After the Storm

Clouds, yellow green and ominous cover the sky in its entirety. Five columns of black descend destroying everything in their path. They are thick, heavy, solid, dark and bent on destruction. I watch them, rooted in place and horrified by the damage they wrought. As the biggest, the blackest, the most solid bears down directly on me I wake with a start; my heartbeat shakes the entire bed. My breathing is shallow and I feel frozen to the bone even though I am well covered.

I turn toward the rock that is my husband, wrapping myself against his warm back, tucking myself into the curve created by his bent knees. As he reaches in his sleep and pulls me nearer still I begin to relax. Once the pounding in my chest and the blood rushing in my ears subsides a bit I can hear the steady loud chug-chug of the air conditioner a scant three feet away. I hear the noise of people that wander the darkness outside the window with its stiff bright orange, yellow and green curtains. The heavy covering for the old mattress a thousand people have slept on is folded and wrinkled and uncomfortable under my skin. The pillow is flat and not soft, not welcoming as a pillow should be. Instead it is a harder by the minute brick on which my head lays. Tear soaked and smelling like someone else’s laundry it is the pillow that finally drives me from the warmth of the bed and into the cold white tile of the hotel bathroom.

I realize I haven’t got any clothes except those I had on when the tornado destroyed my home, turning me into a weather refugee. The Red Cross had given us coffee and dinner and called around to hotels for me. A $75 dollar gift certificate redeemable just about anywhere had been pressed into my hand but I was too distraught and could literally not let go of my husband to go shopping. I feared if I did he would blow away, dancing in the sky waving to me as he rotated and flew off just as my wedding dress, my pajamas, my winter coat had.  

I drew a hot bath, scalding water, pouring the teeny bottle of body wash in it to make it feels smooth on my skin. I rolled up a towel and stuck it under my neck as a make shift pillow and sunk chin deep into the tub. I couldn’t hear the rattling AC unit in here, nor the whores outside, nor my husband snoring, sleeping well cocooned in the wrinkled and bleach smelling bed. I closed my eyes and began to drift off, again and again, each time being jerked awake by the wind, the malevolent wind. After the water cooled I rose, pulled on  my dirty clothes and slipped outside for a smoke.

Bunky's Playhouse --CHAPTER 2—

Bunky is staring at me from the corner of the porch. I feel his eyes on me before I spot him eyeing me from behind the glider. He is tiny, a serious little man in a serious little world of his own. He wears a coonskin cap we found at a yard sale and swimmer’s goggles cover his eyes. His blue striped shirt, once fresh and clean looking, is faded, permanently wrinkled and shrunken, having been washed nightly for two months now. I think, as I always do, that I need to find a shirt he likes as well or he will go through life with his buttons popped and his seams split. His shorts ride low, waist band sliding under his rounded belly into a natural resting place on his scrawny hips. Just below his clay stained knees his rubber boots, bright red and shiny look huge and out of place and ridiculously new. He is dressed for adventure.

My heart jumps. I want to run up through the yard and onto the porch and grab him up. I want to swing him around and smother him with kisses and inhale his milk-and-dirt little boy smell. I want to sit in the glider with him on my lap and sing silly songs and tickle his sides until he begs for mercy through his giggles.  I want, I want, I want…

I stroll through the yard slowly, stopping to smell a flower, to pull a weed, to toss an acorn. I approach him coolly. Bunky is the epitome of cool. Four years old and outbursts annoy him. I nod at him as I settle on the porch steps, acknowledging his presence as he sidles up next to me and lays his hand on my shoulder. I pat the tiny fingers, softly, and we stay like that a while, looking out into the yard at the teeming wildlife and the luscious greenery, companionable.

