Overpass

Despite claiming he is never one to give advice, my father has given me plenty of it.

He just hides it well within everyday conversation.

When I was younger, I would often accompany my father—a large animal veterinarian in rural Oklahoma—out on call to deliver a calf or perform surgery on a pig. My relationship with him seemed to transpire mostly at high speeds in a beat up truck littered with gauze and antiseptic. While in his pickup, bounding over graveled country roads, we had ample time to talk. I’d fill him in on high school drama and he would lightly press me about issues I was refusing to address, like where I wanted to go to college or what I wanted to be when I grew up.

One afternoon, as we loaded the truck, my dad said he had a riddle for me: Why is there always a pond next to an overpass?

I wasn’t sure how to respond because I wasn’t sure there was a pond next to every overpass. But as we drove, and I chatted endlessly about my need for guitar lessons, I noticed that every overpass we drove under had a pond within a short distance of it.

This puzzle intrigued me and I wrestled with it for weeks. Was it to help with run off after heavy rains? Something about fishing permits? Was the Turnpike Authority in on this?

Then one day, my head resting on the window of the passenger side of my dad’s truck while we headed to suture a mare’s leg, the answer to his riddle came flooding into my brain.

“The dirt!” I sputtered. “To build an overpass you need dirt!”

Moments like those are what I thought parenting was all about.

And yet, so far, I find parenting to be very rarely about imparting profound wisdom to my children through intricate puzzles that encourage them to seek their own answers.

Instead, I find parenting to be a lot of cooking, cleaning and dreading the weekends.

Look, I cherish, value, and appreciate every single second I spend with my children.

I mean, you know. Mostly.

It’s just that lately, the weekends have become anxiety-inducing blocks of time. I can’t exactly understand why, but for the past few months I’ve dreaded Saturday.

Maybe a part of it is that this isn’t the parenting I was imagining myself conducting. I’m never calmly driving down a dirt road in the pastoral countryside, wind blowing through my hair while giving my daughters a riddle to solve, a riddle that will profoundly alter their view of the world. And maybe part of it is that my two children are in different life phases, which require very different types of attention, hygiene, and sizes of cantaloupe chunks.

Instead of the idyllic parenting I assumed I’d be effortlessly enacting, I’m mostly in the kitchen doling out graham crackers and sippy cups. I’m doctoring a seemingly invisible gash on my preschooler’s knee, who screams as if the whole leg has been amputated. I’m carrying my robust toddler around on my hip because lately she’s decided we should never be apart. I’m spraying my hair with that disgusting dry shampoo that just makes me look like I’m going grey. I’m misplacing my coffee cup because I keep hiding it on shelves up high. I’m picking up trails of Legos and discarded clothes. I’m changing diapers. I’m queuing up Frozen. And I’m desperately searching for something we can go do that will occupy—and satisfy—my kids simultaneously.

Every struggle of the weekend seems so insignificant, so simple, so mundane. So why is it that the weekends are so tough? Is it just that I can’t complete a full sentence in 48 hours? Or that I can’t shit in private until Monday?

This past weekend was a very typical weekend. One almost identical to the last several weekends.

A weekend I had hoped would be an overlay from the last.

Instead, it was a weekend I wanted to pass over for the next.

It started with our refrigerator. A few weeks back we had noticed water seeping out of the front of it. When we opened the freezer drawer, we found the bottom covered in a sheet of ice. When the repairman came to look at it, he said the problem was that our refrigerator was tilted slightly forward, making it difficult for water to drain out the back normally. He twisted the feet of the refrigerator to level it (this is what you pay the big bucks for) and told us we would need to defrost the freezer. So I spent Friday afternoon clearing out the appliance and sorting every thing into piles of “save,” “toss” or “what did this start out as?” I kept all the essentials in a cooler filled with ice, I bleached out the entire refrigerator, and I made sure it was bone dry before plugging it back in and restocking.

But Saturday morning, we awoke to find, yet again, a layer of ice in the bottom of the freezer. And a puddle of water on the kitchen floor.

