Author: Jackie Semmens

I drove by a flag flying at half mast, and I cannot remember why.

Was it the shooting in Texas? A mall? Was it a school, or a different state? Was it 5, or 6, or 7, or 8 this time?

I don’t remember if there has been a break between it flying half mast lately. I cannot think.

I wonder why our flag posts are so tall. Will we ever raise the flags high again.

They flew at half mast after it was my community plastered over the news. On order of the Governor, every one who proudly flew a flag stepped out the next morning and lowered their flag. Did they know, I wondered, that it was my friend the flag was mourning? The boy I road the bus with? I had last ran into him outside of his school’s library. We exchanged a few “How you’ve beens” and “good to see yous” that fall before he died on that same campus, months later.

The flags flew half mast. I don’t remember when it was raised again.

It occurs to me I don’t know how long they’ve been flying at half mast. If its not one tragedy, it is another. I do not know why we bother anymore. Let’s just leave them at down low. Let’s admit our shame – that we cannot raise our heads long enough from our thoughts and prayers to be proud of who we are as a nation.

Maybe our flag poles are too tall. Maybe our hopes are too high.

I think about the principal, the maintenance worker, the teacher who steps out on those solemn mornings to lower the flags.

Do they ever wonder how many times more they will have to do this?

Do they ever wonder if the flag will fly for them?

There’s so much I miss about life before coronavirus.

I mean, yes, there’s the obvious. I haven’t hugged my parents in over a year. I haven’t kissed my sweet baby nephew ever and if you could see the way he smiles, you would know that’s a crime against humanity.

And I miss childcare. Oh my goodness, do I miss childcare. Not in a “oh my gosh I’m so sick of my kids” kind of way, but in a “my God, it’s really nice to know someone else has your back” kind of way.

But there are other things I miss, too. Really dumb, pointless things that I didn’t even know were things until they were gone.

Like really hot french fries.

I’m craving really, hot french fries. Not french fries that got kinda warm soggy on the drive home. But really hot french fries that barely had 30 seconds to cool off between the kitchen and your table.

I want burn your mouth hot french fries. I want to eat them in a restaurant. I want to hear the waitress say, “Be careful, those fries are right out of the fryer so you might want to give them a minute to cool off,” and then eat them anyway.

I want to ignore the health advice of an authority figure who knows way more about the situation at hand than I do and just enjoy my damn french fries.

Come to think of it, this might be how we got ourself into this mess in the first place.

You know another meal time tradition I miss? Standing around a birthday cake and watching someone spit on it.

In the after times – when we’re all vaccinated and unmasked and find the passage of time something to cheer about again – are we ever going to watch someone blow out birthday candles without flinching?

I want to watch my kids and their friends blow out their birthday candles without worrying that we are all going to catch a potentially deadly disease. I want to watch those little cherubs blow droplets all over a cake and just assume I’m going to catch a non-deadly disease like I used to.

I do miss parties. And I do miss not socializing at them.

I want to stand around a bowl of potato chips (we used to do this? Let everyone stick their fingers in the same bowl?) and chit chat. But more than that, what I really miss is slinking to the back corner of the room and finding that one person who can actually get you through a social event. The person who you can crack jokes with and who can help you plan an early getaway. Those simple moments are gone now.

You can’t give a coworker a knowing glance on a zoom call. You can’t subtly roll your eyes at your brother when you’re on a family FaceTime. You can’t use the chat box to make a joke under your breath. Now all you can do is stare at a screen and pretend you are listening, which is the exact instructions I give my son every morning he has virtual school.

This pandemic has made me painfully aware I don’t know how to navigate group conversations, and I miss the days when I was blithely oblivious to that fact.

I did, however, use to know a lot more than everyone else about public health, and I miss that too.

Okay, not really, because that’s never been a particularly useful skill for me. But I actually went to grad school for this stuff!

I mean, sure, I mainly went to grad school to ride out a “once in a lifetime recession” (lol) but I did study public health while I was there. I tacked an entire Certificate of Public Health onto my M.A., thank you very much.

