Ironic Mom

I don’t read parenting books. And, at the risk of offending many readers, I don’t recommend reading parenting books. I’m fully aware of the irony of me – a mom writing about raising kids – telling people not to read about parenting. Hopefully by now, though, you’ve figured out that I’m the antithesis of an expert on anything. In fact, my blog is likely a how-not-to-parent treatise.

Here’s how I came to my Screw-the-Experts Theory of Parenting.

Six years ago, my international teaching career was going strong, and I was used to being extremely competent at what I did. If I didn’t know it, I googled it, I read professional journals, I eavesdropped on teaching forums, I quizzed colleagues.

When I became pregnant, I applied the same need-to-be-an-expert-and-research-the-hell-out-of-it strategy to pregnancy. I cross-referenced the prego-bible, What To Expect When You’re Expecting, with the more light-hearted, Australian Up the Duff. I read three books on raising twins, two on breastfeeding, and one on parenting, and I also lurked on babycenter.com’s forums. In retrospect, this was probably an attempt to feel less out-of-control of my body, in that Ripley/Sigourney/Alien type of way.

When my twins were born, I kept What To Expect in the First Year handy; I used it often as a reference, thumbing through it for info on fevers, green goo-poo, and to see how far behind my kids were on learning to smile.

By the time Vivian and William turned one, though, I threw out the books.

Bye Bye Anonymous Advice

I was worn out by competitive parenting. Maybe because I couldn’t win, I ceased to care about whose baby walked or signed first, whose baby was breastfed, whose sleep strategy was best. Middle-class-me was part of a generation of professional women who were used to a high level of expertise, information at their fingertips, and living far from their families.

What happened to relying on our foremothers to share their hints?

I started to recall events that had taught me the most; all of these involved witnessing or by listening to real live people.

• My mom, as I’ve mentioned before, can anticipate and divert a crisis long before it happens. Whenever she visits, she seems to instinctively know when Vivian is premeditating, plotting to steal William’s toy-of-the-moment. My mom, between sips from her cup of tea bottle of beer, manages to offer Vivian a seemingly better toy, before I can shift my butt off the couch. Read more…

Birthday cards are a problem for me. I can never find the one which contains a balance of humour and intimacy, magically revealing the personalities of the recipient and myself. I’m a competitive card giver, and someone else always finds a funnier, better one.

I also despise spending $3.95 on something that’ll be history in two weeks – though that doesn’t deter me from purchasing other items that render themselves useless in even less time, like lattes, gasoline, bridal wear. My cheapness aside, I seem to be incapable of going to a store and buying a card in advance, especially if it has to be mailed. So even if I do purchase a card, the task of posting it necessitates a scavenger hunt, where I search for the address, stamps, a pen, a mailbox. By the time I find those items, the bloody card has disappeared and remains in hiding for weeks, making it even more useless.

And then there are e-cards. I despise them. They may even be worse than sub-literate Christmas card letters. They are far too public: I always seem to open them at work when my volume is maxed out on a level guaranteed to damage hearing. And they’re impersonal. And goofy. And seem to contain jokes aimed at a preschool audience.

My husband has tried to help me. He buys cards at thrift stores. Most of them haven’t even been used. I’m pretty sure they are cards that were in the possession of elderly people who died. I can almost picture dutiful daughters-in-law finding these card collections in shoeboxes found in the hall closets, then putting them in the pile marked “Goodwill.”

Our Collection of Dead People's Cards

Our card collection has helped my go-to-the-store organizational problem. But while we seem to have many cards, the ratio of usable to useless cards is shrinking. Take last Friday. My daughter had to go to a birthday party for a five-year-old. So I look through our cards, bypassing the “For My Son on His Graduation” and the twenty-two “Get Well Soon” cards, and I settle on something semi-benign: a card with red birds on it…Because everyone knows that Kindergartners list “orioles” as their favourite animal. I think the card supported the Lung Association (or the person who bought it and then died did years ago).

Try selecting one of these for a kid...or even an adult

This lengthy rant is a preamble to an apology. I’m sorry I don’t send birthday cards to my friends. I’m sorry I give pathetic cards. And I’m even sorrier I haven’t sent one to my mom, whose birthday is tomorrow. Now she’s not expecting one – I’ve probably mailed her two in the past eighteen years – hence she’s conditioned, but I still feel bad. So mom, I’m sorry. Though we’ll talk on the phone, there’s nothing in your Arizona mailbox. There’s nothing in your Manitoba mailbox either in case you think I forgot which country you’re in.

