For Cryin’ Out Loud (a Mother’s Day Post)

When I was a kid, I used to roll my eyes at my mom because she cried at everything. TV commercial for orange juice? She’s crying. Cute picture of puppies? Crying. Now it’s me. I cry at softball games, middle school plays, honor roll, high school concerts, library day, clay, 5th grade promotions, ice cream, swim lessons, parent/teacher conferences, and the 2nd grade wax museum. I can’t even attend Back to School Night without crying. The moms at our school like to give me a hard time about it, in that good natured way that only true Jersey broads can do. What can I say? I’m a sap. You can imagine what Mother’s Day does to me.

Mother’s Day is always a little weird in my head. Nobody in my family ever leaves me out; on the contrary, CC and the kids always do something over-the-top nice.

Often as a stepmom I feel like a hypocrite, as if I’m totally faking my way through this parenting thing that I am completely unqualified for. There must be a million other people that could do this better. I didn’t take a test, there was no apprenticeship, and I am baffled that anyone thinks it’s okay for me to help raise children. Yet it seems that at my darkest moments I meet real parents who tell me that sometimes that’s what being a parent feels like.

On Mother’s Day in particular I’m acutely aware of my shortcomings. I’m hypersensitive to that other maternal semi-absence in their lives that I can never fill, or fix. The thing about absences is that our minds fill in the gaps with details that are not entirely true. I compare myself to ideal images of ideal mothers that no one ever asked me to emulate and fall far short. Then, just when I’m really feeling like a piece of crap, the kids give me something that says that they like me.

One year CC and the kids gave me personal training sessions at our community center, something I’d wanted since I became aware of the twenty pounds that showed up shortly after they came to live with us. Last year they gave me an iPad. Sometimes I get the feeling they’re scared I’ll leave. But I think they know I’m easily bought with homemade chocolate chip cookies. If I weren’t, I wouldn’t need the trainer.

My favorite gifts without a doubt are the things that come home from school. I am honored beyond words that they give me this stuff, and I’ve kept every last card, paperweight, ornament, and macaroni art.

This year, the awesome thing they did for me is let me leave. I’m back in Indy seeing my shiny new nephew:

Look at those ears!

And that itty-bitty foot!

I got to give my own Mother’s Day cards to my own Mom and Stepmom in person, which is good, because I’m also a crappy daughter, quite possibly a worse daughter than I am a parent, and I never mail that stuff out on time.

Before I left for Indy, there was a moment when the kids all suddenly realized that the trip I had mentioned was happening on the same weekend as Mother’s Day.

#2: NOOOO! YOU’VE RUINED EVERYTHING!!!

That may not sound like a gift to the outside observer, but trust me, it totally is. #1 had a similar comment and even pouted a little. I was touched. I’ve thrown off their plans, whatever they were, and so I’ve already won.

#3 keeps trying to string me along, speaking cryptically about the thing she made me in school, much like I try to do to her at Christmas and her birthday. She doesn’t know it but she already gave me the best gift ever by finally selecting an appropriate dress for the Bar Mitzvah she’s invited to later this month, as opposed to her previous selections which were appropriate only for getting a fake ID and stealing a car to go into the city on a ten-day bender.

#4 asked if she could give me part of my gift before I left. She had made an awesome card on full-size posterboard that had this on the back:

#4's card — "My fail Gene Simmons. But I do my fails with LOVE."

(I realized while uploading this picture that at some point on this blog I will have to explain about #4 and I bonding over KISS.)

Most worried by the realization that I would be gone on Mother’s Day was #5. He walked into the kitchen and placed a tissue-paper-wrapped bundle and a card on the counter in front of the coffee pot, and then kind of backed away and looked at the floor. There was a gift tag on the package that said some crap about a mother’s light and I couldn’t get any farther than that because I was already tearing up. I unwrapped the bundle. It was a votive holder that he had decorated with dried flowers and paper, so that it would glow when you lit the candle. It was really cool. (It also explained why he walked up to me the other day and asked, “Are you allergic to any kinds of flowers?”) At this point, he made sure to show me that there was a candle inside, and told me if any paper came up over the top of the glass to tear it off so it wouldn’t catch on fire.

