Melissa Anne Cohen

I was in an accident on Friday.  I haven’t blogged about it yet, mainly because it was the single most terrifying thing that I’ve ever had happen to me.  I wasn’t injured, and neither was my car.  But the man who got dragged alongside the car as the flatbed and my subaru careened down my icy road ended up with a broken leg and a whole lot of bruising.

My car wasn’t working right, and we had called a tow truck to get it over to the mechanics.  I had backed it out of the driveway, and the tow truck driver had dropped down the flatbed to hook it up.  While he was on his hands and knees, hooking my car to the chain, the truck started sliding.  It picked up speed as it went, dragging him along.  I was in my car, along for the ride as well.

The flatbed, towing my car, the poor screaming tow truck driver, and me stuck in my car, went faster and faster as it slid down my hill, finally crashing into the snowbank.  And everyone survived, with nothing more permanent than a broken leg, a whole lot of bumps and bruises on the part of the the driver, and a couple of days when I couldn’t stop crying.

Because I’ll never be able to forget those few minutes.  When I was trapped in a car that was sliding out of control, down a hill that ends in Rte. 9.  In that moment, when I was sure that he was dying and that I was trapped, with no way out – with my kids watching out the window, when all I could think was that I couldn’t die, I had three kids, I had to escape and couldn’t – in those minutes, I was sure that he was going to die, and that I probably was too.

We’re fine.  He survived, and is out of the hospital.  I’m mostly okay.  I cried all day Friday and a good part of Saturday, but I’m mostly okay too.  I wasn’t hurt at all, I just went for a really fast ride down the hill.  Trapped in a car, attached to a flatbed, hearing him scream in agony and knowing that there was no way out for either one of us.

So my kids probably won’t be going to school tomorrow.  Maybe Wednesday.  But we’ve got another storm today, another one on tap for Thursday night into Friday, and I’ve heard rumors of another for Sunday.  And I’m staying safe inside.  With my kids.   Because the hill, in Worcester, with the feet and feet of snow, and the layer of ice and mud and slush that have refrozen over and over again – I’m not taking any chances.

It’s a question I never know how to answer.

I’ve given birth three times.  I have three children with beds in my home, three children that I do everything for.  Three kids that I buy clothes for, that I feed and make sure they brush their teeth.  Three kids that I attend parent/teacher conferences for, agonize over whether they’ve done their bat mitzvah studying, worry about their math grades, and know the name of their friends.   I snuggle them to sleep at night, make sure they’ve got their shoes on the right feet and lunch in their backpacks each morning.  I hear about their days, teach them to read, explain the way the world works to them.

But I’ve got another two.  And they’re mine too.

Part of it is that when I claim that I’ve got FIVE kids, I’m making a pretty big statement.  FIVE kids is a lot.  Five kids is a deliberate decision to have a really big family.  I didn’t exactly make that decision.  Although I kind of did – all three of mine were conceived deliberately into a family that was already in progress.  Sam has four sisters.  Jessie is as much the middle child as she is the oldest (and the youngest of the oldest three, but that’s another blog post…).  When Julie colors her family, all five kids are there.

I only gave birth three times.  I only take care of, on a consistent 24/7 basis, my three kids.  But there are five of them.

There are five kids at my Shabbat table.  My daughter is the youngest of the “Cohen girls.”  (Because Julie is, as always, in a class by herself).  Jessie relies on her Sarah as her big sister, and lots of times, is only willing to participate in activities if her big sister is going too.  Lilli is the one person who can and will throw down with Sam – literally, she’ll sit on him and he loves it.  Julie is very much the youngest of five kids.

My husband has five kids.  He’s most definitely a father of five.  He loves all five of them, he doesn’t distinguish between the ones that we had together and the ones from his first marriage.  They’re all his.

The obvious hitch is my saying that I have five kids is that I don’t.  Two of those five have their own very involved, loving mother who does all of the things for her two that I do for my three.  She knows their doctors, she knows their grades and their friend’s parents.  I don’t want to presume to take that away from her.  I wouldn’t want someone to do that to me – my role as my children’s mother is MINE and I wouldn’t want to share it.  I assume that she doesn’t either.  She’s their mother, I’m their dad’s wife, their siblings’ mom.  I’m their friend, but I’m also the mom when they’re here with me.