It’s totally worthless now though. I used to be able to explain what R0 values and index patients and zoonotic diseases were (not that anyone ever asked). I had assignments on how to conduct contact tracing. I mean sure, they looked a lot more like “figure out who at this potluck ate the gross potato salad and is going to end up vomiting in the bathroom,” and a lot less like “Did you give Grandma a deadly disease when you stopped by to say hello?” But still.

And now, so what? We have all literally spent more time reading about coronavirus than I ever spent studying as a grad student. We have all now become de facto contact tracers and lay experts in aerosolized droplet spread. All my knowledge is worthless.

I want my money back.

Group laughter. That’s another thing I miss. The sound of a group of people spontaneously bursting into laughter.

Let’s make a rule for Zoom calls. If you have to cough, sneeze, tell your kid to put on pants, or flush the toilet, please mute yourself. But if you’re gonna laugh, hit unmute. The people need to hear it.

You know what’s really quite discomforting? Muted people laughing in their little video boxes. It’s going to haunt my dreams long after this is over.

Speaking of dreams, I can’t wait to have a dream where I’m walking into class pantsless again. I haven’t had that dream since COVID started. Now I’m just showing up places mask-less.

In my actual nightmares, I’m walking around the grocery store and no one is wearing a mask. They’re all just out there, breathing and acting like everything is totally normal. It’s terrifying. This development has been particularly concerning to me because as a mom of three kids, going to the grocery store by myself used to be a literal dream.

Honestly, I would give anything to be at a birthday party with one of you people, eating hot french fries, cracking jokes, and trying to sneak out early.

I mean, I say I’d give anything to do that, but I don’t want to give you COVID.

So I guess it can wait.

When you were little more than prayer, a whispered thought into the the air
I believed you were ever mine. And no one could make me let you go.

But when you were new and fresh and blessed
by unbending time, I rocked you until my arms grew tired
and your dreams begged their turn.

Because I had held you for a little while, but my love could hold you longer.

And then you grew, and soon you flew into a child I didn’t know,
aloft on the tops of trees, and I below,
watched you become your own.

And when you fell, I held you for a little while, but my love held you longer.

We walked for miles, hand in hand, over unfamiliar ground.
Until you soon grew stronger, and then your hands did let me go.
I held you for a little while, but my love will hold you longer.

And every day, as time wills, I watch you grow bigger still
and wonder when I’ll set you down,
no longer mine alone
with just a promise to leave for you, scarred into my bone.

Though I held you for a little while, my love will hold you longer.

“So what do you  with all your free time, now that your boys are in school?”

* looks at my two year old, who hasn’t let me put her down in weeks.*

* looks at my list of deadlines.

*  looks at stack of laundry and wonder how many hours it will take to fold it all.*

* thinks about what I’m going to do with the kids when they get out of school mid-afternoon.*

* looks at near-empty fridge and debate what I’m going to have for dinner.*

“Oh, I don’t know!” I answer. “Probably join a book club or something.”

The truth is, I want a day off.

I want it more than anything. I fantasize about it. I dream about it. I plot it and plan it and do everything except execute it.

I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the labor rights movement of the 19th century and how we all decided that it would be pretty inhumane to work more than five days in a row (unless, you know, you were compensated with extra money).

But then society was still like, “LOL except moms they can work like every hour of every day forever.”

Okay, I know! I know. I’m a stay-at-home mom. Everything I do is pure joy. I flit around my house cleaning every surface with tea-tree oil and vinegar, fueled only by the love of my children and organic, homemade Larabars. I haven’t worked a moment since my oldest child was born seven years ago.

It’s not work at all. It’s a privilege to provide people with everything they need to survive every minute of every day. And every night. Cause it turns out, they need a whole bunch of stuff at night too.

But let’s say, for a minute, that I wasn’t a “mom.” Let’s pretend that I was a “nanny.”

Yeah, let’s say I was a nanny and I casually mentioned to you that I hadn’t had a day off in about two and a half years.

I’m pretty sure that would raise an eyebrow.