Another repairman came to tell us the first repairman was wrong and that the problem resided in a tiny plug on the back of the appliance not being completely connected to another tiny plug. As we watched him very gently connect the two tiny hoses together, using nothing but his fingertips—the skilled labor we were paying Saturday rates for—we began to see the weekend unraveling.

I’m not suggesting that paying two different men to do the equivalent of unscrewing a mayonnaise jar and plugging in a lamp made it difficult to enjoy the weekend, but it sure made me resent our constant need for milk storage.

Because I had discarded so much food in the throes of frozen passion, I knew we needed to go to the grocery store. The moment the sliding doors opened into the cool store, London began to scream. Not because of the automatic doors. Or because she was hungry. Or poopy. Or tired. She was screaming just to scream.

Meanwhile, Lowery decided she wanted her own cart to push around her prized stuffed unicorn. So, with London screaming, and Lowery bumping an empty cart with a folkloric passenger into every aisle display, we made our way slowly around the store.

While Jim stood in the very deep line to check out, I took the girls for a walk around the frozen food aisle. London robotically marched across the tile floor while Lowery ran up to strangers asking them why they were buying that kind of mustard or why they needed a cane.

Eventually, we made it out, but as we passed back through the sliding doors, Lowery stopped suddenly, looking stunned and concerned.

“My unicorn!” she yelled.

And back in we all went to find the mythical beast.

I’m not suggesting that the screaming wails of my one-year-old as we raced around the store looking for my preschooler’s missing stuffed animal made the weekend less enjoyable, but it sure did seem like the worst crime the security guard had ever witnessed.

Back at home, the now repaired refrigerator fully stocked and lunch consumed, we all gathered in the playroom for some downtime.

Or so I had hoped.

You see, London is still toddling around. And while she can walk and stand for long stretches, it doesn’t take more than a whisper of wind to knock her over. Then there’s Lowery, who is emphatic about life and expresses this both verbally and physically. So, when the sisters see each other, they squeal with delight and each become desperate to hug the other.

London will toddle toward Lowery, who is running full speed at London. Inevitably, this will cause a collision that may or may not include the knocking of thick skulls. London will scream out in agony, which will make Lowery scream out in remorse.

Jim will rush to the side of whomever he is closer to, and I will do the same. We remind Lowery that London is still a baby and needs to be hugged a bit more gently than she hugs her peers. And when London is finally calmed down, we will set her back on the floor. They will look at each other, squeal with delight, stand up and toddle/run toward each other, and the process will repeat itself over and over and over again.

This makes it impossible to ever finish a game of Candy Land.

I’m not suggesting that the physical instability of my youngest and the emotional instability of my oldest make it difficult to enjoy the weekend, but it does make me rethink choosing tile for the playroom flooring.

Later, we decided a trip to the library would be a nice way to spend the afternoon. Or, at the very least, kill time before bedtime.

From the mention of going to the library, to actually backing our vehicle out of the driveway, was 45 minutes of diaper changes, potty breaks, bag packing, snack-eating, sock-finding, and stuffed-animal-selecting chaos. And before Jim could put the car in drive, both kids were asleep.

The 15-minute drive to the library was the only calm and relaxing respite Jim and I would experience that weekend. We talked quickly and quietly about what all needed to be done before Monday. Laundry. Dishes. Change the light bulb in the downstairs bathroom. Find the vaccination record for Lowery’s PreK enrollment packet. Pick up the dry cleaning. Mail the gas bill. Record Castle.

Inside the children’s section of the library, our kids’ faces imprinted with the patterns of their car seats, they seemed delighted to be among all the books and blocks and children.

Lowery had her unicorn tucked protectively under her arm and walked boldly up to another young girl reading Madeline. As they engaged in what looked like beautiful and magical child’s play, London marched over to the building blocks, and started licking each and every grimy one. As I pulled blocks from her mouth and tried to wipe off her tongue through angry screams, I heard yelling and crying among the shelves. Jim sprinted over to find Lowery and the other young girl engaged in tug-o-war with Lowery’s horned horse.

