Melissa Anne Cohen

I had a hard day yesterday.  Not cripplingly hard, but just harried and rushed.  I’m not used to being on the go all the time, I’m usually at home during the day.  And while it shouldn’t make a huge difference, the fact that I was out and about all day, running errands and going to appointments and picking kids up here and dropping them off there meant that nothing got done around the house all day.

I got home just after six, with three hungry kids, stacks of homework to be done, husband stuck at work, again, and dinner still to be made.  I made dinner quick, got Jessie thru most of her homework, and got Sam settled down.  Read a chapter of Harry Potter, then had to start helping Jessie with a major spelling list project that was due today.  Poor Julie needed to go to bed, she was exhausted with no nap, and I just.could.not.get.to.her.  Couldn’t do it.  I had to read to Sam, because he was so hopeful and sweet, asking if we had time tonight to read.  And Jessie had to get the project done, and it wasn’t her fault it was the last minute.  So Julie puttered around, playing with her dollhouse, thinking about eating her dinner (not doing it, you understand, just considering it), and I frantically tried to fit fifteen things that I had to do into time I didn’t have.

The house was in shambles, dishes needed to be put in the dishwasher, laundry had to be folded, Jessie’s feet were filthy after a day in sandals, , there was no time for a shower because she didn’t have time to finish her homework and get to bed at a reasonable hours as it was, and I felt like a miserable failure most of the night.  There wasn’t any way to get it all done, and I needed to be cloned.  I needed four of me.  One to help Jessie with her homework, because she is only ten years old, and get easily distracted and procrastinates if I just leave her alone.  One to take care of Sam, because all he wanted was Harry Potter and some snuggles before bed.   One to take care of Julianna, because she wanted a story and should have gone to bed about an hour and a half before I was able to get her there.  And one to clean the damn house – because the clutter and mess just added to my stress level and general crappy atmosphere that was here last night.

My original point in this post is that all the stuff I’ve written about isn’t even what’s hard about parenting.  Because that’s just the cost of doing business.  If you have kids, especially more than one, you’re going to be stretched too thin, have too much to do and not enough time to get it all in.  Things are going to get missed, toddlers are not going to get their naps and end up going to bed late.  Six year olds are going to have to put themselves to bed, because taking time to read Harry Potter sometimes is all the time you can spare for one on one with him.  Homework is going to be left to the last minute, and there’s going to be yelling and crying and frustration on everyone’s part before it’s done.

And none of that is what’s hard.  What’s hard is trying to figure out what you’re doing – are you being too strict, too soft?  Coddling too much, assigning too much responsibility before it’s appropriate?  Nobody knows, and the answers are different all the time.  As parents, we have to prepare these kids to go out into the world without us.  We have to teach coping skills, like being able to be terrified of going to street hockey and still going, because you committed to it and you can’t just back out when it’s scary.  You have to be able to know that you have to work harder to learn something when it’s tough, and not just curl up in a ball and sob because you’re terrified that you’re going to fail the math MCAS next week.  And last night, because I was so stressed, because it was such a crappy night, it was painfully clear that I have no idea what I’m doing most of the time as a parent.  I may be screwing up all the time, and all I can do is just keep muddling thru, hoping that I’m doing the right thing for these three kids that I love so much.  Hoping that I’m striking the right balance between respecting their needs and fears and weaknesses, while constantly pushing them to improve, to be brave, to try harder.  Teaching them to love who they are, and not judge themselves by the fourth grade standards of what “popular” looks like.

Some days are just better than others.  But parenting is so much harder than I thought it would be sometimes.

This is not my first time around the merry go round.   Today was my third third birthday party.  And poor Julie – I promise that I don’t constantly compare you to your siblings, although it seems as though I do in this blog.  But it’s more that here is where I come to be introspective and thoughtful, and today, you reminded me so much of your older brother.

Generally, I think of Julie and Sam as being polar opposites, but I think I’ve been wrong about that.  I was basing it on the fact that Julie has always been a much more social kid.  She was more amenable to the classic “Pass the Baby” game at family parties as an infant.  Seems to regard most of the world as not strangers, but rather friends she’s not yet met.  Whereas Sam has always been a bit more hesitant, if not out and out actively kicking and screaming when we tried to get him a little more out in the world.