Now of course – like everything motherhood-related – this is all my fault.

I could hire a babysitter and go to a spa for a day. I could disappear to a hotel and sleep for an afternoon. I could go back in time, strongly suggest to God that he give men the breasts and come back to find my husband nursing instead.

I could’ve done any of those things, but no, I have not.

(In part, because in my fantasy I get the house to myself to do the things I want to do when I want to do them. AND I do not want to come home to a very messy house that I would then have to clean).

But, in truth, I know what I would do if I actually did have a day off.

I’d start on that big pile of laundry. I’d read a book on parenting to get an even better idea of what exactly I’m doing wrong here. I’d reorganize the freezer. Maybe I’d even sort out all the clothes that don’t fit anyone anymore.

Not that any of that is what I fantasize about. My fantasy looks a lot more like reading in bed, binge-watching Younger while I knit, and then power-hiking up a mountain without 30 extra pounds of baby on my back.

But I wouldn’t do any of that – because of the list.

You see, it’s not my children that I want a break from. It’s the responsibility. The never-ending list that begins the day you are first become a parent and never gets any shorter.

Because what I really fantasize about isn’t waking up and drinking a cup of (hot!) coffee in silence. It’s waking up and thinking “What do I want to do today?”

Instead of, “What does everybody else need me to do for them today?”

So yeah. I want to be selfish.

Moms aren’t supposed to be selfish. Moms are supposed to be never-ending fountains of generosity. I am supposed to gush about how lucky I am that I get to stay-at-home. I’m not supposed to want anything for myself other than the reward of my children’s smiles.

But sometimes, I just want a day off.

And listen up – wanting to escape from all your responsibilities occasionally doesn’t make you a bad mom. It just means that you are taking them seriously.

Which makes you a pretty good mom indeed.

My eyes weren’t even quite open when I heard feet stomping and doors slamming.

So it was going to be one of those days.

The kid had a reason to be upset, and I knew he had a reason to be upset. But I also desperately wanted him to just deal with it so we could all move on and enjoy our Sunday morning. You know, stuff those feelings deep inside and pretend they don’t exist, just like us adults do.

My efforts to coax the sunshine out of him failed. My hug was met with stiff shoulders. My words were hurtled right back at me, and every attempt I made at connecting seemed to drive us farther apart.

All I wanted to do was to go back to bed. I wanted to crawl deep inside my covers where it was warm and no one yelled at me. I wanted to go 24 hours without anyone asking something of me. I wanted to go one night without waking up to the sounds of someone needing help. Sure, I could fetch cups of water, help people to the bathroom and chase away monsters with my eyes mostly shut, but I was getting exhausted.

In bed I paused, and dreamt of being able dream.

But there was parenting to be done.

The day was quickly going downhill and the kids’ bickering escalated as I stumbled to the kitchen. I looked at my son, glowering at the kitchen counter. He was already dressed, so I whispered in his ear,

“Should we just get out of here? Want to go on a bike ride?”

His face melted. He looked up me with soft eyes and nodded.

It should have only taken me a few minutes to throw on some shoes and a coat and sneak away. Of course, I was wrong.

One hour later of eating some food, making coffee, putting on several layers of wool, asking him to put on his shoes, asking him to put on his shoes, asking him for the love of all that his holy to put on his shoes, putting air in the bike tires, taking off one layer of wool, putting air in the bike tire again that was mysteriously already flat, telling my son I didn’t think we would be able to go because of the tire, attempting to explain why you really can’t just bike on a flat tire, my neighbor happening by and offering to loan me her bike, and one last trip to the bathroom, we hit the road.

He didn’t want to go far, he said. Just to the playground a couple of blocks from the house.

I said no.

There was a little hill at the edge of town we drove by on our occasional trips in and out of town and twice a year when we went to the dentist. Every time we passed it, I thought about climbing to the top. But just as soon as we would drive by would I forget again.

I explained we could not go to the playground nearby because it was Sunday and the church who owned the playground was having services. (My apologies to the dear Lutherans for this mischaracterization, as I am sure you would have no doubt been welcoming to non-attendees that Sunday morning, but we needed to press ahead.)