As the other child explained to me that my daughter’s inability to share was very rude, I looked over to see London trying to stuff blocks down her diaper. I rushed to her to find her diaper full of more than just blocks.

I’m not suggesting that chasing around two screaming kids under the stern looks of quiet librarians just for the sake of reading made it difficult to enjoy the weekend, but it did make me appreciate the value and ease of television.

After Jim managed to break up the catfight in the books and I managed to change London’s diaper, we motioned to each other that it was time to go. But when Lowery and London saw each other from across the library, they squealed with delight and began making their swift journey towards each other.

Across the cold tile floor.

So while I would never suggest my children made the weekend difficult to enjoy, they pretty much did.

Jim and I have big plans for our family. We dream about the vacations we want to take with our girls. The conversations we want to have with them. The morals and values we want to instill. We think about weekends filled with popcorn and movie nights. Board games on a rainy Sunday. Impromptu road trips to a hole-in-the-wall diner. We see a life full of adventure and happiness and relaxation with these beautiful creatures of ours. But every weekend, those dreams, those ideals, those plans, seem just beyond the horizon.

As though they are across a busy highway with no overpass.

But we know it’s out there. Just beyond the point we are now, which is, essentially, deep in the ditch. Engulfed in the responsibility and stresses of owning a home and raising young children. This moment in our lives is about clearing land, drawing plans, and building up the foundation. Which makes it a very important phase of life. One that is difficult. Exhausting. And not always enjoyable.

But profoundly important.

So I’m optimistic that one day soon, maybe even sooner than I think, I’ll be able to give my girls riddles to solve on their own. Riddles surrounding a beautiful metaphor about life.

But not today. Today, as I sense the weekend drawing closer, I have to remember the advice my father gave me when I was younger. Advice that he carefully wrapped in a riddle: Why are there ponds next to overpasses?

Because you have to dig down to build up.














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Making a Splash

There is a water park down the street from where I currently live, and an hour from where I grew up. When I was young, it was a rare treat to get to go, and my last memory there was a birthday party for a friend when I was in elementary school. Back then, parents didn’t go batshit over kids’ birthdays, so it was uncommon to pack up a Suburban and head 60 miles south, to what I had believed was the World’s Largest Water Park, just to have a party.

The best part of the water park was the wave pool. Unbeknownst to me at the time, wave pools are a staple in every water park around the world. But to me, I was having a rare and spectacular nautical experience. Spending all day in the waves, and then the sensation of my body still gently rolling in bed that night, was the feeling of youth. It was among the most memorable adventures of my simple childhood. Nothing I can remember was more fun.

My sister got passes to the water park last week and, until she called to ask if Lowery and I wanted to go, I completely forgot it was an option. How is it that 10 years ago, when I moved to the town with the World’s Largest Water Park and Only National Wave Pool, I never bothered to go?

So last Friday I picked up Lowery from school early and headed with my sister and my niece over to the park. I was thrilled to be back there and told my sister I planned on spending all afternoon in the wave pool.

But when we got there, my daughter’s reaction was more exciting than the Silver Bullet (that’s the World’s Tallest Water Slide, but man it suddenly looked small). Her eyes were wide and bright as she peered around the water park, which I am certain must have been downsized over the years.

Lowery delighted in the waterfall around the lazy river. Her excited squeals made me forget all about how cold the water beating down on us was. It always seemed the perfect temperature back then. She laughed maniacally while floating around in the big open swimming pool that, while still large, certainly seemed more crowded than I remembered. And her wet curls bounced adorably as she slid down all the slides in the kiddie area. Though I didn’t think the kiddie pool was that shallow when I came all those years ago.

When I was offered my first job out of college, I was fascinated at the idea of having a career. Moving up. Getting promoted. I assumed the working world functioned like baseball, and scouts would watch me work. They’d stand in the corner of my cubicle looking over their sunglasses, spitting dark fluid in a cup and pretending not to be impressed at my phone skills.

