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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