Then I read the card. I knew as soon as I saw that careful, super-neat printing, that I was done for. And I was; it was the sweetest card anybody could ever hope to get and I was a damned faucet. And then I got to the part after he signed his name:

P.S. I love you more than bacon.

If you need me, I’ll be at Costco setting up camp in the aisle with the tissues.

Yo. Listen up.

I have an announcement to make.

#2, who is a freshman in high school, got her Varsity Letter in Winter Track.

We think this is pretty cool. She thought it deserved a post and I totally agree. Strangely, what they give you when you letter is not a letter, but a plaque. It’s a very fancy plaque and a most appropriate use of my exorbitant tax dollars. I can get behind this.

I would post a picture of it, but I’m pretty sure she’s sleeping with it under her pillow.

That is all.

Happy Birthday, Goofballs.

When CC and I were on the road together years ago, back when he was just my boss, I used to ask him if we could get a sound department puppy. Preferably one that the props crew would take care of. Nobody went for it.

The kids started asking us when we were going to get a dog pretty much the minute they started living with us. We had lots of conversations about care and taking responsibility, but really it all boiled down to one thing: dog poop. We weren’t willing to talk seriously about a dog until all the kids unanimously agreed that they would handle the dog poop. It took longer than you might think.

I didn’t know this before, but puppies are contagious. All it takes is for one kid in the neighborhood to get a puppy and bam! everybody’s got one. There is apparently no vaccine.

Two years ago, a kid across the street got a puggle puppy and would bring it over to our house to play. It was summer, and CC was letting me sleep in until the puppy came over for its morning visit and then he would let it into our bedroom, where it would jump on my head and be all like “Oh my gooood! I’m a DOOOOG! Isn’t it GREAAAAT? I can’t BELIEEEEEEEVE it! YAAAAAAAY!”

It’s something, being around so much enthusiasm.

Before long I was online, looking for puppies. We did a little research and a lot of soul-searching and decided that more than anything we wanted a puppy that was happy. Enthusiastic, if you will. That led me to a puggle breeder about two hours away that had two puppies. They were the entire litter. I wrote a little about them here.

I packed four kids into the minivan one Sunday and trucked out on a road trip to look at some puppies.

We couldn’t decide. I’d thought that there would be some magical bond, some way that I would know The Right One For Us, but it wasn’t like that. Especially when there were only two to start with. It was more like eeny-meeny-miny-moe.

CC had to work and I sent him pictures, but he wouldn’t say which one he liked best. The kids were evenly split (#1 had opted out of the road trip). I wanted both of them, but that’s insane. Who gets two puppies? I picked the goofy looking one because he seemed to fit into our family the best:

He howled the entire way home, and he doesn’t look it, but he’s loud. That’s the Beagle in him. Then he pooped on my shirt. The kids thought that was hilarious.

As soon as we got him home, I realized the error I had made. Our puppy-to-kid ratio was way off. There was so not enough puppy to go around. Poor Jack was all tiny and blinking, cowering there with five kids hovering over him. CC admitted that he wouldn’t say which one he liked best because he wanted them both. I traded some texts with the breeder. They were willing to cut us a deal.

Three days later we went back for the pretty one:

When we brought her in the front door, Jack smelled her before he saw her and started dancing in circles around us. They were so happy to be back together. Then they immediately started fighting:

And it’s been like that ever since.

I will probably always refer to them as “the puppies” but today, Jack and Casey are two years old. They are ridiculous dogs. They are way more expensive than they should be. They are the one thing that we all agree on: we love them bunches.

Back when CC and I were just touring together, before any of this crazy stuff happened, I wasn’t ever planning on getting married to anyone or settling down on the east coast or buying a house or definitely not being a parent, but I did want a puppy.

I finally have a crew of five to take care of them.