So we did, huffing our way on bikes slightly too big and slightly too small, our thin tires cutting through the gray morning. He followed behind, and we tried to chat, in that awkward way two bikers do despite not really being able to hear each other.

 Soon, we arrived at the hill and hid our bikes in a culvert off the side of the road. Where we live, the forest’s understory is exceedingly sparse – nothing but dry grass between the trees. When I first moved here, I thought the spartan nature of Montana’s woods disappointing, as if natured by definition owed me a certain lushness.

But he openness of our forests do make navigating them exceedingly easy – up is up and down is down and we allowed ourselves to wander along the trails, not worrying about if they were the one we needed to be or not.

Halfway up, we rested. We talked about what was bothering him and I tried offering up my adult rationality, which was immediately rejected as inadequate. He talked. I listened. I talked. He listened. We walked back down the hill, found our bikes, and headed home.

The rest of the day was better, but it certainly wasn’t perfect. It never is.

But at least we made it to the top of the hill. I don’t know exactly what I hoped to accomplish through our little adventure. Getting out of the house for a bit, perhaps. Ending the cycle of fighting, certainly.

But I think I just wanted to show him we can go farther than we think we can. We can be better than we think we can be.

Tomorrow you turn two, my daughter, and it seems more important than picking up toys or finishing the dishes or figuring out what we will have for dinner tomorrow that I write down the story of how you came into this world.

It started the same as it had with your brothers – with work. The day before your oldest brother was born, I sat down at my desk, and typed my transition memo. The next day, unable to stand the pain of pregnancy one moment longer, I walked, I bounced, I ate spicy food until he was born to an utterly exhausted mother.

With your second brother, I wrapped up meetings at work, told my boss that, despite being a month away from my due date, there was a solid chance she would not see me the next week. I came home to finish his baby blanket, pull weeds, clean the house. He was born the next morning, early but not entirely unexpected.

And for you, my daughter. I was never able to hold on to any of you until your due dates, but you stayed content the longest. I had other opinions on the matter, and spent the afternoon before you were born on my hands and knees scrubbing my bathroom floor, in hopes that you might become slightly less content in there.

That night, as I cooked dinner, my body ached. I chalked it up to the exhaustion of caring for two young boys, to scrubbing the floor, to carrying another human on my hips. When I sat down to eat, I felt fine again, but as soon as I stood to do the dishes, the pain came back.

My mother-in-law had joined us for dinner, and my husband gently suggested she might want to stay the night.

After boys were kissed good night and the dish towels hung to dry, I bolted downstairs to finish a pile of work. You wiggled contentedly as I typed away, and when I dotted the last i and crossed the last t, I went to bed.

That night, I slept fitfully. My body writhed, pulled between exhaustion and adrenaline. I awoke once, twice, a dozen times.

I was not having contractions, I thought. Or perhaps I told myself. I was only feeling vaguely uncomfortable, maybe quite uncomfortable, no, I would say pained. But then I was fine and able to stumble back to sleep.

At 3:15 I woke up, significantly less fine than before. At 3:30 I woke my husband.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I just don’t feel right. I don’t know if it’s anything though.”

At 3:35, I said, “But maybe we should go to the hospital.”

At 3:40, my husband asked if he had time to hop in the shower. “No,” I replied. “We need to go now.”

The pace continued to accelerate, although I seemed unable to admit that today was the day I would become a mother of three. “Maybe they’ll just send us home,” I told my husband as he got our bags into the car. “It’s probably nothing,” I said to my mother-in-law after my husband woke her to tell her we were off.

At 4:15 we left, making it the three blocks to the hospital without a contraction (a feat that ended while attempting to get out of the car).

At 4:30, the nurse informed me that we were definitely, definitely not going home that morning.

What followed was a mountain of intake paper work. (I was recovering from a cold, and my hoarse voice made the nurse raise an eyebrow when I promised that I was not a smoker). After she finished her litany of questions, she suggested that it was time to check me again.