I assumed I would always be scouted.

For years I worked to perfect my professional craft, which at the time was planning and executing extremely large-scale events in the nonprofit sector. While in graduate school, I worked tirelessly in class and on my research to earn top marks and prove my scholastic ability. As an adjunct, I gave much of my time and late nights to creating lectures, grading papers and advising students, so that I could perfect the craft of teaching. When it came time to apply for the job I have now I understood my entire professional and academic career had been leading me to, and preparing me for, this role.

When I was offered the position, I felt an extreme sense of relief, and pride, and acid reflux. But what I didn’t realize was that all the work and effort I’d done to reach that point had also been conditioning me over time to be constantly working for the next big break. The next promotion. The next accomplishment.

Getting drafted to the major leagues.

This became clear to me a few weeks back when one of my bright female students came to my office and shut the door. She had been offered a job that was a truly unique and interesting opportunity, and she was conflicted about what to do. She liked her current job—and was good at it—but also was intrigued by the offer on the table.

We talked through the pros and cons of staying where she was, or taking the new position. She verbalized her fears and her aspirations. She was honest in her assessment of her own skills and of where she wanted to be in the next five years.

This student is driven, talented, bright and ambitious. I had no doubt that whatever decision she made it would be far from the last time she would have offers to mull over and tough choices to make. The reality is, she has a long and upward moving career that will take her places she never imagined. And I’m lucky enough to see her near the beginning of it.

But as she re-opened my office door, breathed a cathartic sigh, and waved good-bye, a thought hit me that had never hit me before: I would never again be in the predicament she’s in.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t opportunities to move upward in academics. Or that I, too, won’t have a career full of excitement I could never imagine. But, in general, I am somewhat in a job that is what it is. I am no longer the person going after an important job, and using all my energy to move up.

I am now the person advising those who are.

One of my greatest joys, and biggest stressors on the job, is planning a course. So many moving parts go into constructing a class that is rich, dynamic and valuable to all learning styles.

The topic must first be considered. Courses on budgeting and finance, or statistics, don’t lend themselves to class discussions or lively debates. But then courses on debatable topics, like policy or ethics, don’t lend themselves to quantifiable exams. One is harder to teach the knowledge, but easier to measure it. And vice versa.

For each course I try to have many different activities. I strive for a good balance between in-class projects, lively debates, thoughtful assignments, engaging lectures, student presentations and, when relevant, guest speakers.

A guest speaker can be one of the more challenging and rewarding endeavors. First, there is finding the right person who can not only speak authoritatively on the topic, but is also engaging for the students. Then the schedules have to align. Can the guest speaker come at a point in the class where it makes the most sense? Will the speaker be able to do an evening class? Saturday?

Recently, I had the privilege of bringing in the State’s Superintendent of Education for a graduate course I was teaching on Education Policy. Arranging her visit was a lengthy, though exciting, process. I worked out many details with her chief of staff. I arranged the time, sent maps of the campus, a list of desired topics for her to cover, and even spoke with the university’s PR team about alerting the media.

On the day she was set to arrive I was a bit nervous. Not to meet her, but because I wanted so badly for this experience to be great for the students. I understand intellectually these students are adults, and will therefore make up their own minds, but I still wanted this experience to be one they would appreciate and, if possible, consider the greatest moment of their lives.

On the day she was set to speak she showed up precisely on time. She was impeccably dressed. She was smiling, relaxed and warm. We spoke privately for a few minutes and she was funny, personable and seemed as excited to be with me as I was to be with her.

And I was pretty f*cking excited.

When we walked into the classroom the students began applauding her. She seemed surprised and appreciative. She went around the room to each student asking their name and occupation. She spoke about the current state of our education, her plans for the future and then she asked for questions from the students.

It was truly a unique and profound experience. Not just for the students, but for me as well. I learned aspects about our state I was unaware of. I learned a great deal about her as a person and as an elected official (one I had not voted for, but now support).