In the end, the truth is that they are mine.  They’re just not only mine.  They’ve grown up with me, I changed their diapers (at least the younger one).  I’ve been there for the science experiments, I taught them how to change a diaper and why breastfeeding is totally normal.   I yell at them when they’re too loud, I’ve made them pick up blocks and legos and princess houses.  I’ve dressed them in leotards and ballet shoes, braided hair and bandaged boo-boos.  I buckled car seats and poured drinks.  I’ve pushed them on swings, and taken them to the park more times that I could possible count.  I know what they like to eat, what they like to read, and what they like to watch.  They’re mine too.  They’re my family – they’re my husband’s daughters, my in-law’s grandchildren, and my kids’ siblings.

To say that I only have three kids is inaccurate.  As inaccurate as claiming that I have five kids.

I just don’t always know how to sum that up in a quick response.  So I stick with five.  Or three.  Because both are right, and wrong at the same time.

I hate driving in the snow. I just do – and I hate it extra because I live in Worcester. I’m not certain if Worcester roads are worse than all the surrounding towns, or if it just feels that way.

It took me two hours to drop my oldest two off at school today. They go to different schools, across the city from one another, and it normally takes me about a half hour. Today, two hours.

I got stuck on June Street, when a giant white van pulled out of a side street in front of me. I tried to stop, but the roads were so slippery, the brakes did nothing. I don’t think I was going faster than ten or fifteen miles an hour (because I FREAKING hate driving in the ice), but I still couldn’t stop. Given the choice between slamming into the van or the snowbank, I went with snowbank. Which was totally the right decision, but it still meant that I was totally stuck. In a snowbank. With three kids in the car.

I put on the hazards, and got out. No idea what I thought I’d be able to do, but I trekked around the car, thru the snowbank and looked at the car. Got back in the car, put on the hazards and started frantically trying to get a hold of my husband or ANYONE who could come with a shovel and try and get me out of the snowbank. I tried rocking the car back and forth, trying to calm down the kids – one of whom was completely freaked out and begging me to go home (as if I could go anywhere…).

But before I could get a hold of anyone, I realized that someone had stopped. With a shovel. And then someone else stopped. With another shovel. And they shoveled me out, pushed me out, directed traffic so that I could pull out, and then sent me on my way. I’m so sorry that I was so frazzled and frustrated, because I didn’t get their names. But the two guys that I think of as Orange Coat Guy and Grey Coat Guy – please know that I’m so grateful, and that you absolutely saved me this morning.

Julie’s not a movie sort of kid.  Actually, none of mine are.  Which clearly comes from me, because Marc has been known to wax poetically about movies he’s seen in the past, movies he’s missed out on seeing and fantasize about movies he’s like to see.  I don’t like movies, so I’ve never really made a point to make sure the kids see them.  They’ve seen their fair share, I guess.  But I was burned by the fact that two of them had really bad reactions to them – Jessie fell apart when Moses’ mom shoved him down the river in the basket of reeds, and then Sam lost his mind sobbing when Ariel left her entire family to go live with Prince Eric.

I digress… again.  I blame the snow – I’ve been stuck inside while seventeen feet of snow has been dumped on my world, and I’m starting to go a little crazy.

Anyway – the other day, maybe a week ago, I turned in desperation to movies.  I found Mary Poppins and popped it in for the two little kids.  Sam watched it with some degree of interest, but Julie fell in love.  She’s watched it four times so far, and wanders around the house singing.   It’s the only movie I can ever remember her actually sitting and watching.  And she’s watched it four times.  Each time, plopping herself down and watching the entire thing.

The big kids are outside, building snow forts and cleaning off the car.  We’re on a week of snow days, there was a half day of school last Friday, but I kept them home because the roads were still slippery.  They’ve been home since last Tuesday (Jessie was out on Monday as well with a cold).  More snow predicted for Thursday and Monday.

I’ve lived in New England all my life, so it’s not like I’m not used to snow.  But this winter has been particularly calm – with what felt like very little actual snow.   Until my birthday weekend, when all hell broke loose.  It’s been storm after storm, and the last one dumped about three feet out there.  My kids were home all last week (Sam went on Monday, but Jessie was sick), and I’m thinking they’ll probably be home again tomorrow, maybe even Tuesday, depending on how long the actual storm continues.

It’s also been a tough week because of the heating issues.  I think I feel a little extra battered by the weather because it was so cold here in the house.   Almost like a minor form of PTSD – I now hear a blizzard forecast and start to preemptively shiver.