“Oh no,” I said. “The other nurse just did that right before you came in twenty minutes ago.”

She looked at me. She had been listening to my voice as I answered questions, and she thought things might be happening quicker than expected.

What followed was a blur. I got into the bath, and immediately got out. I screamed that I needed to use the bathroom, igniting panic in the nurses eyes who insisted I very, very much needed to not use the bathroom and get on the bed immediately.

And soon (whether I was carried or stumbled under my own accord on to the bed, I have no idea), I was laying on the bed.

I screamed where the hell was the doctor.

The nurse called him once again. “I’m in the building. Two minutes.” I heard him. I realized, at this point, he was superfluous to the whole situation anyway.

I screamed for the epidural.

Or at least, in my head I planned to before the rational part of my brain realized you were not going to wait for my pain to evaporate. You had waited long enough, and it was time.

And at last, I screamed that I really, really just wanted to go home.

You see, there’s a point in every birth where you reach the end. It is not the moment of birth itself, but a few minutes before, when you realize that you would be doing absolutely anything else in the world. You are convinced that you cannot, under your own accord, actually survive the next minute. It is a feeling of despair, fear, and pain so powerful that it is best left mostly forgotten, and mostly untouched, until future moments of despair require you to draw on the experience of your past.

But then, all I wanted to do was to stop. Just to stop. They hooked an oxygen mask to my face and I breathed in gratitude that someone had realized how difficult this was and had offered me a modicum of relief. Later, I realized that you had begun to struggle, but at the time, I gratefully gulped in the air.

My brain cleared. I realized this could all be over in a moment.

And then, you were born.

The doctor walked in, drying his hands and lifting you up. I moved the cord out of the way. A girl. The sun had yet to peek over the hills.

At 6:15 my mother-in-law texted to ask what the iPad password was – your brothers were awake and wanting to watch a show. My husband told her, along with the news you were born two minutes before.

I spent the next several hours in shock, the image of a train barreling down a track and straight over me playing on repeat in my head. Eventually the sun rose and the world landed right side up. I pulled myself up over the horizon, and entered a new life with you.

After breakfast, your brothers came to meet you, their faces beaming. Never have two boys been so delighted at the arrival of a sister. We marveled at your perfection together.

And when it was quiet again, I held you, and tried to catch my breath.

I believe in the importance of public service, so I’m gonna tell you a little story about my day yesterday so that you all feel better about yourselves.

So yesterday was Sunday morning and my husband and I woke up to preform our weekly Sunday morning ritual – coming up with all the different reasons we can think of to get out of going to mass.

“We really didn’t sleep well last night.”

“The kids are a wreck.”

“We have company.”

“Everyone’s tired from school starting and I really don’t think they’re going to sit through mass without having a tantrum.”

Now don’t get me wrong. We have a faith and believe in practicing that faith. We believe in the importance of community. We believe in the power of ritual and routine and we want to pass our faith down to our children. And holy mother, I periodically need to sit on a bench and pray that I make it through another week of parenting.

But it’s really, really hard to take three kids to mass and oftentimes our excuses are fairly legitimate. So let’s just say we aren’t earning any gold stars for attendance.

Yesterday, however, amidst all the reasons that it would probably a good idea to stay at home and let the littles get all their pent-up-it’s-really-hard-to-behave-at-school-all-day tantrums out of the way in the privacy of our living room, there was one really important reason to go.

It was hospitality Sunday.

AKA Donuts.

And I can wax and wane about the importance of breaking bread together with community as the foundational symbol of Christianity, and top that off with pointing out how necessary it is for our children to have positive experiences at church (aka donuts) instead of solely boring ones (despite the fact that they’ve never sat through mass in another language so what basis do they even have to complain here).

But really I just wanted free donuts so we went to mass.

