Choosing This (Revisited)

          "I in there!" Sylvia says a dozen times a day, and somehow the words resonate with me. I'm in here. Two years out of the classroom, and my sense of self as a teacher is fuzzy around the edges,  like the murky shape of an action figure at the bottom of the bathwater. There are many moments each day, moments when I am reduced to the menial automatism  of full-time childcare-- changing diapers, wiping counters and noses, procuring meals and cleaning up after them-- that I, too, want to affirm, "I'm in there!" Those are the times, even when I am hardest at actual work, that I wonder about my choices. Surely anyone could do this! It is not that the work is devoid of all satisfaction. I feel the same sense of fleeting accomplishment after changing diapers from the after-lunch "poop fest" as I do cleaning out the chicken coop. It is just that I do not feel that I am bringing any special skills to bear. If the kids were in daycare, or had a nanny, their meals would be served and their bottoms cleaned. Books would be read, and naps would be taken. Often I suspect that many of those things would go more seamlessly if it were not I to orchestrate them. I've seen the miracle of the daycare classroom, one- and two-year-olds sitting patiently around a table, singing songs while waiting for their grub, whole roomfuls of toddlers sleeping all at once with their butts up in air.
 It feels impossible for me to do this job without wondering, "Why?" almost daily. The only written treatise on staying home I've read began with a defense for doing so. Despite the protestations of the writer's usual publisher, and at the risk of alienating the millions of moms without the option or the inclination to stay home, she felt compelled to compile evidence for why a parent's full-time presence in the home during the early years was good for kids. It couldn't be left out, the author argued, for how else could she tolerate the endless tedium and frustrations that came from staying at home?  In other words, there had to be a good reason to choose to suffer so.
Honestly, I don't buy it.  I'm sure most kids do fine in daycare. Most kids would probably do fine anywhere; it is in their very nature to adapt, to thrive. Although in my heart of hearts I can't help hoping that this time with me will matter to my kids in some unknowable way, when I am most honest with myself, I know that it is not really for my children that I choose to be a full-time mom.
 So why? As I contemplate going back to work, it's a good question. At Thanksgiving, my dad reminded me of a study he'd read that reported couples are happiest when both partners work outside the home at moderate-income jobs. A childhood friend raved about how happy her daughter is since she's started daycare. The other morning, when everyone needed or wanted something, urgently and loudly-- Gemma a nap, Dee Dee "CEREAL IN A BOWL," Sylvia a clean diaper, Clayton paints to color the monsters we'd made out of paper towels and rubber bands--when the radio I'd turned on in the futile hope of actually hearing some real-word news was just background noise adding to the chaos, when my half-drunk cup of tea was cold on the counter and the dog was chewing up one of the baby's pacifiers, I thought, "This is nuts! This sucks! I'm going back to work!" It wasn't even eight, a whole day of the same stretched out before me. And for what?
 In a calmer moment, it's not that hard to answer. For one, I like a challenge. Maybe anyone can change a diaper, pour a bowl of cereal, get down the paint, carry a thrashing toddler to her crib for a time-out. But to do it, to make Dee Dee say please and teach Clayton not to nag, to get the milk and rock the baby and rescue the paci and change the diaper, all while maintaining some sort of cool-- that is the challenge! (A challenge, which, to be honest, I did not master on that particular morning. "I have four kids to take care of!" I said crossly to a wide-eyed Clayton, "I cannot be at your beck and call!" Being the oldest, he often bears the brunt of my frustration.)
      Taking care of a lot of kids at once is like riding a sine curve. When you're in the trough, it's good (albeit basically impossible) to remember that things will look up soon. Ten minutes after I snap at Clayton, the baby is asleep, Clayton is happily painting at the kitchen table, the girls are dressed and fed. I'm sorting laundry and wiping marker off the kitchen chairs while the girls race back and forth from the living room, holding up animal cards and asking over and over, "What's that one say?" Sylvia is the funniest, since she's not really there yet linguistically. She just mimics her sister's words, as proud as she can be: "Whatthatonesay?" Clayton, ever attuned to my shifts of mood, looks up from his painting and says, "This is fun! Mom, are you having fun?" I can't help laughing. "I am!" I say, and strangely, I mean it. Sorting laundry is my least favorite chore, and yet, seeing all three happy and engaged, while I bask in the sweet relief of having weathered the storm--well, it is a certain kind of fun.
Another nice thing about full-time parenting is that, like teaching, it gives you the chance to screw up a lot and still do a generally good job. In the classroom, no matter how poorly a class period goes, there's always the next class, the next day. You can tweak the lesson, recover your cool, turn over a new leaf again and again and again. The times that I'm at my worst as a mom, impatient and unhappy, ready to meet every new frustration with mounting irritation and self-pity-- "Oh God, what an awful day!"--, I try to keep that in mind.  Not only will the day get better (the troughs can last only so long) but I can be better, too. Sometimes all it takes is trying on a little joy. I've learned from Clayton that the surest way to lighten the general mood is to start singing about poop and pee. We just alter the usual lyrics with a little potty humor, and soon everyone is giggling away, me included, because, as cliche as it is, there's nothing quite so heart-warming as hearing your children laughing.