And I became acutely aware in that moment that my job was to provide these types of experiences to the students. Not to be the experience—I wasn’t the guest speaker. And not to be given the experience—I was no longer a student. My role now, it became quite obvious, is not to be or to have. But to provide.

This was humbling and sad and wonderful all at once.

Last week when Lowery laid eyes on the wave pool, I’d never seen her face so overcome with excitement. She watched as the waves rose to white crests and fell elegantly to the ground, and then she went sprinting out into them. She reached for my hand and told me to jump as they came close. We did this for what seemed like hours. Then she wanted to lie down on the shore of the pool. We stretched out, with arms and legs extended like starfish, holding hands. She squealed with delight as each waved seeped up under our bodies and flooded our ears.

Then she turned her head toward me and, over the sound of crashing waves, she screamed: “Have you ever done anything that was this much fun?!”

To which I replied:

“Not that I can remember.”











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Kids' Birthday Parties

Let’s spend a moment on kids’ birthday parties, shall we?

To make it a more streamlined argument, I won’t even touch how ridiculous we’ve all become about celebrating a year’s growth for small people who barely have enough mental capacity not to crap themselves. Even still, I actually enjoy planning and attending the parties of the children I’ve created.

Nor will I complain about the exhaustive Pinterest Generation of Parenting we are all living in, as the site isn’t totally to blame. After all, Pinterest is helping me plan for the amazing kitchen remodel I will more than likely never have enough money to execute.

Themes aren’t the problem either. If anything, themes are the very best part of a kid’s birthday because it helps narrow the decision-making process down considerably. And for me, selecting or designing party invites once a year relieves the tiny ache I have to live as an artist in New York.

So it’s not how ridiculous we’ve become about our kids’ parties (but we have), it’s not about Pinterest (though it’s a problem), and it’s not about the themes (though god help me if my child ever asks for Sophia the First because, frankly, I don't wanna).

It’s more the nonsensical manner in which venues that cater to children’s parties are abysmal at helping to plan children’s parties.

One of my favorite places in our town (now that I’m a parent) is the zoo. We have a family membership and spend so much time there the padded holding cell for tantrum-throwing children is named after us. So it was no surprise to me that my oldest child wanted to have her birthday party there when she turned three last summer.

The date was picked. The theme was easy.

But when I called the zoo, the plans started to unravel. I was informed that the zoo would allow me 20 tickets (in the price range which seemed most reasonable for a child who was not of Kardashian descent) and those tickets would be sent to me through the mail. As in the postal mail. Like with stamps.

Now here’s the deal: the 20 tickets included everyone, adults and children. There are 20 children in Lowery’s class. And most of the classmates have siblings. Knowing my parents, my in-laws, and my sister and her child would be there, I was already down to 14 tickets. This meant I couldn’t invite every kid in the class. So, my daughter had to select only five classmates. But I cautioned her to choose wisely. Meaning classmates who didn’t have siblings or didn’t come from a two-parent home.

When she made her selections (she changed it every day for a solid week), I started a spreadsheet to tally up the total. On this spreadsheet I made sure to include all scenarios. So, counting one classmate if her/his sister(s)/brother(s) came, if both her/his parents came, if only she/he came with one parent, one parent but all the siblings, both parents but no siblings, and on and on until the entire spreadsheet looked like an intricate equation that measures the mass of Mars.

The other thing to account for was families who already had zoo memberships. I knew one of our neighbors had one, so they were on the list and staying. The other neighbors didn’t, but they only have one kid, so they weren’t costing me too many of the precious tickets. Other parents I tried to scope out casually so as not to let them think they were teetering on and off the list daily depending on how the spreadsheet was computed. I’d send a casual text:

         Me: Hi, how’s your day?

Possible Invite’s Parent: Fine. Why are you texting me?

         Me: We are all in this parenting thing together. Such a village.

Possible Invite’s Parent: Ok.

         Me: So, our family went to the zoo today.

Possible Invite’s Parent: Ok. So?

         Me: Do you like the zoo?

Possible Invite’s Parent: I guess.