But here, publicly, I can at least say, Happy Birthday, Mom.

Feel free to read Part 1 of What Reality Shows Can Teach You about Parenting, or feel free not to bother.

American Idol may not seem like a primer in parenting, but it is. Where else can you learn that everyone judges you? That lesson became apparent on a recent trip to IKEA. I had just plopped my children onto an IKEA dolly meant to carry flat-packed pieces of furniture while you search for a set of allen wrenches and 6000 screws. A woman wearing Ugg boots approached me. I noticed her footwear because I was looking down, trying to ensure the strings on my daughter’s hood didn’t wind around the wheel. No sense being totally irresponsible and hanging your own child. “Excuse me?” she says. “That’s not safe.”

With my back safely to her, I swear like I’ve dropped a sledge hammer on my baby toe, lessons that I’ve learned from Hell’s Kitchen. The kids will learn it anyway, so they might as well learn it in the safety of IKEA.

You think this is Fear Factor? Try Childbirth or The Years That Follow It

It looks like art till you have a newborn

The reality show that should be required viewing for expectant parents is Fear Factor. If lying down in a tub filled with snakes makes you up-chuck your crackers and brie, how are you going to clean diarrhea off your own pajamas? It remains a mystery how innocent newborns can consistently empty their bowels the moment you lie them on the change table, remove the soggy diaper, and raise their legs to wipe them. Liquid poo sprays from their anus to your pajamas, turning your nightgown into a canvas that resembles a Jackson Pollack painting. It ain’t art, though, if it smells like crap. I’ll take the tub-o’-snakes anyday.

Although it contains few bodily function references, The Amazing Race offers its own lessons for parents. Only unlike the actual show, the raising-your-kids version lasts at least twenty years and offers no million dollar prize. Roadblocks? You wanna talk roadblocks? Try driving with two-year-old twins across Canada …with no DVD player.  The fact that anyone on the car trip survived, especially the children, is in itself amazing. A second lesson this show teaches is about correlation: the more time a family spends together, the more fighting occurs. So, book a babysitter, and get some distance.

The adage, “Things Could Always Be Worse,” is easily learned from watching twenty seconds of Intervention or five seconds of Toddlers and Tiaras . At this point, it’s difficult to conclude which show is worse, but there’s something seriously wrong with making three-year-olds look like Lady Gaga, however cool she may be.

So, feeling morally superior, a switch to Intervention is in order. As you sit down with a well-deserved glass of Pinot Noir, you’re reminded that there are people suffering from serious addictions.  Then, when you realize your kids could become addicts, you turn off the TV and go back to the kitchen for a second glass. You take your wine out the back door to begin the search for the shoe your son lost. You step over Tonka trucks and skipping ropes, but trip over something, slopping your wine. It was the shoe, of course. As you head upstairs, you’re relieved: today’s reality shows are yesterday’s news.

As for tomorrow…

Photos courtesy of nugunslinger and Abby Lanes, used under a Creative Commons ShareAlike License

I wipe snot off the wall and proceed to scrape the remaining crusty boogers with my finger nail. This is what my evenings have become now that I have five-year-old twins. I have no time to do DNA analyses to determine which urchin is guilty. I still have to pack lunches, reply to half a dozen birthday party invitations, and locate William’s left shoe which, according to him, is “somewhere outside.”

What I Should Do When Tempted To Watch Reality TV

No wonder then, when I finally flop in front of the television, I am incapable of watching a documentary about clubbing baby seals or trafficking children, the type of pre-parenting programming I once viewed. Educational TV once gave me anecdotes to offer to flat dinner party conversations around tables without high chairs. Now though, like many overwrought parents, I surf aimlessly, pausing occasionally to watch the drama that can be found only on Jerry Springer and reality TV. Each night, I think I’ll break this habit and go back to documentaries. But, like a gambling addict playing one game of blackjack, I flip to a reality show…and watch just a little bit.

Many wasted evenings later, I’ve learned to justify my addiction to flipping through reality shows. Like it or not, watching snippets of reality TV has taught me a lot about parenting. In fact, for most of us, it’s all the training we get. And I’m not talking about those nanny shows that preach time-out techniques. I’m talking about trashy, reality TV that’s akin to boogers-on-the-wall in its level of sophistication.