Bunky tells me he wants to go adventuring, please, walk in the woods and find some interesting bugs for his collection. I shudder at the thought of more creepy crawlies at the same time I am bursting with pride at his inquisitive mind. I see that he has his mason jar ready. Holes punched in the lid and grass in the bottom. A magnifying glass, net and bug book sit next to it. They are in a neat row, laid out in a manner that tells me he was expecting an argument and wanted to have everything ready to point at if and when I said no. The book is there simply to make me happy. In an effort to curtail his passion for insects that actually moved and bred I bought him the book. As good as having them I explained, but better!  More variety, more color. You can learn about them without actually having them in your room! He had looked at me somberly and called me out. You only bought it so you wouldn’t have to hunt bugs with me. It is a simple, and true statement but the way he says it sounds so bad I cringe like I have been caught doing something mean and petty.

No worms, Bunky, I mean it, no worms and no grubs and no crickets. Deal? And nothing that bites or stings! And no stink bugs!

I am talking to myself; he has run off the porch and is trotting around in circles with his arms flapping erratically calling out Butterflies? How about butterflies? Are you afraid of butterflies? Are they scary granma? He giggles. My heart soars.

Whooozat Baby?

Being in the Bible Belt, the argument arises often for Evolution Vs. Creationism. When you consider that the entire human being, body, mind and soul, develops from two cells how can the existence of some higher power be questioned? When you see them develop and grow, trying and failing and trying again until success brings them to a new level of achievement, how can one doubt that evolution is an absolute truth?

In their nascent (Definition: beginning to exist or develop) stage, they  are pretty much useless. Cute as can be but with no direction, no desire to grow, to learn, to change. They do not even know these things are a possibility yet. They have two modes of operation, on and off, and three activities, eating, passing water, and the seemingly endless pooping. This is the only time in a life when base human desire is not at war with society This stage lasts, in my experience about six weeks. This coincides roughly with the amount of time it takes a mother to recover mentally from the shock of actually having the cherub (for the most part) and start looking at her darling little lump of fuzzy headed, sweet smelling, pink cheeked goodness and expecting more of it.

We get in it’s face, grinning like madmen and say stupid things like “whooozat baby? “ in a high falsetto guaranteed to get their attention. We shake their little feet, we rub their heads, we tickle their ribs. We swing them up over our heads, tuck them under our arms like footballs, sit them up, roll them over, shake toys in their face that rattle, hum, vibrate, play single notes and simple melodies. We maneuver their bodies into several different outfits a day, introduce them to confining shoes and wipe their butts in public places. The first time a child smiles, or laughs, or squeals, if you look at it’s little face immediately after, you will see it get a horrified, terrified, what the hell was that? Expression on it’s face. Once a baby figures out that that noise or gesture  has an immediate return the first step of evolution is complete. They have figured out tit-for-tat, only they want way more than they give.

I have always been amazed that it takes a kid a solid month to learn to smile at you when expected, which is seemingly simple, and the same month to develop at least three separate cries…tired cry, hungry cry, wet cry…and for some really bright children a fourth, the ‘I do not want to be alone so I will annoy the hell out of you until you  bow down to me and pick me up wench’ cry.

Progress is slow in the first few months, because while learning, they are also learning how to learn which slows them down. I find that once they have that part figured out, the ability to concentrate and to try things pick up speed at an alarming rate. The first major change in a baby is rolling over… usually as parents we discover they have this one down when they use it to roll OFF of something and scare the bejeezus out of us. This is a necessary occurrence. We learn at that point in time that we are not perfect parents (a lesson we seemingly need to learn again and again) and they learn that a boo-boo generates an effluvium of love, snuggles, nurturing and guilt, all useful tools in an older child’s arsenal, tucked away to be turned back on their parents at a later date.

