Birthday parties. Pageants. Fun runs. Extraneous school functions. Mother's day teas.
Part of it is me. I'm social, but introverted and lazy. I haven't shaved my legs since Mexico in February. It's the only perk of living in perpetual winter and I don't want to have to shave them for preschool, no matter how special the occasion. I'm not a shopper. I never have appropriate clothes for myself or my children for special events.
In part, it's really hard for me right now, at this crazy, four kids under five phase of my life. Kids must be juggled; schedules must be changed; Matt must be pulled from his numerous garage projects; precious hours to accomplish chores and errands must be relinquished to dressing up and appearing and sipping. I know I'm not alone in these difficulties. That's not a plea for sympathy, it's just a fact. It can be hard. Then, there's the bathing and the hair braiding. I'm not worried about appearances, but my kids hadn't had a real bath in over a week and honestly I needed the kick in the ass.
Another part of my reluctance is Saige and I and our struggle to find our balance outside of familiar situations. It's the inevitable tantrum and the inevitable baleful glances. It's the dialogue inside my head that I attribute to others. Why is she so hard on that child? I'm not really; she feels insecure, she is looking for me to set limits and regulate her behavior, she tests my authority to make sure I'm still her mother and that I can keep her safe.
We all have our issues, our discordant, six part harmonies inside our heads, that can make "fun" things seem, well, less than fun.
This morning, skipping breakfast to braid the last three braids in Saige's hair while yelling at the dog to drop the baby's sock and giving Matt the run down for drop off as a prelude to bustling him out the door so that I could shower while playing peek a boo with Quinn and Nate around the curtain, I thought seriously about calling it off. Just not going. Taking the whole family to a quiet, freezing cold park for the morning where my leg hair would be appreciated as the heat insulating layer that it is.
But, Garrett's outfit still fit from my sister's wedding. And Saige begged to wear her blue dress. And I actually finished her braids and remembered to buy the bananas I signed up to bring. Mostly because we have at least two bunches of bananas in the house at all times, but, that did not take away from the fact that I signed up to bring bananas and I had bananas in my possession. We went.
It was lovely. Some moms were dressed up and some were not. Some kids were dressed up and some were not. There were yogurt parfaits and adorable handmade presents at our places and a professional photographer. The class, fifteen four-year-olds in all, sang the sweetest song, arrayed in a crazy, lop-sided row with their "toes on the carpet line." I have absolutely no idea what the lyrics were but the chorus said "I love you." Saige and Garrett pointed at me so enthusiastically that I thought my head would snap trying to meet both of their eyes on either end of the wavering line of preschoolers.
Saige threw a fit about bananas. Because we have nine hundred of the damn things at home, so of course she did. Garrett ruined another little girl's art with his water, which he spilled two or three times. I chatted a little. We had our pictures taken.
I realized something, sitting on the floor for story time in my black skirt with my ready-to-be-entered-in-a tarantula-look-alike-contest legs because NO! I do not shave for preschool! with my biggest babies in my lap. Maybe to some of the moms sitting there I looked like I was really into this. My kids, by some miraculous last minute alignment of the stars, looked really cute and I wore a skirt. I showed up with bananas and laughed and smiled.
She might have sat there thinking, am I the only one who dreads this shit a little? She didn't see me almost cry over braids or tell my husband that I might just keep the kids home. She doesn't know that I had to talk myself down in my head when I sensed the start of the great banana fit.
Maybe I'm not the only one who secretly dreads certain child-oriented situations that are supposed to be fun. I'm just not the only one who's good at hiding it. Or is that just wishful thinking?
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Before we get yogurt all over ourselves, look how kind of cute we are, if you overlook the funny faces.
Y'all come back now, ya hear?
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