I Can't Even Count This High Most Days

From Jon and Kate Plus 8, I learned that one set of twins is enough. Seriously, if Jon and Kate had stopped after their first set of multiples, no one would know who the Gosselins are today. Jon and Kate Plus 2 doesn’t have the same euphonic quality, so no network would cover this, not even your local cable TV programmer who thinks a change in décor at a nail salon constitutes a story. I’d be better off without this show, just like I’m pretty sure I’m better off without my own army of children.

My motto for parenting has come from Survivor: Outwit, Outlast, Outplay. Isn’t that the maxim for parents the world over – to make it past your child’s bedtime while maintaining a shred of sanity? The nanosecond the postnatal-endorphin-rush ends, it’s all about survival. If you have twins, they form an alliance around age two, spurring each other on in contests such as let’s-smear-our-poo-all-over-the-wall when we should be napping. Once they enter preschool-era of no naps, the balance of power shifts permanently, as the little urchins seems to have immunity from every form of discipline that’s legal. I haven’t yet resorted to voting either of my children off the island – I’m saving that one for the teen years.

Stay tuned for more Reality Show Parenting Skills, coming your way Wednesday, the same day Toddlers & Tiaras (insert gag reflex here) resumes its winter season.

Photos courtesy of schmilblick and Spigoo, used under a Creative Commons ShareAlike Lisence.

I’ve spent a couple days trolling through emails from 2004, the year our twins were born. We lived in Bangkok at the time, and email was the way we communicated with people from home. What is interesting is how little the base personalities of William and Vivian have changed in the five years that have now passed. I find this comforting and a right-bit scary.

Thai Flag

Here are five excerpts from emails I wrote in the opening six months:

Memory One: June 17, 2004 (Age: 19 days)

Greetings on Day 19 of our new one-day-at-a-time worldview. My short and long term memories seem to have gone the way of the placentas. We are in the process of applying for Canadian citizenship for our babies, a “formality” that involves four pages of questions such as “are you married?” and “eye colour.” Apparently it takes six months to process these applications, which begs the question: are they currently citizens of nowhere?

Memory Two: July 23, 2004 (Age: 2 months)

We are amused daily. Vivian has more facial expressions than Andre Gagnon. William, when he’s sleeping in the crib he and Vivi share, does this interesting break-dancing move: he uses one of his eyebrows as a pivot point while he hurls both legs in one direction. Eventually he ends up rotated ninety degrees and sometimes even kicks Vivian in the head. Then we see (and especially hear) more expressions from Vivi. We continue to swaddle Vivian because she sleeps better (not because it makes her defenseless against her brother). She does attempt a nightly David Copperfield escape routine, but she usually conks out before she succeeds. She is energetic and fearful of missing anything, so that if her arms and legs are free, she flails and wakes herself up. We used to swaddle Will, but with his big head arched back from his body (his favourite position), he looked like a human Pez dispenser.

Memory Three: September 10, 2004 (Age: 3+ months)

The troops are getting more and more interesting. Will has decided that humans might, after all, be worth smiling at, though he still prefers grinning at inanimate objects such as ceiling fans and the plastic basket on the change table. Vivian, with her intensely competitive personality, has learned that when in her rocking-lounger-chair she can kick the roller balls with her feet at about 90 mph, providing her fists are clenched and her tongue is sticking out. Yes, Vivian has unfortunately inherited the stick-your-tongue-out-while-you-concentrate habit from me (I am still scarred by the memory of my organ recital when I was nine-years-old. Some old bird came up to me afterwards and pointed out how it was “cute” the way I stuck out my tongue while I played).

Memory Four: Oct 16, 2004 (Age: 4.5 months)

William is doing his own trial version “crawling,” as is evident by the blisters on the ends of his toes. He doesn’t quite have the arm thing down, but he can cover some ground. Vivi isn’t quite doing the crawling thing but does hoist her butt so high in the air that she topples over. She has rapid mood swings that range from happy to “assertive”. My favourite is the scream-really-loud, turn your head, then fall into a deep sleep (all in under 10 seconds).

Memory Five: Nov 18, 2004 (Age: 5.5 months)

Vivian is very close to crawling. She rocks in the crawling position for hours, it seems, and has recently began to extend her legs so that it looks like she’s in the starting blocks for the 100 meters. (Bad news, Vivi: poor genes means that it’s unlikely you’ll ever run the 100 in less than a minute. Try the big thigh sports: speed skating and sprint cycling). William spends hours in the free-fall position (also reminiscent of Superman flying). Will prefers to roll, especially when we’re not looking, prompting comments such as “How did you get over there?” He loves babbling and, unlike his sister, he actually has an inside voice.