But Julie and Sam have more in common than I had realized.  Sam, for all that he may appear to be highly introverted, is actually a lot more comfortable when he’s got friends around him.  They have to be friends, and he has to know them well, which can take some time.  And he’s pretty panicked about new situations (which explains the street hockey debacle this weekend), but once acclimated, he’s fine.  Jessie, I think, is more of a true introvert.  She seems to require a certain amount of alone time, and I don’t think that Julie and Sam have that same need.  Sam is super comfortable with other kids, he’s friendly and outgoing and cheerful and happy to hang with other kids.  Freaked out by adults, but kids – he’s great with.  Whereas Jessie has always been more comfortable with adults and older kids, or much younger kids.  She’s very comfortable slipping into a maternal role with little ones,  and I’m sure having two older sisters that she idolizes is part of why she’s happier with older kids.

But Julie was pretty horrified by the people crowding around her to sing happy birthday.  And even more distressed to realize that people actually wanted to watch her open her gifts.  She wasn’t as overt as Sam – at the same age, Sam clapped his fingers over his ears and sobbed thru Happy Birthday, and after his third birthday, requested that next year, we just have people drive by, toss his gift out the window and keep going, rather than have people over for cake and ice cream.  Julie likes people, individually and as a group.  She’s very close with a lot more people than either Jess or Sam were at that age.   She loves her grandparents, her aunts, people she sees at synagogue every week.  Arlen and Sara are particular friends of hers.  She generally LIKES adults.  But concentrated attention, from a large group of people, freaked her out today.

All in all, though, it was a successful party.  One of the things I like most about our parties is that they’re not overwhelming or crazy crowded (it’s possible Jessie inherited her introvert tendencies from me).  They’re more of an Open House – where people filter in, filter out, hang for a while, and then move on.  The nice thing about having kids ages 10, 6, and 3 is that I’ve probably got at least one that matches up with your kids, so there’s always someone to play with and hang out with.  We had tea parties going on, hula hooping in side yard, and Sam and the boys running around with nerf guns all afternoon.   My house is kind of in shambles, again, but I think everyone had fun.

There was an article – http://www.telegram.com/article/20130430/NEWS/130429640&nocache=1 published the other day in the paper that brought up some interesting points.

I’m not pro-spanking either, but I hated that article. I think that it was condescending and really talked down to parents. Normal parents don’t hate their children and hit them for fun, and they don’t do it because they’re cruel or anti-kid. I don’t spank my kids, but I have restrained them from hitting others, and held them down from throwing things in violent temper tantrums, and there’s an element of “you are going to stop because I’m bigger than you” that sometimes is the only thing that gets thru when it’s a massive melt down. Like most kids, mine are emotional and intense, and there are times, especially when they were younger, when it’s overwhelming for them. In those instances, I’ve had resort to physically holding them. Not spanking them, but grabbing them and holding them tighter than either of us liked just to get them to realize that they need to stop. I don’t think that makes me a bad parent, in fact, I think letting a child rage out of control does the child in question no favors whatsoever.

On a slightly different but related topic, I’m pretty adamantly against crying it out, letting your baby cry herself to sleep. In my head, it’s borderline abusive, and can’t imagine letting one of my babies sob themselves to sleep and refusing to go comfort them. But I know many loving, committed, thoughtful and GOOD parents who practiced it, for reasons that were well considered and intelligent. Spanking is one of those issues like breast or bottle feeding – everyone is adamant and convinced that their way is the right way and only their way is valid. I’m a pretty major breastfeeding advocate – I nursed all of my babies, and two of my children nursed well into toddlerhood. But at the end of the day – I think you should breastfeed only if you want to, and what matters is that your baby get fed. Like spanking and CIO, it’s a divisive issue and really avoids the main topic – which is that kids deserve loving committed parents doing their best.

The response that if I was truly confident in my parenting choices than these criticisms wouldn’t bother me, to me, misses the point. I feel a little iffy about most parenting issues – because the stakes are SO high and there’s so many opportunities to screw it up. So even decisions that I’m 100% sure are the right thing for my family, if I read too many critiques, then I get defensive. Because I know I’m not always right and so much of it is guess work. It’s easy for me to see the pros and cons of different approaches so it’s hard for me to absolute about anything. Even CIO – I absolutely don’t do it, never have, never will – BUT my kids also didn’t sleep thru the night until they were significantly older than their peers. I can’t say for sure that what I’m doing is what’s best for them – it’s entirely possible that a few nights of crying would have no lasting impact other than a good night’s sleep for everyone and might be in their best interest. I don’t spank, and don’t think it’s the right way to discipline kids, I’m more of a time-out girl, or removal of privileges, if necessary. But mostly, I’d rather not PUNISH, I’d rather make sure the kid in question knows why it’s wrong and then move on. But I don’t claim to be a parenting expert, and I know I make mistakes every day. I try my best, and assume that other parents are as well.

