MomMe TV Blog :: "The Silver Lining"

I would never say things like, “Because I said so!” or “Am I speaking to the wall?” or “How many times do I have to tell you? (“Obviously mom, at least one more time!”)

Making this vow is easy to do before you are presented with the reality of parenthood. If I stop and think about it, I’m sure I could catalogue all the unique ways I am messing up, and messing my kids up as a result. Although hundreds, if not thousands, of parenting mistakes come to mind, there are a few in particular that convince me that along with their college fund, I’d better start a long-term therapy fund as well.

My early mistakes with Martin centered on attempts to subdue his physical energy. Left in a room to play, he would literally bounce off walls while he moved from one activity to another. No drawer would be left unopened. No toy untouched. I told Steve we might be wise to pad the walls. If nothing else, it would cut down on the abuse of our walls.

The problem was I couldn’t always keep him inside. Sometimes, I needed to take him out into the world. When Martin was two years old, I took him to the mall in a stroller. Martin was never one to stay quietly put. As soon as I turned my back (to look at some clothes on sale), Martin tipped out of the stroller, ran out of the store, and sprinted down the mall commons. As soon as I noticed (it took awhile, we were talking 50% off!), I dashed after him. About 100 yards down, screaming like a lunatic the whole way; I leaped in the air and executed a tackle the NFL would have been impressed to see. I threw him over my shoulder and marched back to the store as he screamed and struggled the whole way. I couldn’t decide whether to explain to shocked onlookers that he was really mine, (I didn’t want them to think I was kidnapping the kid), or deny any knowledge of this wild creature altogether.

And this kind of thing happened all the time. When Martin was three, I took him with me to an outdoor garden center. One second he was walking next to me. The next second he was gone. I immediately panicked and started running down the rows of plants screaming his name. As I surveyed the wide landscape I spotted him running out of the garden section and full tilt into the busy parking lot.

When I finally caught up with him, I was in such a state of panic that I grabbed him by the arm, pointed a finger close to his face and yelled. “Don’t you ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER, run away from me. Do you hear me? Never, ever, ever, EVER, run into a parking lot. EVER!”

During my entire tirade I kept waving my finger at him in sharp motions to emphasize the ‘never evers’. I ended with, “What did I just say?” I was hoping to reinforce my important point by making him repeat it. He stared at me earnestly, then wagged his little forefinger severely in my face and said, "You said, don’t you ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER… I forgot the rest.”

I’m glad that got my point across.

And while Martin was my active child, dealing with his sudden escapes turned out to be easy compared to his sister’s public meltdowns. These public tantrums were regular performances in Kelsey’s behavioral repertoire.

When Kelsey was two, we flew to Houston to visit Steve’s family. Scheduled to return on a 4:00 PM flight, we really wanted Kelsey to nap all the way home. We knew that if she fell asleep for even 20 minutes before take-off, she would assume that was her nap, and she’d be awake and cranky the entire flight. Her naptime was usually around 2:00pm, so we kept her going all afternoon.

The real challenge was the drive to the airport, where she kept nodding off in her car seat. In order to keep her awake, I sat next to her in the back and kept blowing in her face and tickling her, which annoyed her greatly, but kept her awake.

By the time we got on the airplane, she was delirious. As we reached our seats, she started screaming that her diaper hurt. As I tried to calm her down, she stood up in her seat and started to strip. Off came her shoes, her socks, her pants, her diaper, and her shirt. As I tried to redress her, she screamed louder and got more naked. I fully expected, and our fellow passengers fervently prayed, that we were going to get kicked off the flight. I would struggle with her to put back on her diaper and then she would rip it off. I would force her shirt back over her head and she would scream, tear if off and throw it across the aisle (she has a great arm). We managed to half dress her and in the process we became untucked and disheveled as well. I can’t imagine what we must have looked like to other people. We didn’t appear to be in control of the situation, mainly because we weren’t.

Eventually, we managed to contain her somewhat, but for the duration of the flight, she screamed, struggled and acted like a maniac child. It wasn’t until we started descending that she fell into a deep and quiet sleep.

As she got older, Kelsey found new ways to push my buttons. I can proudly say now that I handled many of them...oh, who am I kidding? I managed to mishandle any number of situations.

When Kelsey was four, she developed the annoying habit of needing my attention any time I would pick up the telephone. I would try to carry on a conversation, to an ongoing background barrage of “mom, mom, moms,” until I would loose my patience altogether.

So, of course, I made a rule. “When mommy is on the phone, you don’t interrupt unless you or someone else is bleeding, or is otherwise in need of immediate medical attention.” It didn’t seem to sink in. In one case, though, I was glad she didn’t follow my rule.

That day it was my turn to drive Kelsey and her four-year old friend, Matthew to 10:00am gymnastics. Matthew’s mother had a 9:00 am appointment so she dropped Matthew off at our house to play before gymnastics. When Matthew arrived, I sent him to the basement, where Kelsey was watching Big Comfy Couch, a PBS program, on our new 70” big screen TV.

This cinematic extravagance came equipped with a universal remote, a term that seemed very ‘Star Trek’ to me, like ‘Universal Translator’ and we were just beginning to figure it out. In conjunction with the new digital cable, I had only learned the very basic functions.

I probably don’t have to tell you this, but we had purchased this huge television at the insistence of my husband. As you walked down the ten steps to the basement, it sat in full view of anyone walking down.

They were watching Comfy Couch, so I started to clean the kitchen and the phone rang. While I was talking to my sister about nothing I can recall, Kelsey came running up the stairs, trailed by Matthew, whining, “Mom! Mom! There is a lady on TV and she’s dying.”

“I’m on the phone,” I mouthed, and gave a very stern looked designed to get my point across. I planned to ignore her to teach her not to interrupt, but something caught my attention. Why would someone by dying on Comfy Couch? That seemed decidedly un-Comfy Couch-like.

I told my sister I’d call her back and started down the stairs to investigate. As I approached step five, with the kids close behind, I noticed that what was on this life-size screen was not Comfy Couch at all. There, in 70” graphic detail, a naked man and woman were engaged in an activity that, had the kids stayed down another minute, would have clearly revealed that she was not dying. Shocked, I dove for the remote, tackled it, and quickly hit the Power button, shutting it off.

“Hey, we were watching,” whined Kelsey.

“It’s broken.” I breathlessly muttered, and ushered them off to a coloring project.

What I believe had happened was that Matthew did not like Comfy Couch and was not shy about playing with the Universal Remote. Unbeknownst to us, we had the Spice channel on our digital cable, and he located it before we even knew we had it. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it). We’ve locked those channels since.

I kept waiting for the kids to say something about the program but they never did. After gymnastics when I drove Matthew home, I pulled his mother aside and said I had to tell her something.

“The thing is,” I began, “I accidentally exposed Matthew to pornography this morning”; a pronouncement she was probably not expecting. I was certain to be cut out of the carpool. Thankfully, she found the story amusing and told me she’d let me know if he ever mentioned the incident. Surprisingly, neither of them ever did. No doubt, it will be one of those repressed memories that come out after extensive therapy. “When I was four I witnessed life-size pornography, and that must be why I have an unexplained attraction-repulsion to electronics.”

Life goes on, and I look forward to the numerous and interesting ways I will mess up in my parenting in the future. Now that the kids are older, I move from safeguarding their physical self to the much harder and less clear task of safeguarding their emotional development. I hope I start doing a better job soon or someday they will be hearing, “Sit back on my big comfy couch and tell me all about it.”