Since my memory – like my placentas – is long gone, I say thank you to email’s “sent” file, the dinosaur’s version of a blog.

(cc) Brandon Fick, used under a Creative Commons ShareAlike License

Musical chairs.

Every night before the four of us sit down to eat, we play a game of musical chairs. Well, not really. There is no music nor is there a shortage of seats. Where we sit each meal, however, always changes. Vivian and William seem to delight in determining this nightly seating plan, declaring where they want to sit and which parent they want beside them. It all sounds lovely enough: I could philosophize about there being no head of the table or giving children choice or blah blah blah. Ultimately, though, it’s a pain in the butt: we shift and re-shift while the pasta grows colder.

India.

Perhaps tonight’s musical chair experience exhausted Vivi and Will, because their dad and I actually managed to have a five-minute adult conversation at the dinner table. We reminisced about our trip to India twelve years ago. It was our first vacation together; we figured if our five-month-old relationship could survive three weeks in India it could withstand a lot. We have a thousand stories to tell, from the man with no nose who was our rickshaw driver, to the monkey squatting on top of our buffet table shoveling rice into his mouth while he looked at us. But the biggest lesson by far is that tea and toast make any crisis better.

Dancing.

Our micro-conversation ends when William scoots off his chair-du-jour and starts doing the Chicken Dance. He flaps his way through a round or two, then switches to The Macaroni (which vaguely resembles The Macarena). Next, he starts disco-dancing, shouting out four not-so-random letters: Y-M-C-A.

If my kids dance the YMCA instead of eat at the dinner table, this will be them.

Vivian soon realizes she’s being upstaged (she’s still trying to make up for the fact that she was born two minutes after her brother). To get our attention, she stand on her chosen chair and continues the YMCA, complete with the move where one hand rests behind her head, while the index finger on her other hand points around the room. I object when she starts to step onto the table.

William, thankfully, is rarely bothered by Vivian’s hyper-competitiveness. He just dances to the beat of his own drum – sometimes literally. Instead of hopping onto the chair or table to compete, he says, “I’m just going to do my own dance.” He launches into his signature William-dance. Imagine a five-year-old doing the Running Man and cross it with Pulp Fiction. The boy’s got a bit of groove, the kind that emerges when you don’t give a crap what anyone else thinks.

William’s dance ends, Vivian climbs down from her chair, and the kids go off to tidy the living room.

“How’s that cleaning up going, Vivian?” my husband asks.

She looks up from the flashcards she’s studying for the umpteenth time. “Going fine,” she says. She settles more into the sofa cushion.

William is nowhere to be found.

And that, my friends, is another twenty minutes with twins.

Photo Credit: (cc) bogdog Dan, used under a Creative Commons ShareAlike License

Most twin parents are hypersensitive to the issue of fairness. The phrase “equal but different” has become a silent household philosophy. Since Vivian had her day in the sun last blog, I thought I’d share some William-isms from the past few weeks.

He SAID what?

• “Mom, I just need some alone time.” Interpretation: I want to play computer games, so go away.

• “What happens if an astronaut lands in our backyard?” I’m open to answers on that one.

• “We’ll just play one long game of eye spy.” William’s solution to any line-up.

• “Aaaahhhh, Shuddup.” Nothing like quoting Bugs Bunny to get your mother’s attention. I don’t even let my Junior High students say shut up, which is proof that teachers sometimes make lousy parents: they’re too tired of disciplining to do any when they get home.

• “Like a light bulb.” William figured out the unofficial echo in the song, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” He was on repeat play. In January.

• “I’m sorry, Mom. I forgot to wake you up.” These were William’s words after I found him sleeping beside a massive pool of vomit.

• “I’m trying to be brave.” With tears rolling down his cheeks, William faced the fact that two pieces of his newly-constructed, 8000-piece Lego car had fallen down the register.

• “Do you know what Backyardigans’ is my favourite?” Be prepared for a 20-minute spiel following this question.

• “Can I talk to you, Mom? In the time out chair?” Parenting Tip: always make the time out chair the comfiest seat in the house.

He DID what?

• He sang along with the Mini-Pops, even after the commercial was over. Isn’t this a crime? Isn’t singing Toto at any age a crime?

• He convinced his sister to do his homework for him. They’re in Kindergarten.