I also believe in apologizing. After the chaos of that particular morning had subsided,  I told Clayton I was sorry for snapping at him. "But you're a grown-up!" he said. "Grown-ups don't have to say they're sorry!" So there was a lesson in this for each of us: mine in patience and self-possession, his in human fallibility.
In preparation for the eleven hour drive to Florida for Thanksgiving, I checked out a Sesame Street video from the library for the girls to watch in the car. It's geared for the very young (even Cookie Monster is a baby), and it opens with a doctorate in child development talking to the camera with her son on her lap, telling parents that kids learn best when they share experiences with someone they love. Her words, meant mostly, I think, to encourage parents to enjoy their thirty minutes of peace and then turn off the TV, have stuck with me lately. I do try to give my kids lots of experiences, often out of mere survival, since too much unstructured time at home makes us all crazy. But I've begun to wonder if maybe it's not just the experiences that matter: all those trips to the library and the lake, the paper towel monsters and the elaborate games of make-believe on the trampoline.  Maybe my being there for all of it matters more than I've ever allowed myself to believe.
When I think of my own young childhood, it certainly mattered to me that Mom was there. I wasn't aware, then, of the time she must have spent preparing meals or cleaning up after them, or doing any of the other endless tasks that go hand in hand with caring for young children. And yet, the fact that she did those things surely contributed to the sense of abiding security and warmth that make up my memory of those times. Perhaps all those little menial tasks that never stay done are really at the root of what it means to "take care," every chore really an act of love.  Sylvia, in her little two-year-old heart, understands this: she wants to change her baby's diaper again and again. She gets it. This is the way a mom loves.
Ultimately, I choose to be a full-time parent for me. When Sylvia wakes up trembling and tearful from her nap, I'm glad it's my shoulder she rests her head on, her little legs pulled up tight against my body. When Dee Dee, normally such a tornado of destruction, slides out of my arms at Clayton's Play-n-Learn class to sit quietly with her hands clasped sweetly in her lap, her little round face the very essence of expectation-- it is a moment well worth all the times I've had to chase her down in parking lots and libraries. I choose full-time mothering because I want to do it long enough that I do it well, that I meet each new challenge with a little more expertise, a little more grace, a little more patience, and when I do not, I can forgive myself my own imperfections. I choose it for the patchwork of memories that come together from our day-to-day: Dee Dee pretending to be "Shaggy" for days on end ("Shaggy took a bath! Shaggy went down the slide!"), Clayton unrolling an entire roll of paper towels in the kitchen trying to turn himself into a mummy, Sylvia quietly reading Little Doggie Go (more commonly known as Go, Dog, Go) aloud to herself at the coffee table while Dee Dee and Clayton chase each other around the living room. I choose it for me, because I cannot pretend to know what is best for my children. Almost certainly, there is no "best." But more and more, I find myself believing that this path were on is good, for all of us.

"I in there!"

Wednesday started out well enough. I'd gotten everyone out the door by 7:45, had lifted, crunched, and lunged for an hour in "Pump" at the gym, and then done thirty-five minutes on the treadmill while reading an article about the fiscal cliff and the history of taxation in America. By 10:15 I was relaxed, showered, and ready to devote myself to my kids' entertainment and enrichment.
"Where are we going?" Clayton wants to know after we've all piled back into the van.
"I thought we'd go to the library and then the park," I say. We need a fresh lot of library books and it's a cool but sunny day.
"No! I want to go home! I don't want to go there! I want to go home! I am NOT going there! I am NOT going!" Clayton is letting his worst colors show.
"We ARE going!"  Dee Dee baits him.
"I am NOT going!"
"We ARE going!"
I turn on the radio and ignore them, but am impressed nonetheless by Dee Dee's conjugation of the verb. Her language grows more sophisticated by the day.
The parking lot of the library is crowded-- story time is already underway-- so we have to park in front of the coffee shop instead, quite a ways from the library entrance. Clayton is still complaining. I am tired of his incessant negativity and tell him so. This is what we're doing, I say, and he's doing it, too. Then I bring out the big guns: complain anymore and he loses video time. I don't buy his rant anyway. He loves the library; he's just giving vent to a general bad humor that has hung over him since we drove the six hundred miles home from Florida.
Inside his mood lifts as he pulls Halloween book after Halloween book off the shelves. "I'm not going to get them all," he tells me. "Because I don't want you to be mad."
"I'm not mad," I say, exasperated. "I just don't see why you insist on reading  Halloween books when it's almost Christmas!"
Meanwhile, Sylvia has started to bawl. There's something in the display window she didn't get to see, Dee Dee has the Elmo book she wanted, I didn't understand something she was trying to say... She, too, has been fragile since we came home. She misses her Mimi, misses all the extra arms to pick her up and cuddle her.