I don’t know of any parent, even ones who do spank, who “wants to hit their kids.” I believe that what they want is for their kids to learn consequences for their actions, when there aren’t natural consequences available, or the natural consequence isn’t one that they want their child to feel. For example, running out into the street. You aren’t going to let your child get hit by a car to underscore the lesson to look both ways. It’s just not a black and white issue – parents who choose to spank probably aren’t thinking “wow, I love whacking my kids” in that instance, they’re probably thinking something like “Thank God you’re safe, don’t ever, ever take that chance again!” I don’t spank my kids, when I’ve been in that situation, shouting to get their attention, my obvious fear and relief that they’re safe is enough to get the message across. But my kids aren’t “runners” as a rule, they’re all fairly cautious – and when I yell, they listen. Not all kids are. What works for my kids might not work for all kids. I don’t presume to say that my way is what’s best for all kids across the board.

I’m not different from any other parent, I love my kids, I want what’s best for them, and I don’t always know for sure and for certain that I have all the answers. I also know that what works for me and my family doesn’t work for everyone across the board. What works for one child doesn’t work for the other two children in my family, so it’s very, very hard to be absolute about anything, whether it’s food choices, education choices or discipline choices. I think, in the end, that demonizing those on the other side of any issue, be it parenting or not, makes it harder to understand the other side, harder to realize other options and harder to relate to others in general.

Relationships are complicated.  And there’s really no way to figure out what ties people together.  Children and bank accounts, shared responsibilities and obligations.  One thing I never doubt with Marc is that the two of us are a team, a partnership, working together towards the same goals.  It’s been an absolute, undeniable reality from the very beginning with us, and it only gets stronger as time goes on.

But there’s more than just the teamwork thing.  It’s more than just the kids and the obligations.

Julie dumped out the last of my cream this morning.  I always have two, sometimes three cups of coffee in the morning and usually at least one and sometimes two in the afternoon.  I have a migraine tendency (I know, the coffee doesn’t help it in theory, but not having it makes it a hell of a lot worse), and I’ve got one today.

I got up bright and early, got the kids dressed, fed, brushed, and out the door.  We’ve got my stepdaughter Sarah for a couple of days, so there was an extra body bopping around and an extra lunch to pack.  I got them off to school, and came home to a sad and miserable Julie.  No real reason, just sad.  So I picked her up, gave her a snuggle, and brought her into to make my second cup of coffee.

One of her all time favorite activities is “mixing.”  Just, literally, mixing stuff.  So I made the coffee, and let her mix.  To cheer her up.  I don’t normally prop the child up with a cup of hot coffee and an open container of cream, and believe me, I won’t do it again.  While she was mixing, I was loading the dishwasher and not precisely paying attention.  When she sweetly inquired if I liked more cream in my coffee, I wasn’t paying attention.  I agreed, yes, Mama does like cream in her coffee.  Then she dumped ALL the cream EVERYWHERE.

Tears ensued, because not only was she wet with cream, she had completely ruined the coffee.  Marc came to assist, took over cleaning while I comforted (which is actually a thing we do – that’s our standard mode of dealing with vomit as well, I take the kid, he takes the puke).  By the time I got Julie calmed down and dressed, Marc had dumped out ALL the coffee, the cream soaked cup and the remaining coffee in the pot.  There was no coffee left for me, no hope of salvaging the cup by dumping half out and pouring in black to restore coffee equilibrium.  It was gone.

I was so sad.  So headachey and sad.  I’ve been trying to coax the girl into going shopping, which I need to do anyway, so that I could get more cream and fix the coffee deficit, but she’s adamant that she doesn’t want to go.  I’m bigger, and I could drag her, but really, when you’ve got a migraine, dragging a 30+lb screaming toddler is so not what you want to do.

He brought me coffee.  Even though he’s running late, even though we’re all budget conscious and trying to save money, he bought me coffee from down the street and delivered it to me.  Four motrin later, I can open my eyes and the pain in receding.