#1-50 by William, #51-62 by Vivian

• He gently stroked my hair. An hour prior to this he bit his sister. Either he’s a captive monkey or he’s five.

• He named his handcrafted snowman Snowpoke.

Snowpoke, William's Not-So-Quick Snowman

• William refrained from eating candy that he found on the floor of abookstore, but he happily sucked on the Thomas bridge in a high traffic play area.

• While in Arizona, he fell off the golf cart onto the road. When I looked back, he was brushing gravel out of his hands.

• He staged a sit-in on our living room floor wearing only underwear. He was protesting going to swimming lessons. My husband said, “He looks like Gandhi.” Good luck with passive resistance in this household.

• And, earlier this evening, in a competitive game of dress-up, Vivian nearly poked him in the eye with her plastic sword.So he punched her in the nose with a dress-up fist, one from The Fantastic Four. Upon impact, the fist announced, “It’s clobberin’ time.” Well, Vivian got clobbered. William did run upstairs to retrieve one of her favourite stuffed animals. In the end, however, Vivian used the stuffy to console William because he was upset that he had clobbered her.

It's Clobberin' (Your Sister) Time

And there you have it, three weeks of William-isms.

Fairness restored.

To the delight of parents everywhere – and to the consternation of teachers– this past week meant back to school. For Vivian, my daughter, the first day back in Kindergarten afforded her the opportunity to write resolutions using inventing spelling. She has five wishes for 2010, and her hopes make me both smile and cringe.

Start 'em Young: Resolutions of a 5-Year-Old

Vivian’s 1^st Resolution: do my numbrs bedder.

A perfectionist-in-training, Vivian has high standards, too high. When I asked her what’s wrong with the numbers she currently prints, she said, “My 3’s could be better.” They’re already more legible than any doctor’s penmanship. This resolution is from the child who practiced “sitting down” fifty times one day (when she was eight-months-old).

Vivian’s 2^nd Resolution: Reed bedder.

This resolution may seem admirable, but she’s starting to read my tweets. I’m getting paranoid. What happens when she reads my blog?

Vivian’s 3^rd Resolution: I hope to go skating.

If sledding is the highlight of her month, you can imagine how she’d feel if we ever took her and William skating. But to take them skating in the same year that we took them sledding?  I mean really. Wouldn’t that be just a bit over the top? It’s not like it’s convenient or anything, with the community rink at the top of our street.  It’s not like we’re Canadian and that skating is a freaking right of passage. Seriously.

Vivian’s 4^th Resolution: I hope to get less stuffees.

Tired of too many stuffed animals in their bedroom, last summer I asked both Vivian and William to select five stuffies to “give away,” which turned into a euphemism for “secretly throw them in the garbage.” Yes, I may have led them to believe there were needy children with no stuffies to cuddle. Evidently, Vivian hasn’t forgotten, and she’s hoping to do more humanitarian work this year.

Vivian’s 5^th Resolution: Eat less junk food.

Okay, is this kid five or twenty-five? It’s not like she’s even had soft drinks or a chocolate bar. Well, that may not be entirely true. She and William did plunder our pantry early one morning. They found my secret stash of 100-calorie chocolate bars (you know, the ones you can eat four of because they’re low-cal?). Well, judging from the amount of chocolate on her face, she got a good share of the booty.

Given Vivian’s ability to focus and get the job done, my money’s with her on keeping her resolutions. She, together with her brother, can outwit, outlast, and outplay me anyday.

It’s six days in. Six days since I started my Resolution of the Decade: drinking eight glasses of water each day. This was something I used to do on an hourly basis when I lived in Bangkok. It’s harder to drink water in the freezing Canadian winter, but I soldier on, imbibing H₂0 like it’s free or something. This drinking water thing has made me feel part of the food chain, in that what-goes-in-must-come-out way. Suffice it to say that my family has seen less of me because of frequent trips to the loo.

Water, Part 1 of 8

Resolutions are dandy, but I still prefer making them for other people, especially people I love.  Before having kids, my husband was number one on this list.

“Have you made any resolutions yet?” I’d ask.

“Why?” he’d inquire, suspiciously.

“Because I was thinking that maybe you could start to…” And I’d continue with some list item, like rub my feet every day, swear less, or make me breakfast in bed every Saturday.

Now that my twins are kindergartners, though, they’ve developed habits that annoy me. I’m still trying to figure out at what point do-no-wrong-babies turn into mischievous-preschoolers-in-need-of-a-timeout, but that might spiral into a conversation about original sin or at least the Terrible Twos, both discussions I’d rather not have.