Other than the weather woes, all is well in my world.  Superbowl today, and I’m even minor-league excited about it.  I’ll be making a trip to the library first, because it’s been a long week and I’m almost out of reading material.  Kids are all still sleeping (as is Marc), and I’m sipping my second cup of coffee and staring out the window, wondering where another foot of snow is going to go.

Big week ahead for us – Marc starts his job on Monday.   Everything changes for us now – his schedule is going to be so dramatically different, home on the weekends, and predictable “normal” hours during the week.  Two cars – which is going to be so fabulous, I lack the words to describe the impact it’ll have on everything.

Julie is writing all the time now – identifying the letters and matching the big ones with the little ones.  She asks for us to write out messages that she can copy onto cards to give people, and has created her own “calendar” that she keeps on the refrigerator.   It’s one of those things that I didn’t entirely realize she was doing – but she clipped a marker to the paper and every day, she draws a picture of her face, with appropriate smiles or weather notation so she can keep track of what happened during the month.

Sam has had a pretty sweet vacation week as well (because that’s now how I’m looking at it – a week of January vacation).  Devin was here for two days and spent the night in between.   Sam’s a kid who thrives on interaction (which is sort of the irony of Sam – he’s my most anti-social kid in some ways, but mostly, he’s the kid I have to make sure has lots of peer interaction as well, because he’s happiest with his buddies around).  He and Marc have played board games and he’s spent a lot of time recreating lego creatures.   He did a little baking with me, and has spent a lot of time with Julie – those two still play together really well.

Jessie has been focused on her writing, she’s working on a book these days, and when she isn’t doing that, she’s binge-watching netflix or sketching out her dream house.  She’s planning on four kids – all girls, Emily, Elisandra, Ginger and Penelope.   The last two are twins and she makes them share a room.  She’s reading more and more, in the middle of three different books – because I have raised her to believe that life is too short to read just one book at a time.

On my facebook feed yesterday, two different people announced they were having a baby.   Cute baby announcements, with the older siblings beaming.  And I wasn’t jealous.

That’s my normal response to baby announcements.  Jealousy.   Maybe not jealousy – maybe wistful is a better description.  A little bit oh-I-wish-I-was-pregnant-too going on.  But yesterday – nothing.

I felt… just, happy for them.  I remembered announcing my own pregnancies, and I thought about how happy the kids were when we told them that we were having Julianna.  I remembered when my mother accidentally let it slip to Jessie that I was having another baby, and how excited she got.  But I didn’t feel like I wanted to do it again.

I felt the way you do when someone shares an experience that you’ve had before and loved.  Happy that they get to experience too, happy that they reminding you of how awesome it was, and okay with not experiencing it again.  I felt content.  Happy with my three and not willing to do it again.

Typing that was hard.  Not willing to do it again?  If I’d said that after Sam, I would have missed Julie.  Can you imagine?  What am I giving up by not getting pregnant again?  By choosing, specifically, to not get pregnant again?  I’ve been very happy with my whole “maybe-some-day-but-definitely-not-now” answer for the “are you done yet?” question.  And probably that’s what we’re going to stick with.  But I’m used to a twinge of jealousy when it comes to pregnancy announcements, and yesterday was the first time that it didn’t happen.

I don’t know that I’m ever going to want to make a final decision on this.  I’m accepting that I may not ever be one of those women who can say “nope, never again” when the subject of pregnancy comes up.  But I’m moving ever closer to having the decision taken away from me.  I turned forty one earlier this week.  If I dawdle now, if I keep pushing it off, the decision will be made for me.  In September, all of my kids will be in school, and everything will be changing.

I loved being pregnant – which is not to say that I didn’t also sort of hate it.   Julie’s pregnancy was really awful, and I was on bedrest and flirting with preeclampsia by the time my midwife finally scheduled an induction.  But I still remember the moment each of my kids was born, and those first few days and weeks – when you’re exhausted and not sure you’re going to survive another night if you don’t get to sleep at least a little… and then as they get bigger and more fun – it’s been such a huge part of my life for these past twelve years – to not be starting over again… to be deliberate about not wanting to start over again – it’s a strange place for me, and I’m definitely not comfortable about it.  But I think it’s where I am now.

(Literary, because my camera isn’t working – and there are more than enough pics of three feet of snow dumped on us)

– The shock and dismay upon realizing that the heat is broken on Tuesday morning.  The blizzard hit late Monday night, and we woke up to SNOW everywhere.  But before I could get all swept away in the prettiness and wonder that goes along with waking up to a winter wonderland, I discovered that our heat wasn’t working.

