Snapshots

      The boys are happily playing in the sandbox. Sylvia and Dee Dee are, miraculously, both napping. I go to the garage to retrieve the sand toys we took to the lake the other day. Less than a minute later I hear Townes crying on the patio. The screen door to the basement is closed, the sandbox empty. Clayton must have just gone inside, shutting Townes out. (Not on purpose, I hope? There is nothing like a closed door for making Townes cry, which Clayton well knows.) I open the door for Townes and hear Sylvia screaming. Upstairs, Clayton is standing in a puddle of pee outside her bedroom, banging on the door. I don't know whether to be angry or empathetic. Was he looking for help to use the potty or purposely making the other kids cry? I'm guessing the later, but who knows? No time to dwell on it anyway. Do I comfort the crying baby or clean up the pee seeping between the floorboards? The pee wins out. Poor Sylvie.

***

     Townes says often, "Mama at work!"
     Clayton wonders, Does his mama work?
     "I take care of kids," I tell him again.
     "You take care of me, Sylvia, Dee Dee, Townes. Do you take care of Mama?"
     "I try," I tell him, laughing. "I try." Then I make a cup of tea.

***

      Sylvia has been fussing all morning. She won't sleep, but won't let me put her down, either. I've tried nursing her several times, hoping she'll calm enough to go to sleep, and she's finally lying quietly. Maybe this time? I'm about to sneak out when Clayton barges through the door: "Mama! Can I come in here with you guys?" Sylvia is immediately wide awake. Is this my punishment for having gloated over how easily she once napped?

***

       Some chaos or frustration I can't remember. I'm standing in the kitchen, feeling sorry for myself. I'm sick of washing trays, sick of stinky diapers, sick of pushing swings, sick of negotiating naps, sick of telling stories, sick of carseats, tantrums, parks. Sick of making it look easy.
      "I can't do this!" I say to myself.
      Clayton looks over. "Yes, you can Mama! You can do it!"

***

        Could two babies be more different? Dee Dee eats her food by the fistfuls, her tray cleared before Sylvia has finished her first careful survey, bringing the choicest morsels delicately to her mouth between thumb and finger. Dee Dee will sometimes sleep twelve, thirteen hours at a stretch; Sylvia has yet to sleep through the night and is ready for the day at quarter 'til six. Dee Dee loves the bath; Sylvia stands up on the side of the tub, sucks on a washcloth, and complains. Sylvia poops neatly on the potty twice a day; Dee Dee messes her diaper enthusiastically as often as she can. To swing makes Dee Dee laugh and kick; Sylvia is content to sit and watch as if contemplating the physics, my mother says. Dee Dee often cries when strangers get too close; Sylvia flirts and cuddles right up. But right now as they both unload the recycling bin all over the porch and play the drums on the barbecue grill and mimic each other's noises and look over at me with identical sheepishness and pride, they do not seem so different after all.

* * *

         4:40 in a motel room in Piedmont, Alabama, where we've come to celebrate Don's parents' sixtieth anniversary. It doesn't matter that it's 5:40 our time, pretty par for the course for Sylvia waking. It's still darn early, pitch black outside, the stars still out and no sign of dawn. We didn't get everyone to sleep until just before midnight (or, God help us, one o'clock our time) and my nipples feel raw and my breasts deflated from trying endlessly-- or so it felt-- to nurse the girls to sleep after their brother got them pretty well jazzed up with his late night "happy jollies" (as my brother-in-law calls the after bed-time, over-tired, frenzied energy surge). Now said brother is lying, amazingly still asleep, on the floor between the two queen beds. He fell out of bed in the middle of the night but didn't wake up, so I just left him where he lay. Now I'm anxious to get the girls quiet. Two weeks ago when we went camping, an over-tired Clayton meant for a very rough next day and I'd hate for Clay's grumpiness to mar Don's parents' celebration. So I scoop up the girls-- Sylvia has managed to wake Dee Dee, who usually sleeps until after seven-- and go out to the car. I've pulled on some shorts but I'm still in my pyjama top-- I'm pretty sure I've got a sweatshirt in the car. The girls are still in their nighttime diapers, but, darn it, the diaper bag's back in the room! I don't dare go back inside for fear of waking Clayton. Still, they've only had them on for a few hours, I tell myself.

        There's not much happening in Piedmont, Alabama at five on a Saturday morning. We creep aimlessly down the deserted highway and pass a McDonalds. It's open! The girls stuff themselves on pancakes while I sip coffee. Afterwards, they play happily with the butter patty packages and I start a letter to my sister on an old notepad I find in the car. This is not the selflessness Buddha talks of; I'm not on my way to nirvana. But still, dragging myself out of bed and to McDonalds at five o'clock in the morning after fewer than five not-very-restful hours sleep-- it's a lesson in something. The girls make everyone smile-- this McDonalds is happening-- and soon all the regulars are talking about twins over their McMuffins and 39 cent senior coffees. It may not be nirvana, but it's a moment I'll remember, a little piece of unexpected joy. We could be a McDonalds' commercial. Can you forgive me? I really am lovin' it.