If I were to make resolutions for Vivian, here they are. Resolution One: she needs to stop sucking on her hair. It’s limp and stringy as it is; dried saliva isn’t exactly the product of choice. Resolution Two: In keeping with the saliva theme, Vivian needs to chew with her mouth closed so dinner time doesn’t involve a lengthy close up of the digestion process’s first stage.

Bandaid, Box One

William, Vivian’s twin, is not immune to my resolutions. His first resolution should be to stop biting his cuticles and peeling his nails. I haven’t clipped them since he was one. And perhaps I should invest the money I’m saving from drinking water into Band-Aid’s stock because I’m constantly sticking one on William’s bleeding cuticles. His second resolution needs to be to stop slamming the toilet lid. It might sound minor, but at 4 a.m. it’s a wake-up call for the entire household.

Good thing I’m so damn perfect that all I have to do is hydrate.

To be fair, I asked my five-year-olds what I could be better at. Vivian said I could be better at finding things. On nights like tonight, I think she’s onto something. I could be better at finding things, like my sanity.

William said I could be better at telling stories. And given the potty-humour evident in this blog, he may be right.

We don’t get babysitters very often.  This disappoints our five-year-old twins immensely. They’ve always loved babysitters.

I have a few theories on why they love having other people look after them.

Theory One has to do with the fact they’re twins. There’s comfort in numbers, especially when your partner-in-crime has been with you since the womb. It also can’t hurt when you outnumber your babysitter 2:1. Odds like this increase the chance that the inmates will run the asylum, especially when the two head guards are AWOL.

Theory Two of why our kids love babysitters is the fact that William and Vivian spent the first year of their existence living in Thailand. Thai people love babies and adore twins. Multiple births, especially a boy/girl combination, are considered lucky. So much so, that a driver asked my husband to select a lottery ticket for him.

The Holding-Babies Brigade

Since we were carless in Bangkok, we spent a lot of time pushing our limo-stroller through the congested streets. We wouldn’t get very far before food vendors, tuk tuk drivers, and waitresses would pick up and cuddle our twins. Even the Coca-Cola delivery man oohed and aahed over them.

Theory Three as to why our kids love babysitters is we’re lousy parents. We don’t read parenting books bettering ourselves, or write and perform family plays. We’re just kind of there. We took Vivian and William sledding on New Year’s Day, and that was pretty much the Event of Their Life. I figure if you set the bar low, it’s easy to maintain the standard. Needless to say, when they have a babysitter, the endless games of hide-and-seek and make-believe fuel their love for their babysitter and provide a foil for our lackluster parenting style.

To illustrate the extent to which William and Vivian love having a babysitter, here are two snippets of conversations that occurred this past weekend.

Saturday morning

Vivian: “Mom, we haven’t seen our babysitter in a while.”

Me: “That’s because we’ve been away on vacation.”

Vivian: “Can you guys go out?”

Me: “Uhh, okay.”

Saturday evening

William: “How long till she comes?”

Me:  “Fifteen minutes.”

William: “Fifteen minutes?” [Insert dramatic pause as he gazes outside through our picture window]. “But Mom, it’s really dark outside.”

Big alligator tears stream down his cheek. I kneel down, eye level with my now-sobbing son. Vivian comes and rubs his back. William doesn’t weep often, and we’re frantically trying to determine the cause.

Me: “What’s wrong, William?”

William, between sobs: “It’s, it’s, it’s…dark out.”

I wipe his tears away.

Me: “Mommy and Daddy won’t be gone long. We’ll be home soon. Just after you fall asleep.”

William: “Fifteen minutes is a long time. What if she doesn’t come?”

Epiphany.

Me: “Are you worried your babysitter won’t come?”

William: “Yes.”

Me: “Then you’re not upset because you want Mommy and Daddy to stay home with you?”

William: “No.” He looks up and wipes his snotty nose on his sleeve. “I just want her to come right now.”

All that crying over the fear he’s going to be stuck with his mommy and daddy again.

Minutes later, the doorbell rings, easing his fears. Before I can put on my coat, the kids have removed their socks for optimal grip and have begun a raucous game of tag…with their babysitter happily chasing them around the house.

Photo collage adapted from Meemal, Farangrakthai, superhua, cplapied, (cc) Creative Commons, used under a ShareAlike License.