Meanwhile, Dee Dee has pooped, and of course I left the diaper bag in the car. I herd everyone to the check-out desk. Dee Dee is pulling classical CDs out of a revolving case while I dig in my wallet for my library card.
"Here," I say, as I help her slide a CD back into place, "Hold this!" I hand her the coveted Elmo book, hoping to distract her from Beethoven  To the librarian I say, "There is nothing quite so stressful as coming to a library with a two-year-old." (Except, of course, coming to a library with two two-year-olds.) Secretly I am hoping to hear something reassuring or affirming, something like, "Oh, don't worry about it! Good for you for bringing them!" Instead, she just laughs a grim little laugh.
With the books piled high in my arms, we head for the door. Half way there Dee Dee stops abruptly.
"Check it out!" she demands, holding up the Elmo book.
"We did check it out," I explain. "You can hold it."
"Check it out! Check it out! Check it out!" she roars. In a rage she throws the book on the floor. "Check it out!"
I set the stack of Halloween books down by the door (of all days not to have a bag!) and move to pick her up. She bolts across the library, and I have to race to catch her. An white-haired man on a computer smiles at me sympathetically, and I am grateful.
The fifty yards back to the car feels like a gauntlet, stretched before me. Why am I so empty-handed? I'd give my eye teeth for the Ergo, for a bag for these damn books. We walk along the sidewalk in front of the library, the post office. Dee Dee has calmed down, but Sylvia is walking sideways, clinging to my legs, trying to block my way. "Hold you! Hold you!" she pleads. We are almost there when, once again, Dee Dee stops in her tracks.
"Come on, Dee Dee!" I call. I feel perilously out of control. As I put the books down to retrieve her, she bolts again, this time across the parking lot! I sprint after her-- no time to tell Sylvia to wait, or Clayton to stay with his sister. It is an awful, sickening feeling, to have left the two of them unattended by the car so I    can chase after their willful sister.
In a matter of seconds I am back, Dee Dee screaming in my arms, to find Clayton and Sylvia still standing by the car. A passerby has paused to watch. "Do you need help?" she asks, looking concerned. I've already gotten the van door open; Clayton and Sylvia are climbing inside.
"I think I'm okay now," I say, although I don't feel okay. I feel tense, foolish, and unnerved, as if I've just dodged a bullet.
  Dee Dee writhes around on the floor while I get the other two buckled in. She is furious that I have interrupted her Forrest Gump routine. "Keep running in the parking lot!" she screams. I change her poopy diaper with her still howling face down on the van floor.
My first instinct is to retreat to the security of home, but I'd also rather not let Clayton get his way, however indirectly. Still, there's no way I'm going to bite off trying to get them all the two hundred yards uphill to the playground behind the library at this point. Instead, we stop at the sports park on the way home. At first, Clayton refuses to get out of the car, but when I close the door to leave him inside, he changes his mind and joins us.
There's another two-year-old at the park, which helps lift spirits. Then a good friend of mine joins us with two boys Clayton's age, and things look up even more. Dee Dee goes down the big slide fearlessly. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she says, "Do it again?" and races for the steps. Clayton, as usual, has to frame his play in an elaborate make-believe scenario:
"Mom, pretend you're a little girl and you see the monsters up here and you think it's a monster pet store and you try to buy one but it's really a monster zoo."
      Sylvia is inspired by the other little girl and abandons my legs. She climbs under the play structure. "I in there!" she says. "I in there!" It is a phrase she repeats constantly these days, sometimes as a sort-of "Look at me! I'm under the table! (in the bath!) (tangled up in string!) Often, though, there seems to be no "there," no physical place or tangible thing that she is "in," so the statement comes across more as a rumination on identity than a declaration of location. It's as if she's realized that, in fact, she is "in there," that she is a separate little being inside her skin. When she looks in the mirror, a spoon, the reflection on the oven door, she still says, without fail, "Dee Dee in there!" So maybe "I in there!" is just a joyous recognition that even if she sees Dee Dee everywhere, she knows she's in there, too.
Before long it's time to go home. "I have to poop!" Clayton says as we leave the playground. Unfortunately, the restrooms have been locked for the winter, two port-a-potties set up in their stead. I recommend holding it until we get home, but he insists on going in. I hold the door open; he pees while studying the contents inside the john. I am not easily grossed out, but that about does it. Still, it's relatively clean for a port-a-potty and I'm dying to pee, too. It'll only take a second, and I can hold the door ajar to keep an eye on the kids. I lower my jeans and hover over the seat.
"I'm coming!" Dee Dee declares.
"I'm coming!" Sylvia echoes.
Clayton obligingly holds the door open wide so they can clamber inside. Probably even the library would cede second place to a port-a-potty on a list of places I'd rather not have two toddlers. With the door wide open, I might as well have squatted by a bush as Clayton first suggested. I am exposed, grossed out, and... giggling. We are the port-a-potty version of the many clowns in a little car, and they are all so pleased with themselves. Despite the circumstances, I find myself relishing the moment of solidarity.
"I in there!" Sylvia says happily.