When a child learns to crawl, we learn just how deadly our environment is. After reading the books and talking to other parents, doctors, experts of some kind in the field of childrearing we usually feel like we have a handle on it. We have plastic guards stuck in our plugs, cabinets that it now takes an engineering degree to open, locks on the toilets that they won’t even be able to reach or have any interest in whatsoever for months. We have baby gates, crib bumpers, safety seats and soft toys. We go to all this trouble just to have them pull themselves across the floor using one foot and one finger to find the penny you dropped in your 8^th month of pregnancy and were too fat to pick up. It has since been kicked under the couch, and , while you would need a broom handle to reach it, this 24 inch long creature with no coordination can snag it and pop it in their mouth before you can say “whooozat baby?” Never owned a paper clip? They will find one. Dog food, beach sand, ancient Fruity Pebbles, pop tops, tortilla chip corners coated in dust, mints, toothpicks, bottle tops will all turn up. Usually already in their mouth, and usually when there is someone visiting that you want to impress with either your clean home, your excellent mothering or both.

At this point in time, mothers begin to wish for the little lump of fuzziness that the child had been. This is genetically programmed into us, supposedly so that we continue the species, but is also born out of a nostalgia for that time, so shortly gone, when being a mother was all love and fatigue and very, very little drama.

Once the child starts walking, which we foolishly push them and push them to do, we are done for. Three things happen at this point. They beat us for one. They have legs six inches long but can run like the wind, with a silent stealth they vanish into seemingly thin air in the mall, up steep flights of stairs, towards roads, rivers and pools. Every time they do this our reactions tell them they can make us crazy.  They have won the game already, neither parent nor child realizing the immensity of this discovery, that this is an epiphany, but understanding that this is true all the same. They love that. The second thing that happens at this time is that we realize we are not perfect parents (again) and thank God, or the heavens or our own good sense for giving us the speed, the strength, the stamina to catch them before they run into or stumble into or fall into tragedy. The third thing that happens is that children develop a love affair with the Band-Aid. Kids can never get enough Band-aids. This is true until they reach the age when grossing other kids out is more valuable to them than having a cool Band-Aid hiding a mystery boo-boo and the curiosity and envy in other children that it generates.

Parents love to moan when their children start talking because they never are quiet again. We grouse about it to each other, but always with a smile, a shrug, a who knew sort of gesture which is hiding our pride in this phenomenal accomplishment. Secretly we are entranced by conversations about puppets and cookies and how to use a potty (YAY!!). We think they have finally learned something that can only help us. They can tell us when they are sick or tired or hungry. They no longer grunt or cry in frustration when they want or need something but can convey these things to us accompanied by a cute little baby accent and a sweet smile. Fools that we are we welcome this, read to them, teach them how to rhyme, to recite the alphabet, to count, to sing. We chatter endlessly about fanciful things like fairies and transformers and dragons and gnomes. These are the halcyon days. The full impact of children having the ability to converse is hidden from us until the dreaded all out assault of puberty.

An internal alarm goes off in a child on the day they turn 15 telling them their time as a child is finished. Their bodies wake up with a jolt, changing daily, shooting up, clothes busting at the very seams. Their faces explode, their hair goes nuts, their bodies changing so quickly and dramatically that it causes physical pain.  Your child goes to bed a child and wakes up the next day as some pod person/zombie/Godzilla/3 month old/seer mutation of what you knew before. The exact same sequence of events brings screaming rages one day, desperate tears the next followed by total nonchalance  the third. A child’s body becomes the physical equivalent of a tempest in an ungainly, pimpled teapot and life as you knew it is over. No warning, no time outs. Once again, we are forced to realize we are not perfect parents but this time it is because they TELL us. Daily we are informed of our shortcomings… materially and emotionally we have failed them. All parents fail all children, it is the way of the world, but it doesn’t make it any easier to hear. Just when the fatigue, guilt, anxiety and anger threaten to overwhelm them and us a moment will happen that allows that former bond to re-exert itself. A shared moment, a glance, a joke and a glimpse of what has been and what will be again emerges. The only reason anyone survives this phase is because of the 15 years of mutual need, care and affection that came before allow us to hope and pray that this too, shall pass.

It is hard to watch this process, to see someone you love so desperately turning away from you, striking out alone or in the company of a few good friends and a lot of losers, making their own, often poor decisions. It is also, however, the mark of being a good parent, of raising strong children who are not afraid to try and fail and try again until they reach that level of achievement that allows them to try something new.