The Fate of the Family Vehicle

Since I have had children, there are things that have been permanently disfigured: for one, my body. But I’m not even going to get started on that stretch marked path. Other things that I have noticed which are permanently disfigured: the (apparently communal) tube of toothpaste next to my sink, each and every drawer and cupboard that sits below eye level (and quite a few that are above), and Saturday mornings. But perhaps the most horrific and most tragic disfigurement is that of my car. Or, I guess I should clarify: our family vehicle.

And it is tragic. In its’ pre-family state, the car was littered with the occasional Starbucks cup, a cd jacket, maybe a candy wrapper. Pre-kids, cleaning the car meant walking outside with a hose, a bucket and a Wisk-broom. Post-kids it involves haz-mat suits, giant wet vacs and those biohazard orange garbage bags you see at doctor’s offices.

The assault on our family vehicle was not immediate. Rather, the metamorphosis was directly tied to two phenomena. The first phenomenon is rather obvious and involves the passenger (or car seat)-to-driver ratio. Our car seat–to-driver ratio started its climb on that first memorable ride home from the hospital. My husband clutched the steering wheel white knuckled as if there was a gun to his head, and in a sense, there was a gun to his head. It just happened that this tiny pistol was strapped into a car seat, puffy and pink, weighing 4lbs 1 oz and emitting a baby powder residue.

And where was I seated on this maiden voyage home with our baby girl? I was tucked in the back seat cooing into the tiny face bundled, buckled, and packaged more tight and secure than a nuclear warhead. Which leads me to the second facet of our vehicular demise: the seating situation. There was a demotion that took place on that monumental drive home as I abdicated my first class seat to business class. Pre-child, my assigned seat was up in first class, acting as cute co-pilot with my polished toenails gingerly decorating the dashboard as I enjoyed the scenery, managed the music selection, and gave the occasional navigational advice to my husband.

However, as the car seat-to-driver ratio continued to gain ground, my seating situation and subsequently vehicular job description lost ground. With three car seats, I found myself in coach class administering bottles and burp cloths to the three time bombs like a flight attendant on a plane full of college spring breakers. After our fourth child was born, I had two options. I could either continue my regression and assume a seated position somewhere between livestock holding and the place where lavatory waste is held, or I could wave the white flag and surrender to the front seat, a seat in which I would never again sit in the forward facing position.

Although I was back in my co-pilot seat, I was a far cry from first class. And the scenery had changed drastically. My view now looked out over the horizon of goldfish confetti, banana peels and car seats, with little inmates strapped in like pint sized Hannibal Lector’s. My job description changed from cute co-pilot companion to a cross between a circus performer, Hooter’s waitress, and the guy that cleans out the monkey cages at the zoo. With super human flexibility and contortion maneuvers that would have landed me infamous nicknames in high school or a job in cirque du soleil, I do everything from hand out juice boxes to respond to emergency calls like “M-O-M-M-Y! I dropped my favorite (insert any noun here: pony, truck, blanket, peanut butter and jelly sandwich) again!” I have gone to places in my car that are so dark, so foul, so sticky and so horrifying that I have considered just parking next to Disney at Halloween and selling tickets to people so that they can come and be terrified.

I have, also noticed that as my own family vehicle grows larger to accommodate more car seats, my parent’s cars have become smaller. “Oh, that’s ok, we’ll just drive on our own,” my mom says. Gas prices probably don’t go high enough to undue the trauma a Grandparent goes thru when they go to strap their beloved grandchild into the car seat and then are subsequently asked by the two year-old holding a petrified French fry to his mouth, “Dis food yucky or still ok?” I actually think it was the residual hard-boiled egg encrusting the seat belts that sealed the dual car deal. I try not to envy my parents as my dad lets down the convertible top into the place a backseat (with three car seats) would otherwise be. I tried to open the sunroof once in our family vehicle, but I got pulled over for littering when McDonald’s bags, napkins, and juice boxes started flying out cyclone style.

I will admit that I was one of those pre-kid people who swore the fate of the family vehicle would never occur on my watch. My husband and I wrinkled our noses at the trashed mini vans and SUV’s of our post-kid friends. And then, recently, I noticed my husband struggling in what I now know was the denial phase of accepting our post family vehicle fate, as he worked feverishly with vacuums, sponges and upholstery cleaners to try to keep our post-kid car at impossible pre-kid status. I think I had pretty much come to accept our vehicular fate as one past salvaging when my daughter cautioned me one muggy morning “Mommy, sum-fing smells yucky in here,” as I buckled her. I knew, sadly, our car was a lost cause. But my husband, who has his own vehicle in which to seek refuge, had not been exposed to the things I had come to witness take place in our family vehicle on a daily basis. And thus, I found him, fighting in vain. Calmly, I placed my hand on his shoulder,

“Honey… Sweetheart, it’s over. She’s just too far gone. I’m sorry,” I say.

“But I can save her!” he gasps.