– The further dismay upon realizing that a state of emergency had been declared, and there was no way that it was going to get fixed anytime soon.

– I baked.  A lot.  Two loaves of bread and I boiled a chicken.  And learned again that there’s a LOT of chicken on a chicken, if that makes sense.  I had a very busy sort of soup, with a ton of carrots, celery and onions – and then matzoh balls and noodles too, because why not just keep boiling stuff?

– The five of us, Marc, me, the three kids – it’s still kind of awesome being trapped in our apartment.  Julie and Sam played together blissfully almost the entire time, Jessie napped enthusiastically and she’s binge-watching West Wing.

– When the temperature in the house is ranging from 48-55 degrees for a few days, any progress we were making on getting over the cold stops altogether.  Jessie has been miserable and sick, and I’m feeling lousy too.  Sam is fine, and Marc is… starting to get sick again.  Julie never really got sick, but she’s still sneezing.

– Marc’s cousin found his old version of the game Axis and Allies.  Which is SO much cooler, apparently, than the version that we had, and he and Sam (and Julie) played that most of yesterday afternoon.

– Marc has concluded that he’s not playing Axis and Allies again with Julie until she’s 12.  At least.  And we learned a valuable lesson about why Shoots and Ladders and Princess Yahtzee are better games for my girl.

– One of the massive and major perks to renting as opposed to owning (in addition to the fact that I’m not responsible for paying anything for the heating snafu) is that the snow shoveling, snowblowing, all of that was pretty much taken care of for us.  Marc had to clean off the car and help shovel a little bit for our neighbors, but mostly – it was all taken care of by the college-aged brothers that live in the basement apartment.

– I don’t think the kids are going back to school until Tuesday.  I don’t think I’m going to drive until at least then.  We’re supposed to get another six inches of snow tomorrow into Saturday, which means that I’ll skip services and religious school, and then another storm (that may or may not just blow out to sea) on Monday.

– Which also means that I DON’T HAVE TO DRIVE MARC TO WORK ANYMORE.  His last day is on Saturday, and on Monday, he starts his new job in Westford.  And how he’ll get there… well, I’m going to pull a Scarlett O’Hara and just not think about that right now.

– The heat is still not working.  We’ve got space heaters everywhere, and the place is toasty, but the actual gas heat still isn’t working and nobody really knows why.  The landlord has been here for the past two days, the HVAC guys have been here and everyone’s working really hard, but… we still have no heat.  Several space heaters, so I’m not complaining…

– The roads are finally good enough so that Marc is out and about.  The Home Depot was closed on Tuesday and he had Wednesday off, so he was home.  But today he went back to work, and even dropped Sammy off at Harrison’s house for a playdate.

I was scared to turn 40.  It seemed so momentous to me, like it was such a major milestone, and I wasn’t ready to meet it.

But turning 41, that’s just lovely.

I had the nicest of days today yesterday, given that I’m still kind of sick.  We’ve all had a bad cold, and it’s slowly made it’s way through the family.  Started with Marc, and he was down for most of last weekend.  Sam got it next, and missed Thursday and Friday of school.  I started to get sick on Thursday and have spent most of the past two days binge-watching Grey’s Anatomy on netflix.  Jessie’s got it now, and Julie – well, Julie either has missed it entirely or she’s been sick the whole time.  She claims that she’s very sick (actually, after watching the cold medication commercials, has taken to telling everyone she’s got chest congestion).

Massachusetts got one of the first big storms since Thanksgiving this year, and we were essentially snowed in all day.  Marc called into work, and we spent the entire day at home.  Marc made pancakes for everyone, Sam and Julie shoveled (a little bit), and then it devovled into a battle of whether or not they were going to make a snow fort, a snow bed, or a snow man.  Jessie stayed on the couch all day too.  Marc did everything, dishes, meals, most of the child corralling throughout the day.  He finished up the night by making chicken and homemade french fries, and then whipping me up a vanilla cake and homemade frosting for breakfast tomorrow.

This is what I wanted.  This is the dream.  And while I like to think that I’m always aware of how incredibly blessed I am, I really struck by it today.  Julie kept stopping what she was doing to come and purse her lips at me so that I could kiss her, and Sammy is in is room, making me some sort of birthday gift out of legos.  My husband worked diligently all day, bringing me tea and coffee and benedryl, and Jessie has been curled up next to me all day watching Friend’s reruns.  I’ve got this gorgeous, brilliant, incredibly kind husband who loves me more than anything.  I’ve got beautiful children, smart, funny, creative kids who make my whole world.