I adore Marc Cohen with every fiber of my being.  And while I love my life with him, our three beautiful children, my wonderful stepchildren, our apartment and our bills and all the other reasons that we’re together – at the end of the day – he’s just awesome, and he loves me and I’m incredibly grateful for it today.

It was my toughest pregnancy, by far.  I ended up on nausea meds with my other two kids, but with Julianna, the morning sickness seemed worse.  And the itching – oh God, the itching.  My skin was so dry, and nothing seemed to help.  I was contracting all the time, and I wanted to have that baby out more than anything in the whole wide world.  I didn’t want to be pregnant any more.  I wanted my baby, in my arms.  I wanted to hold her and see her and squeeze her.

I cried more during that pregnancy.  I remember sobbing when Marc would come home for lunch, and crying when he’d come home at night.  I itched, oh God, I itched.  I worried about how Jessie would handle it, I worried more about how Sammy would handle it.  Sammy potty trained, and weaned during the nine months we were waiting for Julianna.  He grew up so much, so fast, I worried my pregnancy was forcing him to miss out on some of his babyhood.

I just wanted to have my baby.  I didn’t like being pregnant anymore.  It was hard, I was puking all the time, I had to pee constantly, heartburn was horrendous.

So why am I all wistful and sad tonight?  I look at Julianna today, in all her three year old glory, and she’s bright and beautiful and goofy and I can’t imagine what my life would be like without her in it.

I don’t know if I’m feeling sad because I want to have another baby or if I just miss having baby Julie.   Because my girl is big and bold and so not a baby anymore.

I feel like my kids don’t get sick all that often.  Exception for the past month, which included two concussions and a thumb injury, they don’t ever get injured.  And I’ve never had allergies before in my life.  Julianna, in particular, tends to be a really healthy kid (due in large part to nursing – Sam was never ever sick until he stopped).

But holy moly, we are a wreck today.  Julianna has a drippy, sad little nose, and she’s cranky and miserable because of it.  And my eye was so swollen earlier after an hour outside with the kids that I could barely see to drive home.  I took a benedryl, which helped, because I can now open it, but it’s still tearing and itchy and sore.   Sore because I keep wiping the tears away – and it won’t stop.   If I take another benedryl, I will quickly fall asleep, which would be lovely, but really not all that productive, given that I have three kids who still require some modicum of attention before bed.

In other news… I’m pondering a move… our lease is up in a few months, and we’re not sure if we want to move or stay put for another year.  I like where we are, the neighborhood is pretty and the apartment is big enough, I guess.  But we can’t have any pets, and that’s really bugging me lately.  Now that the kids are getting bigger, I really do want a dog and a cat.  Plus it’s far away from everything.  I don’t have any close neighbors that I like, it’s ten minutes to the highway to get anywhere… but – it’s got a great yard for the kids to bop around in, and the landlord is fabulous – and it’s not super far away.  Ten or fifteen minutes to get the kids to and from school and all activities, which isn’t a lot, really.

Bottom line, I want desperately to move, but am trying to convince myself that it won’t be too bad if we stay for another year.

I don’t like it.  Mostly because it’s completely thankless, never ending, and really, it’s like shoving a big rock up hill.  Even if you manage to get it up to the top of the hill, the kids are only going to come home from school and it’ll be a disaster by dinner.

But today’s my at home cleaning day.  Actually, I’ve been fairly productive this week, in terms of big cleaning projects.  Monday, I took apart the living room in a misguided attempt to locate the back of the remote control (because my batteries keep popping out when I throw it on the couch) and Julianna’s cowgirl hat.  I rearranged the furniture a little bit, moved all of the couches out and swept underneath them.  I found a ridiculous amount of tiny little toys, and was able to throw most of them away (on the theory that if they’d been missing, nobody would notice if they just stayed missing).

Tuesday, I didn’t clean.  Laundry/dishes, of course, those are daily – but I spent the day at a friend’s house, snuggling her baby and watching Julie play with her twins.

Today – today, I cleaned.  I got a BUNCH of hand me downs yesterday, and by last night, my dining room was a sea of new clothes for Sam and Jessica.  I had already gone thru the girls’ clothes last week, weeding out what I could hand down to others, and what I was just going to donate to Savers.  But I did all of Sam’s clothes this morning, systematically going thru each drawer, figuring out what still fit, what didn’t and then refolding and putting it all away.  Then I was on such a roll, I put his bookcase back together, put the blocks back in the bucket, and assembled all of the weaponry back in the bucket.  Then I kept going and went thru Jessica’s bedroom.  Did the bathroom, most of the kitchen and now I’m tired of cleaning.