So we ate breakfast and half-cleaned the kitchen and leisurely sipped our coffee until realizing that we need to leave in like thirty minutes, so we frantically ran around getting everyone dressed, and then getting the people who were already dressed into cleaner clothes, and then deciding not to ask the people who got themselves dress to change into something other than a Batman sweatshirt and rain boots because there’s only so many battles you can fight in a day. Then we packed a bag full of quiet toys and then took out the toys they insisted are quiet but really are not (you would be surprised about the amount of noise a Hot Wheel can make driving up and down a church pew, but I am not, having fought this battle many times).

And then I got everyone buckled in the car, went back into the house to get something I forgot, couldn’t remember what it was, and went back into the car, arriving during the opening song which any good Catholic can tell you does not officially count as being late.

That right there is called foreshadowing, folks.

You might think I was setting up this story by pointing out all the potential tantrums that were brewing amongst my over-tired oldest children, but no. They sat quietly through mass, cuddling on my husband’s lap. Okay, fine. One laid down underneath the chairs in the back the entire mass but I still think that counts as behaving since we got there too late for a pew and there was no kneeler in the back row of chairs for him to accidentally knock into the shins of a very old lady on an oxygen tank. This time.

Walking into mass, I remembered what I had forgotten – diapers. My emergency stock in the car was empty and there were none in the purse. But really, mass is only like an hour and she’s been a bit constipated as we feed her a steady diet of whatever-is-in-arm’s-reach-that-will-get-her-to-stop-crying. So what are the chances we really need a diaper mid-mass?

Turns out, pretty good.

Luckily a friend saw my panicked face in the church vestibule and offered to search her van for diapers. Unluckily, her kids are mostly potty trained and so she came up empty handed. Also unluckily, the fertility rate among Catholics is declining cause we’re all acting like we didn’t hear the Pope on that whole no-birth-control thing so there was no one else with diapers in sight.

So, seeing as how I haven’t heard a word of mass since my oldest was born anyway, I left and ran to Safeway, bought a pack of diapers, cleaned her up and made it back in time for communion. So it still totally counts as going to mass, as any good Catholic will also tell you.

However, it was not good enough my daughter, who decided to fully immerse herself in the whole mass experience.

My priest is a fan of long, contemplative pauses during which we can reflect and pray and enjoy a moment of silence to center ourselves before the week begins. And I would so love to do that as well, except for the fact that usually I’m dealing with children stage whispering, “IS IT OVER YET?” Or, the classic, “WHY IS EVERYONE SO QUIET?”

But, like I said, my boys were perfect angels throughout mass. My daughter, however, chose this moment of quiet contemplation to go from quietly looking out the window in the back of church to running full bore onto the altar.

I sprinted after, and in one of those moments that seemed to stretch much longer than (I hope) it actually lasted, I heard the giggles spread across the church until I’m pretty sure everyone was laughing at us.

At least we know she shares my views on women on the altar. Ahem.

After mass, at least ten people came up to me to inform me “She’s fast!” or suggest that she try out for the local Catholic college’s track team. I passed her off to my husband so I could die in peace and also attempt to monitor my older boy’s donut intake. Everyone who had not came up to me went up to him and said, “Is she the runner?” And now I have changed my ideas about Catholics socializing after mass and think maybe we should go back to ducking out after communion so we can yell at Notre Dame on the TV.

At this point, I would like to point out to everyone who thinks I am a terrible mother who has no control over my kids – you are definitively right on the latter. But Jesus also ran away from his mother at a religious ceremony, so…. I mean, I’m not comparing myself to Mary, but you are welcome to do so.

But in all honesty, it’s a rare chance that we get to wear our missteps so publicly. Hardly anyone knew about the whole running-to-Safeway-to-buy-diapers-in-the-middle-of-the-mass thing, but everyone did see the running-across-the-altar thing. It’s so easy to assume everyone else has their stuff together and diapers actually in their diaper bag. And maybe they do. I’m gonna tell myself they don’t, and the laughter was in solidarity, not in pity. Yup. That’s what I’m going to tell myself.

I probably won’t do a better job of keeping an eye on my daughter next mass. She’s the runner. She’s fast. I’m just going to pray that I can keep up, and that she keeps running after something good.

