

Good. Now, listen to what's going on. Dial in on it and really focus.

Are adults speaking loudly and laughing? Is the Charlie Brown Christmas Special on T.V.? Do you hear the ice cream truck? Crickets? Dogs barking? What is happening around you? What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel?

Chances are, if the memory is good, then the sounds that go along with it still have the ability to make you feel great. Maybe I could argue that it starts in the womb with the shuuush shuuush of our mother's heartbeat. We try to reproduce that environment to calm our infants. We rock and shhhh. We place white noise makers in the baby's rooms. We employ fans. Play soft music.

Most of us know that if we want a calm baby, we need to set a calm scene.*

*I am not saying that it should be quiet every time your child needs to sleep. Conversely, making sure you don't create a hushed house will most likely make your kiddo a better sleeper because they won't need silence to drift off. I'm also not for a moment claiming to be Weissbluth or Sears. 

I'm just saying, for me (and therefore, for my family), a little zen goes a long way.

Bigger kids, bigger problems?

Don't let the title of this post fool you. This evening, I am not proselytizing about what you should or should not feed your children. Most days, I don't know this myself. 

Instead, I want to share with you the question that has been nagging at me lately: As my kids get older, will parenting get tougher?

I have been a mother for a little over four and a half years. A mother of two for a little over 18 months. I've had hard days. I've experienced exhaustion. I have faced unknowns and health scares and boo-boos. But, when the challenges pass and the tantrums are reduced to simmer, my children sleep peacefully in their own safe beds. Every night. They end their days with kisses and hugs and books and a sip of water. They end their days safely under my watch.

I have been a high-school teacher for a little over 8 years. I have taught grades 9 through 12 in inner cities and affluent suburbs.  It stands to reason then, that I may know more about adolescents than I do young children. My students' achievements range from receiving a Presidential Scholarship to receiving a GED. Neither child is more or less intelligent than the other. They have simply made different choices. 

As parents of young children know well, "choice" is a big buzzword. We encourage our children to choose good behavior. To choose to set the table. To choose play over television. Choice takes on a different tone as our little loved ones get older. 

I can recall clearly two very different conversations I had with two very different students of mine. They shared one thing in common though, both were pregnant and both had not yet graduated high school. I cried with them as they spoke with me and confronted frighteningly real decisions: "Should I have my baby? Should I tell my parents? Will I be able to graduate? How can I care for my child?". Oddly enough, during both of these conversations, I was pregnant with my first and second child, respectively. At the time, I was scared for them because I knew intimately the toll of mothering. I knew the stress. I will also tell you this: These were not "bad" kids. Neither had a history of poor decisions. They were high acheivers in my classroom. They were bright, vibrant young women. Now, they are strong, successful young mothers. And both have my respect.

Then, there were my two male students so clearly struggling with their own sexuality. My God, as if we don't struggle enough with sex and the accompanying hormones in high school, these young men were facing an enormous hurdle: "Should I admit this to myself? Should I tell my parents? Should I open up to my friends?". Remember that dreaded high school social hierarchy? It's worse now. Now, instead of rumors spreading by note or hallway whispers, they can reach every student in the school at the speed of a text. One Facebook post and everyone, everyone, knows you are Gay. Before, maybe, you know it yourself. I can recall one of the young men telling me that he had to speak with me after school and then proceeding to cry for an hour. He told me of every problem in his life, but never once shared with me that he suspected (that he knew) he was Gay. 

I knew though. I wanted so desperately to throw my arms around him and whisper, "Kiddo, once you are out of this place, life opens up. Just survive for a few more years." But I was a brand new teacher when that conversation was taking place and felt afraid that getting too personal with a student would earn me a ticket out the door. So I settled for listening and supporting.

There are the students who have sat in my classroom, high on one drug or another, thinking I didn't know. But I did, I knew. 

There are the bullies and the bullied. I remember vividly being bullied in sixth grade by a group of four girls who told me that if I didn't get on my knees and beg, they wouldn't let me sit at their lunch table. I can still feel the rocks digging into my knees as I looked into their eyes and asked for a seat.

There are the young women cutting calories. Eliminating food altogether. My eyes find these sufferers immediately.

After 8 years of teaching I have realized that most relatively tuned-in adults and parents know whatever a teenager is hiding before they admit it to us because we have been there. We have done it. 

On Sunday, Tim and I took the kids to Jordan's under the guise of finding me a writing desk. Really, we needed to get out of the house because Zoe was miserable with a cold and whining non-stop. As we neared our destination, we realized that neither of us had checked what time the store opened. The resulting Google search informed us doors opened at 11 am. It was 10:15. We stopped at a nearby Dunkin' Donuts to snag coffees for the grownups and munchkins for the munchkins. Zach and Zoe sat side by side in their coordinated fleeces eating happily. The group of old people that can be found in every Dunkin' Donuts everywhere on Sunday mornings looked at us admiringly. One man said to us, "Enjoy it. As they get bigger, the problems will too."

I nodded and smiled and thanked him and filed the advice away to that region of my brain where words from kindly old people wilt and disappear.

But it surfaced later after Zoe had stopped whining and was playing happily with some straws and trucks. I looked at her and wondered about the choices she will make. I thought about what I can do to give her advice that won't be filed away to the parts of her brain where she will store words from mommy that she thinks are prudish and antiquated.

So, mommies of older children. Mommies of children who are 8 and 10 and 18 and more. Please, tell me and all of the young mothers reading this post, what can we do? How can we do it? How can we make sure that our children make good choices long after we can tuck them in at night?

I promise, I think we all do, we'll listen.