On the drive to school in the morning, I put on an uplifting tune to get the kids in good spirits. The other day I put on “Top of the World” by The Carpenters, and we passionately sang along.
I looked at my daughter and said, “Isn’t Karen Carpenter the best!”
She took it as a question, and replied, “I don’t know… Taylor Swift is pretty good.”
When we join up with the serpentine car line, my daughter turns the music off, embarrassed someone could hear us.
Sometimes the morning music works, and sometimes it doesn’t. If we’re in a rush my daughter literally falls apart. Hurriedly getting out of the car, she pulls her backpack with such fury, all the contents spill onto the curb and then she screams, without any concern that she’s surrounded by loads of people.
The other day, more accustomed to the anxiety of car line drop off, she had minimal damage. Only her water bottle fell out of the side pocket. Her mood intensified, and she looked at me and screamed, “I hate you.”
I waved goodbye, and rolled out of there, but having my daughter yell, “I hate you,” to me had a reverberating effect, that I squelched by eating 3 muffins and a granola bar as I worked at my computer upon returning home. Of course, I thought of the perfect comeback too late, I should have rolled all the windows down, blasted Superstar, and sang along loudly while looking at her, “Don’t you remember you told me you loved me, baby.”
That would teach her. Instead, I made a post it note, so I wouldn’t forget - “Kiki is grounded for saying I hate you.” Taking away her precious iPad is the best way I establish control. The fear of not getting on the internet to watch The Simpsons, or Youtube videos about The Simpsons, reminds her to act like a decent human being.
After I finished working, I ordered Little Girl Blue on Amazon, the biography of Karen Carpenter. Her sad story is akin to Brittney Spears, but she was under the tyrannical thumb of her mother and brother, and the only way she could demonstrate control in her life was by starving herself, as opposed to Britney who demonstrates control by making Instagram videos with her shirt off.
Over the summer we stayed at my parents’ house in South Lake Tahoe. One night, I got in the shower as the kids were watching TV. While I was shampooing, I thought I heard a distant calling for me, but figured it was just reverberations from the active day at the beach. A moment later, the kids busted through the bathroom door holding a phone. Both panicked, “Mom, where were you? We’ve been screaming for you!”
“I’m taking a shower.” I answered, since the visual wasn’t enough.
Then Kiki said, “G called the cops because we couldn’t find you.”
“WHAT?!” I yelled with my hair sopped in conditioner.
G held out the phone to me, and sticking my head out of the shower, I explained to the operator, that I was in the shower when my kids called and everything is OK. The cops eventually came by to confirm that my kids aren’t part of some illicit ring, trying to escape. Kiki said to the cop, “It wasn’t a prank.”
It made the cop skeptical.
Geoffrey glues himself to me. In the afternoons we take the dog on a walk, and he always wants to hold my hand. Often, we run into an Italian woman and her beautiful tiny poodle. She talks in Italian or baby talk to Max, and then we chat. One day, we were walking back from the beach and she drove up next to us. “Is your puppy tired?” She asked concerned.
I said, “No, he’s fine.”
Then she asked if she could drive us home, so he didn’t have to walk, and I lied, “Were so close.” Parenting my dog like Karen Carpenter’s mom.
She relented, and happily waved goodby and said, “Ciao!”
All three of us waved back, and loudly said, “Ciao.”
My sister, Becky, is in Tahoe too, and we spent most evenings at her house. She’s constantly running around taking care of her four little kids; crafting, making soda stream concoctions, and pushing them on the swings.
When I’m in the folding chair, and they scream for me to push them on the swings, I usually just holler back to them, “Pump yourself with your legs.”
Then they ask Becky, and I feel bad, so I go push them.
Becky told me she had someone over for a playdate earlier in the week. Her four year old was on the swing screaming for her mom to come push her. This lady looked at my sister and said, “She can be such a bitch sometimes,” before trudging over to the swings to push her kid for what probably felt like an eternity.
Becky always talks about how she wants to go back to working full-time, and I was like, “Becky, no one will be able to match your level of enthusiasm. Not even half as much.”
Her day is exhausting, and I think she’s just venting, otherwise, she’d be out the door in a business suit, and low ponytail, carrying a briefcase, every day at 6:30 am.
One afternoon, when we were walking back, Geoffrey and I were holding hands, and he looked up at me and said, “Becky should write a book called, How to Raise Happy Kids.”
And I said, “I don’t know. Im pretty good too, right?”
Before I needed to cry along to Karen Carpenter singing, Goodbye to Love, he gave me a hug, and said, “Yeah.”
We moved into our new house. It took forever to get the internet, appliances and movers, but finally everything we need is here. It is in a box, or under a pile, but it is here, and in a few weeks I’ll get this stuff all sorted and organized.
When the internet guy came over he seemed starved for conversation. I worked on an air mattress in the unfurnished house. Sitting with the comforter over my legs and laptop on my lap, I looked up at him as he told me about every life decision he made over the last twenty years. Then he asked me what I did, and after I told him, he said, “Oh, your students must love you.” Smiling while raising his eyebrows up and down.
From then on, I saw two outcomes to my ignoring his running mouth; he would either kill me or he would leave without hooking up the internet.
Either way, one of my kids will be unhappy.
I smiled and listened till he finished the job. After he left, I put on music and ate four granola bars.