We don’t get sick all that often around here. My oldest had ear infections all the time when she was a baby, but other than that, we’re a relatively healthy family. My youngest has never been on an antibiotic, and I think Sam was once, maybe. Allergies – we all have some form of seasonal allergies, and Jessie has an allergy to dust mites (and a hard core love of stuffed animals, which doesn’t help…). My point is that we’re healthy.

Except… we’ve all got the dreaded cold. It started off with my husband. Marc is one of those people who doesn’t multi-task. Which, now that I’m thinking about it, kind of sums up a lot about the differences between us. He has incredible focus – and part of our family ethos is that if you want it done right, go to Daddy. If you want it done fast, go to Mama. Because he will focus and concentrate, think about the best way to tackle a problem, and then execute the solution. A perfect example is a bookcase that’s falling apart in my living room. The back is falling off, and it’s leaning dangerously to the side. Marc’s solution, upon examining it, was to plan to remove all 87,000 books, reattach the back painstakingly, and then he’d probably end up alphabetizing the books before replacing them. Mine was to shove the television stand into the bookcase, straightening it out. Not done right, and not a great long term solution, probably, but it did get it standing back up again.

What was the point I was going for again?? Oh yeah, the focus and multi-tasking. Marc got sick first. And he got SICK. Dizzy, congested, slightly feverish. He went to bed, and stayed there for two days. He was sick. I started getting sick yesterday (just in time for him to get better…) and I was lazy. I read a lot more yesterday, continued binge-watching Grey’s Anatomy repeats. But I didn’t go to bed, I just complained a lot. I got up this morning, popped a few advil and a sudafed, and am hoping for the best.

Sam’s home today, he’s been fighting off the same cold. Julie isn’t sick, not really. She’s probably a few days behind Sam in the development of the cold, and I’m on the fence whether I should send her to school or not. She’s not feverish, but I don’t know that I feel up to battling with her to get ready. Jessie, thus far, seems to be healthy, so she’s definitely heading off to school today.

Spring can’t come soon enough…

I had a moment last night, where all three of the kids were bopping around the house, and they all seemed SO BIG to me.   Each one wandered by me within the space of about ten minutes, and each one seemed somehow taller, more articulate, more… developed, for lack of a better word.  If you spend most of childhood becoming an adult, all three of them seemed to be so much further along that track than I think of them as being.

Jessie was in her room, happily hanging up her newest acquisition – a map of the world, with push pins denoting where she’d like to visit someday.  She’s grown a few inches lately, and we went out to get her some new pants earlier in the day.  But she hates shopping as much as I do, and we agreed that we’d put it off for a few more weeks.  Instead she bought a map, and another bulletin board/whiteboard combo to hang on her wall.  She’s got PLANS, my girl – and I love that she’d rather get a map than a new outfit.

Sam was on his second playdate of the weekend, this time with Harrison.  They had completely destroyed his bedroom, building some sort of zombie barricade (and stocking up on canned goods, bottled water and pop tarts, because that’s what you’d need if the zombies were coming).  He’s gotten taller too, and lost some of that little boy chub.  Sam grows out and then up, and always has.  He’s stretching out now, and with the new haircut he got last week – he suddenly looks so much older.

Julie – I still call her the baby, and I need to stop.  Because she’s not a baby anymore.  Not a toddler, almost not a pre-schooler anymore.  She’s a little girl, and I think I’m having the hardest time adjusting to that.  I still think of her as mine, and she’s becoming her own person more and more.    She’s writing her name (everywhere) and starting to learn the names and sounds of the letters and figuring out numbers.  Everything is new and exciting for her, it’s like she’s realizing how much STUFF there is out there to learn, and she’s so eager to soak it all in.

This is such a different stage for me, in so many ways.  Like, right now – it’s quarter after eleven, and all three of them are busy somewhere in the house.  Julie is writing on her whiteboard, after getting herself dressed in what she says is a matching outfit.  I didn’t suggest she get dressed, or suggest that she do a little writing – she did it all on her own.  Sam is in his bedroom, playing minecraft.  He got himself breakfast (poptarts and bottled water, no doubt, but he did it himself unprompted).  Jessie is holed up in her room, reading.  They’re all very content, very self-sufficient and somehow so much older than I think they should be.