My oldest child has always been blessed with the gift of gab. He was speaking in two word sentences before he was 18 months and chatting our ears off well before his second birthday. And at about two and a handful of months, we took a trip with my sweet in-laws.

My mother-in-law had baked pumpkin bread and brought a long squeeze pouches of applesauce and treated my chatty toddler to breakfast in bed while she got ready in the hotel room bathroom.

Minutes later, she returned to an unmitigated disaster.

“Oh my goodness!” She said. To which my two year old replied, “Oh my God!”

“Oh no,” she said. We always say, “oh my goodness. Not Oh my God.”

He got a gleam in his eyes. “Sometimes,” he said, “My mommy says – ”

But wait. Before we go any further, its important you know this is all my husband’s fault.

We live in a snowy town that takes a fairly leisurely attitude to plowing the streets. A few days before my oldest’s birthday, we had gotten stuck driving home.

“I told you not to drive on the side streets!” My husband said when I called him to come rescue me.

“We live on a side street!” I replied.

“Yeah, but not the one you’re stuck on!” He had a good point. But what was done was done and I needed him to come push me out.

Luckily, a young man stopped by moments later to pull us out. I made sure my children noted to my husband how lucky we were this plucky young fellow was there for us at our moment in need.

A few snowy days later, we were driving to the bakery to meet my husband. My son had been requesting a trip to the the “cake factory” for his birthday, so we were planning on meeting there after lunch. Immediately after turning on the car, however, we again got stuck.

At which point mommy yelled, “…”

Let’s return to our original story.

My son stood there, his eyes gleaming. “Sometimes,” he said. “Mommy says FUCK.”

My mother-in-law laughed. “Oh, no I’m sure she doesn’t. I’m sure she says ‘truck.””

“No,” my son answered seriously. “Mommy says FUCK.”

I mean.

He wasn’t wrong.

We always hope our children will imitate our best parts and ignore our less-than-stellar habits. But deep down, if we are honest with ourselves, we know that’s not the case.

And yet, I am still surprised when I find myself periodically yelling at the kids,

“NO YELLING! WE DON’T YELL IN THIS FAMILY”

It’s a bit embarrassing to admit, but I’ve never struggled with anger as much as I have when I’ve had a new baby in the house. It should be a time of sweetness and joy, it’s also a time of work and exhaustion. It’s even harder with subsequent children. After all, not only are you twice as tired with twice the amount of work, you’re dealing with an older child who on a certain level, knows its in his genetic best interest if you focused all your caregiving energy on him and not that noisy blob of wet diapers.

As my kids get older, I have started hearing my voice coming back to me from their mouths. (And not just in the form of dropping an F-bomb in front of Grandma.) There is the exasperated reply. The less than generous take on a misunderstanding. The “I DON’T WANT TO GET MY SHOES ON!” in response to “GET YOUR SHOES ON!”

So I’ve been trying my hardest to stop and breathe. To hold them, feel their pain (even if inside I’m thinking they are just shoes put them on your feet for the love). To talk to them like I would want anyone else to talk to them.

And yes, sometimes I want to just say “I’m the mom! I get to yell and you can just do what I say!” After all, I get to stay up late and drive the car too. But in the end, I try to stop and remind myself what a better world we would have if we started respecting the dignity of each human person from the get go.

Yes, for goodness’s sake it would be so much easier if my kids either A) did what I said or B) just ignored my bad parts of me and took after the good. But that hasn’t happened yet so it’s on to plan B.

Stopping. Breathing.

Admitting I’m wrong. Starting over.

Again and again and again.

While I work on this, my son has a question if you’re willing to answer him. He wants to know what “shut” means and is pretty sure it doesn’t mean “to close” like I told him.

You know, as in “Oh shut, I left the keys in the house.”

Moms and dads who are better at this parenting thing than me, I’ve got some questions for you.

One question really – HOW? How??

(This is less of a question and more of a ‘something I’d like to yell across the street at you’.) I have no idea how you pull it all off. Or pull any of it off. I can barely pull gum off the underside of our chairs.