So that’s not a good mantra.  I understand that.  And really, with the drama and intensity that my kids have when it comes to temper tantrums, it’s not a good prescription for my own mental health.  There has to be distance, for their sake as well as my own.  If I allowed myself to get drawn into their unhappiness, then I wouldn’t be able to help them see how to get themselves out of it.  Which a lesson I’ve had to learn over and over again.

That being said – when my kids are HAPPY, I’m blissful.  This morning was the first EVER day back to school after a vacation when Sam wasn’t miserable.  He didn’t, not even once, mutter anything at all about not wanting to go back to school.  That’s unprecedented, and you have absolutely no idea how happy it made me.

Sam’s struggled so much with school.  Not with academics, but with separating, with having his own identity outside of being next to me.  It was really, really, REALLY hard for him.  Hard for me, hard for Marc, even hard for Jessica.  He’s finally at a point where he’s just happy being Sam, without being attached to me.  He’s happy to go to school, and bounce around with Ryan and Jack and Nicky, and Phoebe and Malak and all the other kids at school.  He’s my boy – the boy that I saw all the time at home, happy go lucky, sweet, funny, rambunctious and active, but now he doesn’t feel so scared and anxious and unsafe at school anymore.  His safety isn’t tied into me anymore – he’s confident and capable and secure and can’t even begin to express how incredible that feels, as his mother, to know that he’s thriving at school.

Today will go down as one of the best days ever.  Not only because Sam was blissful about going to school, but also because Miss Jessica was happy and content, and Julie is bopping around in her tiara and pretty dress, convinced she’s a princess.  Because Marc kissed me extra before he left for the day, because I’m going to a playdate with Aviva and the twins, when Julie will dance around with her best buds and I’ll get to snuggle baby Zoe for a few hours.  Because I’m making pasta tonight for dinner – which is everyone’s favorite, and then I’ll get to curl up with the two older kids and watch the third hour of the documentary I recorded over the weekend on the 1980’s.

Today’s a day when I’m awfully glad to have the life I’ve got.

Jessica Mary is ten years old.  And quite independent, most of the time.   Specifically, she never sleeps in our bed anymore.   Which is normal and natural and perfectly fine… except that last night, Marc and Sam were sleeping over at Battleship Cove with the Boy Scouts, and Jessie crawled into bed with me to watch television and ended up falling asleep next to me.

Julianna has a toddler bed, in our room (partly because she still nurses at night occasionally, and partly because I don’t want to make Jessie find room in her incredibly overcrowded space for her little sister).  So she was sound asleep in her own bed, and Jessie and I were curled up together.  It was achingly familiar, but she hasn’t snuggled like that with me in a long time.

She was my first baby, and for a long time, longer than Julianna has been alive, she was my only.  She snuggled like that every single night.  And even after Sam was born, she was still my snuggly girl.  Sam doesn’t snuggle at night, and neither does Julie.  Even though both the younger two nursed for years longer than Jessie, both of them sleep better alone.  As soon as they could roll, they’d roll away from me in their sleep.  Only Jessica curled into me every night, like she’s trying to burrow under me.  Only Jessica fits her little self into the perfect spot next to me and cuddles up in the most beautiful expression of mother/child snuggles.  She’s not an overly affectionate kid with anyone else – but with me,  she was always happy for a hug or a snuggle.  I was so happy last night with my little/big girl.

Happy and somewhat wistful, because I know how rare it is now.   She’s mostly outgrown it now.  She’ll still creep into bed with us occasionally, but not really.  She’s done with it.  And that’s as it should be… but I cherish those times when she does snuggle up against me.

Each one of my kids has taught me something different, and I love each one more than I can say.  But Jessie taught me about being a mother for the very first time, and with Jessica, I learned how incredibly perfect it is, just to have your little baby close to you.  That doesn’t go away when they get bigger.  It still feels perfect in a way that you only understand after you have a child.   Last night was perfect in a way that I’m going to try very hard to remember the next time she’s glaring at me and muttering under her breath about me.  Because there’s a part of her that’s always going to remember that feeling of safety and warmth and love, and a much bigger part of me that’s always going to want her next to me.