* * *

     We're headed to the library. I'm carrying Sylvia down the stairs to the garage, Townes and Clayton on my heels. Dee Dee is in the living room, waiting her turn, the gate closed at the top of the stairs. I put Sylvia in the car and hear Clayton yelling, Dee Dee crying. I rush back past Townes and see Dee Dee and Clayton at the top of the stairs. Clayton has somehow managed to push the gate open, and Dee Dee, ever alert for an opportunity, is determined to head down, too. She's crying because Clayton has hold of her by the back of the shirt, grimacing with the effort to hold her back, yelling, "No, Dee Dee, no!"

***

      We're at the park-- Clayton has been swinging for half an hour. Time to leave for storytime if we're going to make it. Plus, there's a little girl who wants the swing. Two more minutes, I tell him, and then, "Okay, time to go and let the little girl have a turn."
       "I don't want to go!"
       He won't be persuaded to give up the swing willingly, so I end up wrestling him out of it. That's not an easy task even when he's cooperating, since he's really too big for the baby swing he insists on using and his feet always get stuck. Now he's hanging on for dear life with both hands and feet. Still, I'm determined not to let him get his way, and finally, he's out. His screams are deafening, and the girl's mom looks concerned.
      "It's not the swing," I reassure her. "He's just having a hard morning." I'm not sure she can hear me, though.
      "I want to go that way!" Clayton yells. "I want to stay here!"
      Back at the car, I manhandle him into his seat--"I don't want to go! I don't want to go!" -- and we drive by the library so I can at least return the books. There's no way we're doing storytime. All the way home, he screams. " I don't want to go!" turns into "I want to go to the library!" and then "Turn that off!" (I'm trying to listen to the radio.) His screams break a little with the violence of a yawn. I drive around the block, hoping for a miracle nap. Nothing. I'm dreading the next hour, trying to get everyone up the stairs, fed, diapered, to bed. But the storm passes and in a few minutes the boys are eating the hard-boiled eggs I'd made for our post-storytime picnic and last night's left-over noodles. There has never been a smoother quiet time, and I sit on the back porch and eat two pieces of cheese toast with our garden's end-of-the-season tomatoes and read my sister's letter. It is an idyllic fall day, the leaves all golden around me, the sky brilliantly blue after yesterday's rain. Sylvia's playing happily under the table, pulling up on my leg. Did the universe know how much I needed this?

* * *

     That afternoon. All the kids are up from naps or "quiet time" by two o'clock. (Clayton, unbelievably, still did not sleep!) Don has a cross country race so I'm on my own until after seven. The morning, I feel, needs to be redeemed and it is so so beautiful. "Let's go to the river!" I say. Never mind that last time was a disaster, the boys fighting over who got to ride in the stroller, me literally pinning Clayton down in a time-out on the side of the greenway for pushing Townes. This time, I think, I'll bring the triple stroller, so, with one on my back, they can all ride if it comes to that. I didn't foresee Clayton tantrumming, yet again, about which seat he will ride in. But even he seems to have little stomach left for his own bad temper today and eventually acquiesces to ride in the front where he won't squish Townes' legs. We are a sight, I'm sure. Three kids in the stroller, Dee Dee on my back. I have the same sort of jubilant, self-sufficient feeling I used to get while backpacking, carrying everything I needed to survive on my back. I'm singing, "The Wheels on the Stroller" and any other song I can think of to keep from hearing Clayton beg, "Tell me about a story!" We make it to the playground only half a dozen "You really have your hands full!"s later. Townes, Clayton, and Dee Dee are all in the swings, Sylvia's practicing her downward dog in the mulch and playing with my water bottle. I'm making up silly rhymes: "Sylvie, Sylvie, you're my daughter, standing on your head to drink some water" and we're all giggling. Later, Dee Dee climbs up the stairs to the slide by herself and grins like crazy. She is so proud of herself and my heart feels about to burst that I get to be here for this.

* * *

      Recently Clayton has been begging non-stop for stories, of which he wants to dictate the plot lines and characters. They all involve a friend of his, who, in his stories, is constantly getting thwarted and left out. She wants to ride a bicycle, the wheels fall off. She goes fishing, the fish eats her up. ("What does she say in the fish's mouth?" Clayton asks.) She wants to play with Clayton, Clayton goes home. She meets a lion, monkey, zebra, you name it, and they all do something mean to her or leave her out in some way. "What does she say?" he keeps wanting to know. "What does she say?"
     At first, I let him play them out, a little fascinated. What inner emotion (maybe about his sisters, my sister-in-law wondered?) was he trying to get a handle on through these cruel stories? But by yesterday, I'd had enough. Talking to Don about it last night, I resolved to put a stop to them. So today on the way to school I told him, "I'm only going to tell you three stories today. And there's not going to be about Jessica." (Name has been changed!)
      "What do the animals do?" he wants to know.
      "They're mean to her," I tell him, "and we're not going to talk about it anymore."
       He seems almost relieved. "Let's just look around," he says, although it sounds like "Let's just ook around."
       "Good idea!" I say. "Look at all the beautiful leaves!"
        "And the trees!" he says enthusiastically. "And the pretty flowers!" Hallelujah! I might just make it through today!