Ironic Mom

7:00 a.m.

Although Vivian has been up for one hour, William is sleeping away. I walk into his room, turn on the light, and spy him asleep on the edge of his bed. It’s at this point I see the vomit. It has congealed beside him, one-inch chunks of partially digested banana.

I wake him. “William, you threw up.”

“Yes, Mommy,” he says, pushing himself to a sitting position. “I was sick.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up when you were sick?”

“I’m sorry, Mommy. I forgot,” he says, like it’s his fault.

“Are you feeling better now?”

“Yes,” he says, and saunters down the hallway toward the television. He needs the violence from Bugs Bunny to wake himself up fully.

I spend endless minutes scraping banana-mush coated with stomach-acid-glaze into the toilet bowl. I give up and start dunking the entire sheet into the toilet bowl. The pre-automatic-washing-machine part of my brain is in full swing, as is my gag reflex. With the chunks now floating in toilet water, I take the laundry downstairs, deposit it in the washer, and crank the knob to heavy-duty.

7:12 a.m.

I’m in the kitchen with Vivian, who has finished her breakfast. Whoever says kids have short attention spans hasn’t met my daughter. She is carrying a thread of conversation that began when she awoke. “Please can I eat my chocolate from my Advent calendar?”

“Vivi, I’ve told you three times already and the answer’s still no. Not until after school.” I’m starting to sense that she feels left out because she hasn’t spewed banana.

7:14 a.m.

William joins us in the kitchen, alert now that he’s watched Elmer Fudd hunt Bugs Bunny with a wifle.  Will plops down at the table to eat his breakfast.

7:15 a.m.

William announces, “I’m done my breakfast, Mommy.” I look up. He has licked the peanut butter off his English muffin. That’s it.

“William,” I start, “Are you not–”

“Mommy!” Vivian interrupts. “Can I have a chocolate? Please, please, pl–”

“Vivian!” I’ve lost it now. “If you ask that question one more time, Mommy’s going to eat your entire Advent calendar.”

Parenting tip number twenty-three: Always make threats you can follow through with. Yesterday I’d even read the calorie count on the back of Vivian’s calendar: 130 calories for 80 grams, and the whole thing’s 100 grams. I could inhale the nine remaining chocolates in less time than it takes for a new mistress of Tiger to pop out of the woodwork.

7:20 a.m.

We struggle into our winter gear and trudge out to the van.  Another twenty minutes in a household with twins.

December 15th is Cat Herders Day. This invent-a-holiday recognizes people who have kids whose lives are so out of control it’s like they’re herding cats.

Try herding these kitties into a single photo

When I first heard of this “holiday”, my brain twisted the word herding into hoarding, a word association that would cause psychologists to scribble something into their notebooks. Of course, a reasonable association would have been remembering my five-year-old twins run opposite directions in the parking lot on Saturday, but my mind is not logical. I thought of hoarding, which made me think of the clutter in my house.

My husband collects cheap things. I’m not sure if I should include myself in this categorization.  If something’s cheap, he’ll take ten. Or more.  Even if we don’t need any.

Last week, he came home with one of his deals.

“I got you something,” he said. Visions of a one-night-solo-stay in a boutique hotel danced in my head.

I looked up from Twitter as he dropped the box in front of me. I peeked through the flap and spied hundreds of individually-packaged marmalade jams, enough to power Denny’s through a month of burnt toast servings.

“Marmalade? What are we going to do with this?”

“Eat it,” he said. “On toast.”

“I hate marmalade.”

“But it was only five bucks.”

And therein lies his theory of accumulating things. If it’s a good deal, we need lots.

My daughter seems to have inherited this penchant for low-grade hoarding. She covets her “collections.” They range from rocks and leaves, to stuffed animals and cut-out paper hearts. Last year she even tried to collect snow. She’s like a magpie; anything shiny is slated to a lifetime in a plastic container. Half of our Tupperware containers have gone AWOL because they’re housing her collection du jour.

I seem to have a thing for collectors. Maybe it’s because I’m a failed collector.

I tried it once myself. During one long week of my childhood, I collected nail clippings. Then someone wisely told me it was gross, so I threw out my collection in a fit of embarrassment.  After that, the only things I saved were letters. And a few years ago, I gave those back to the writers. I figured it was a nice flashback to all the guys my pen pals had crushes on.  Nothing like a window into your life at the age of thirteen to realize how far you’ve come. Or not.

To complete the mom metaphor, add rollerskates and stir

(cc) Richard, Creative Commons, used under a ShareAlike License

Maybe most collections are embarrassing. Or should be.  But maybe they’re our security too. Our way of exerting control in a world where we feel not only like we’re herding cats on a daily basis, but also like we’re blindfolded and on rollerskates.