“No. You can’t,” I reply as I gently remove the sponges held like paddles from his hands and wipe the blood (or is that ketchup?) from his cheek.

“It’s time to let her go.”

Car karma certainly has a way of coming back and biting you. And there is really nothing that can be done. I know some things post kids are just never quite the same- like the fit of my blue jeans and our bank account. And so I have learned it’s best just to accept my car in its’ new post family state. Just like the gooey tube of toothpaste I found in my drink holder.

Side Dishes

We have an ongoing debate in our household. I still remember the moment the debate began roughly nine years ago, before children, before my life became defined by wiping things: pudgy hands, tears, countertops, noses and bottoms. I can still remember the moment I heard my husband utter the devastating words that left me, a newlywed, standing over the kitchen sink with tears in my eyes wondering how in the world I ever ended up with “That Man!” A man, I evidently did not really know at all.

“Macaroni and Cheese is not a meal,” he said casually as he flipped the remote between football games. “…It’s a side dish.” And with those words, the room began to spin and I felt as if my entire universe had been flipped like the lid on a diaper genie.

“Macaroni and Cheese is a side dish?” even as I tried the words out under my breath I knew this couldn’t be right. Surely he didn’t mean it. Maybe I misunderstood. But to my horror, after further inquisition, I verified that he did in fact believe macaroni and cheese belonged in the side dish category, meaning it should always accompany a featured main dish, which, according to him, should always come from the “meat” group category on the food pyramid.

This concept appalled me. I could not have been more dumbfounded than if he had told me that we had a flying pet pig in the backyard, or some other nonsense like the idea that ice cream has calories!

After all, every person whom I had ever met and who had fell victim to a sorrowful breakup had sought the companionship and comfort of a giant bowl of steaming hot macaroni and cheese. So what if these “people” all happened to be women? The point remained that the macaroni and cheese was unaccompanied by any other food- except maybe chocolate or ice cream. But obviously those were the side dishes. No, deliciously cheesy, creamy macaroni and cheese, in my mind and forever in my heart and soul, was and is most certainly a main dish.

Mostly, I have been able to stomach this ongoing disagreement because I know I am right. Now that I have crossed the chasm into motherhood, I have come to see that my earliest adamant defense of macaroni & cheese as a main dish came only partly from brainwashing as a child, but mostly from an innate and unconscious wisdom that would reveal it’s value years later when I became a parent.

Fundamental parenting truth #5: Macaroni and cheese is a main dish. Not only is macaroni & cheese a main dish, it reigns supreme in a mom’s culinary arsenal. When roughly 1,095 meals are prepared in a year (not including snacks), it is fully acceptable that 361.35 (or 1/3) meals in a year be comprised of macaroni & cheese.

What the dish lacks in nutritional well roundedness, it makes up for in approval ratings from the tiny-toed food critics seated at the table. In a test study run out of my kitchen, all 4 high chairs give macaroni & cheese the un-sucked thumbs up. And I’ll be the first to admit, after a day of battling it out in the trenches of parenting, I will serve macaroni & cheese for the easy win. Maybe it is lazy, maybe it is pathetic, but sometimes, after it seems like the diapers are perpetually poopy, and that every pot, pan, toilette paper roll and box of cereal has been pulled out and poured all over the floor (again!) and the walls have been finger painted in diaper cream (again!), I just really, really, really need this one victory. Clean Plates! With macaroni & cheese there is no bargaining, bribing threatening, counting out each bite of vegetable. With macaroni & cheese you are even guaranteed a few blissful moments of quiet while they shovel it into their mouths.

I do however admit to the occasional macaroni & cheese faux pas. My daughter called me out on my blunder. I will sometimes mix frozen peas into the macaroni & cheese in a nutritional effort to even out the number of French fries my children have consumed earlier in the day. My covert insertion of peas works out well with my boys who weigh all of 25 lbs and yet consume food at the rate of a high school football team. I wish that I could say that I am at a loss as to where they put all of their food. However, because I am present at every potty “celebration”, I am all too aware of exactly where all of the food is going.

My daughter is another story. Unlike the boys, who inhale any food faster than you can say “pickle,” my daughter picks up each bite of food held between her “princess pink” fingernail polish clad fingers to inspect for microscopic signs of imperfection. Should the product meet her standards, she will then daintily place the morsel into her mouth. It is not uncommon for her breakfast to stretch well into lunch.

However, macaroni & cheese is the one menu item she will ingest at rates that rival her brother’s. So when I placed a bowl of macaroni & cheese with (gasp!) peas mixed in it in front of her, she took one look at the bowl and then at me with a look of horror that transformed into disgust and finally gave way to pity. A look that I am sure I will conjure up many more times from her as a teenager. When she did finally stop glaring at me, she let out a sigh and then began to pick thru her bowl. Her little fingers were flying as she deftly sifted out the desirables from the (green!) interruptions. This process very closely resembled the monkeys at the zoo picking things off of one another and inserting them into their mouths. When she announced that she was finished, she beamed proudly over a neat bowl filled with green peas.