I’m dying to know how y’all manage. How do you meet all the basic needs of your family without dying every single night? HOW?

Let me elaborate.

Moms who have a clean house

How? Yeah sure, you’re going to tell me how you taught your kid from an early age to put their toys away. Your kid probably even liked that “clean up, clean up” song. Your kid probably never screams that he is too tired to move a single hot wheel and dissolved into a puddle you then have to mop up.

But that still doesn’t explain how your house is spotless all the time.

I mean – have none of your children ever projectile vomited off the top of a bunk bed in the middle of the night? After eating chocolate birthday cake for dessert? Is that why you still have white curtains?

‘Cause I don’t. Anymore.

Moms who work out of the home

How? How do you do this? Or more accurately, when?

When do you find the time to work? I mean, I know you’re scheduled 9-5 Monday-Friday but when do you actually work?

Do you have one of those Harry Potter time turners? A doppelgänger? Do you have 48 hours in your day and you just haven’t told us?

Because I know between the dentist appointments, the school plays, random teacher work days, and the steady stream of snot filled sick days, you are constantly rearranging your schedule.

I’m starting to grow concerned I might actually have a 9-5 job I just haven’t had a chance to show up at in three years.

Moms who are always on time

You pack lunches ahead of time, I get it. You lay out clothes and you know where your sunglasses and wallet are all the time. Good for you. But I don’t care how much you plan ahead, I don’t care how early you try to leave. That’s not my question.

What I want to know is – how do you stop them from pooping right as you are walking out the door?

I mean, you can’t plan for that one. You can’t just leave ten minutes earlier because then you’re just driving back home because someone doesn’t want to poop in the public potty and/or you forgot the wipes (again). So what’s your secret? Dates? Prunes? Bananas? A schedule? Lock the bathroom door ten minutes before you have to leave? Double up on the diapers?

Tell me.

Moms whose kids don’t fight

So, what’s it like to have one kid?

Moms who sleep through the night

Fresh air? Exercise? Bananas? Chamomile tea? Lavender oil? Melatonin? Whiskey?

Tell me, what are you crushing up and putting in your kids’ applesauce to get them to sleep through the night?

You know what no one ever really tells you – kids never sleep through the night. Sure they stop waking up to nurse (allegedly). But there’s still growing pains and stomach bugs and nightmares and boredom and monsters under the bed. And when you have three kids with three different reasons to wake up, it’s just like playing whack-a-mole.

All. Night. Long.

Moms who workout

Why?

I mean sure, you can say you want to be healthy and look amazing in your “I actually do yoga” pants. But between the three hundred LEGO piece deadlifts and the separation-anxiety-won’t-go-to-anyone-else 20lb weight carry and the 40 laps of “you’re too little to go down the big slide let’s come back to this part of the playground,” aren’t you tired enough?

I’m pretty sure all moms are secretly in amazing shape and could run marathons.

If we just weren’t so tired.

Moms who look amazing at school drop off

What time did you wake up this morning? It must’ve been earlier than 5:30 because I’ve been up since then and have managed to look a little worse each hour. So when did you wake up, 3, 4am? If I woke up at 4am maybe then I’d have half a minute to brush my teeth before drop off but I’m not counting on it. You went to bed looking like that right? You did your hair, your makeup, got dressed, and fell asleep standing up so that nothing smudged. Right? That’s the only thing I can figure.

Moms whose kids eat healthy

So, they’ve never had chicken nuggets, right? Because it’s all over after chicken nuggets.

I don’t care that chicken nuggets aren’t even that unhealthy. It’s the fact that it unlocks something in their brains. The nuggets clue our kids into the fact we’ve just been lying to them this whole time. You don’t actually have to eat the vegetables. You can get by perfectly fine on a steady diet of supposedly white breast meat and whole grain bread coating.

Once they’ve seen behind the curtain, there’s no going back.

Moms with teenagers

It gets easier right? Please tell me it gets easier.

Wait, no. I don’t want to know.

Moms with work-life balance, perfectly behaved and well-nurtured children who eat their vegetables

So, when are you due?