         Me: But not enough for a membership, am I right?

And on and on to each parent until my spreadsheet had enough accurate data points to analyze.

The zoo mailed me an envelope containing the 20 tickets. I assumed, as stingy as they were about the tickets, these would be barcoded with holograms and a sensor that would go off if you tried to leave the zoo with one of the flamingos. But instead, I opened the envelope to find 20 tickets that were printed on purple construction paper and cut out by hand.

Now, I had the spreadsheet tabulated and I knew the winning invite list. I had worked tirelessly to casually and discretely figure out which parents had memberships. And I knew which families needed to receive the tickets that were clearly made by a first grader.

The struggle was, I had to give tickets to people in advance, not knowing whether or not they would come. I had to be liberal with the tickets, which meant a family of four was getting four tickets, even though only two might get used. Or, even worse, a family of two got two tickets but may not be able to come. My biggest concern was wasting a ticket, which could have gone to another child in the class. I seriously considered forgetting to put a stamp on my parents’ invitation just to have a two-ticket buffer.

This shit was keeping me up at night.

Noticing the dark circles under my eyes, my husband tried to help me figure out another option. One option—which we drew on a rotating white board like coaches at half-time—was to have one of us stand at the entrance of the zoo and hand out the purple construction paper tickets to our guests as they arrived. The problem with this idea was that the Kid’s Gazebo is a half of a mile into the zoo. Most parents tend to come and go at different times, or might stop to sightsee along the path to the party, which would leave one of us manning the entrance the entire party.

The other option, if you turned the white board over, was to just go to Michael’s and get some purple construction paper and make hundreds of copies of the tickets. But we both decided that while we are willing to do unethical actions to protect our children, we are not willing to do unethical actions just to please them.

When I called the zoo to explain the absurdity of this “ticket plan” in the hope of getting it resolved and getting me some sleep, the party planner seemed as though her hands were tied. She had clearly worked with the U.S. Mint to print the zoo tickets and, therefore, no additional tickets could be made unless I could get a signed letter from Joe Biden. Or pay an extra $100. Even when I asked if she could just tabulate the number of guests that checked in under my child’s name and have us pay the total after the party, she said that wasn’t possible.

I guess it’s because they wouldn’t be able to get a precise enough estimate of how many guests we would have. Because typically, visitors of the city zoo RSVP a few days before they actually go so the zoo has a precise number. This is so the zoo can know how many rolls of toilet paper are needed in the bathroom by the gift shop, and then they subtract two dozen. And I get it, zoo people. With an 85-acre campus, you need to know the exact number of extra children and adults who will be at the Morgan birthday party on the hottest day of the year for two hours in the afternoon. You wouldn’t want a surprise visit from the fire marshal.

Despite it all, the party was a success. Sure, my in-laws got so lost in the zoo they eventually came riding up on a golf cart driven by a grounds keeper 45 minutes into the festivities. But still, my daughter was happy, and my husband and I maintained our moral center.

The alternative to the renting of a facility at a place that is fun for children is to host a party at my home. I like this option because I can invite any and all people—even some my children don’t know—and, most importantly, I can get cases upon cases of beer. The problem with the home party is the gear up. My husband inevitably finds me, a few hours beforehand, crying in the bathroom because I’m so sick of cleaning.

But luckily, there’s alcohol.

I suppose the problem with any kid’s birthday party is that it has very little, if anything, to do with the kid. I’m sure my child would have been happy just to go to the zoo last year with her mom and dad and infant sister. All she really ever cares about is the cake, and those are for sale in nearly every grocery store across America most every day of the week.

And while I enjoy having a party at the house, I’m sure there’s a part of my kid that thinks, “This place again?”

That’s because she’s not old enough to drink.

So why, why do parents subject themselves to the Herculean effort of party planning when the kid would be happy with a spoon full of cake batter and a new Lego set?

Because, kids’ birthday parties are a wonderful excuse to surround oneself with other parents who are burned out from putting on and attending birthday parties.

And that, above anything, is cause for celebration.






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