Perhaps I am a little fanatical about my position advocating macaroni and cheese. I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes I get carried away. I did not, however, divorce my husband over this issue. Although, if memory serves correct, I may have run a background check to make sure there were no other skeletons in his closet. But we have agreed to live amicably, despite our difference of opinion on this Main Dish issue.

And then last week, after a full day of Daddy Daycare, I returned home from a little retail therapy. And upon inspecting the pantry, I snorted when I saw the stash of macaroni and cheese was missing. And I asked in a most innocent and unsuspicious voice “Honey? What did you feed the kids today?” There was a moment of silence as he flipped between football games and then I heard his mumbled answer, “mac’ & cheese.” And then because I couldn’t help myself, I asked “And? –”

First Run

I lace up my running shoes and grab my ipod to head out the door. Nothing seems particularly amazing about this scenario, right? It wasn’t that long ago and this was a daily scenario for me - just a girl getting a little exercise. Well, factor in two pregnancies and four children and things start to get a little more interesting. Which is why I had been fantasizing about this moment- this very moment -when I lace up the trusty running shoes and head out for my first run after giving birth to the latest addition to the litter.

Of course this monumental act of exercise doesn’t just spontaneously happen. Gone are the days of waking up and thinking “what to do today? Well, a run would be nice!” In this new scenario babysitters have been called, booked, cancelled due to the latest virus running rampant in the sandbox, rebooked, cancelled again when super child jumps off of the kitchen counter and requires a trip for x-rays, called again only to find out babysitter is unavailable because she is doing humanitarian work in South America for the next month and after that she has a date. The amount of planning NASA takes to launch a shuttle has nothing on the amount of preparation and planning it has taken to make this little run come to fruition.

So when I take those first few steps I try to focus on the little victory I have already won and not the fact that I don’t remember my thighs rubbing like that before? Or that my maternity shirt is flapping over a tummy that is swaying to it’s own version of “Can’t touch this.”

No, instead I think about nice things like how beautiful the weather is, how good it feels to be back running and how the ipod’s choice of U2’s “Beautiful Day” seems almost poetic. My legs find their rhythm and I smile and wave as I pass an elderly woman out walking her dog. I begin to think about how much I have missed running and I become excited as I think about adding it back into my life. I think it might be nice to run some 5k races? A breeze blows in my face. I continue on thinking really, even 10k or gosh, marathons might be fun to train for! I breathe in the crisp air and relish the pace and think about running marathons, maybe even racing marathons! After all, wasn’t that Romanian girl who just won the Olympic marathon actually like 40? And then I envision myself standing on the podium winning the gold medal for the marathon and how I would modestly tell the media “oh yes, well, yes, I DO have four children….”

It is a completely blissfully happy four minutes and ten seconds.

Shortly thereafter, I realize that I am developing a little stitch in my side. I notice that the temperature seems to have risen like twenty degrees? I become annoyed at how my running shorts seem to be chaffing where my thighs are rubbing. My rhythm is thrown off when I have to stumble out of the way of an oncoming car. I can feel the sweat and now my lungs are hurting too. Ok, so maybe not an Olympic medal, I concede in my head. The mailboxes seem to be getting further and further apart. I mean, I would be really happy just to get to run some local road races. The old woman walking her little dog comes up from behind and passes me. Oh heck, I now think, who am I kidding? I don’t even really like running that much. I start to think about how running is over rated and wonder if I will make it home before my kids grow beards and move out of the house. And then I see it. Is that what I think it is? Yes! It is! Road kill. I figure in the realm of signs and foreshadowing go, this is NOT a good sign for me. I think about my breathing and who would take care of all of my kids if I don’t make it. The humiliation of how the headlines would read “MOM OF FOUR BITES THE DUST” propels me onward despite the leg cramps and the droning of Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles.”

I round the corner and then I see it: My mailbox. My promised land. I realize I am going to make it. I coerce my battle-scarred body to the finish line and assess the damage as I humbly walk down my driveway. My thighs are rubbed raw, my soft tummy is heaving for air, and my maternity shirt is clinging to me in sweat. My feet hurt. I still have a cramp in my side. I am a mess. For a moment I scold myself for not being the svelte athlete that I once was. I hang my head as I think about how unfit and out of shape I have become.

And then a movement from the window catches my eye and I look up and I realize it is coming from the little faces of my children, heads bouncing and hands waving as they watch me make my way up the front walkway. The sight of them causes me to walk a little taller because I remember that my former “fit self” did not have these four lovely children. I feel proud when I think about how my body carried me thru not just miles run, but thru pregnancies and 3 a.m. feedings, and countless diaper changes. And so I decide right then to cut my body a little slack. And I tell myself to remember that really great things take time. After all, I have what, like four years until the next Olympics?