Life is a Highway

For the past six weeks, I’ve been absent from my life.  I’ve let the laundry go without washing, allowed the dust to accumulate, and let the dishes stack up.  I haven’t had time to wash the sand out of the kids’ swimsuits or mend the hole in my bra that gives the underwire permission to poke me each day.  I haven’t paid the bills, balanced the checkbook, or planned our road-trip vacation that starts tomorrow.  But worst of all, I’ve plain out ignored my children.  I’ve been here with them, but not so much in a parental role, but in more of a peaceful co-existence.  

My attentive parent hat was replaced with the all-consumed home buyer dunce cap.  Somebody had to take the job, as we need a place to live.  Half of my carefree summer has been eaten up by my full-time house-hunting gig.  Our building owner decided out of the blue to sell the two-flat we live in, and while the sale itself wasn’t a big surprise, the timing of having to move within 60 is stressful, to say the least.

Leisurely walks around the neighborhood pointing out different types of birds and flowers have been substituted with brisk speedwalking down each and every street in the neighborhood, hunting FOR RENT and FOR SALE signs.  Relaxing trips to the beach have been interrupted with quick exits to get to a showing with the real estate agent.  Movie nights with popcorn and M&M’s still happen, but without my presence, as I’m busy negotiating out the terms of the proposed sales contract for our new home.  And finally, early evening bike rides to the DQ have been usurped with harried phone calls to building owners regarding their potential interest to sell their building, when the house deal finally fell through. 

It’s been a necessary step in our journey this summer and I’m guessing I could feel discouraged that we’re back to square one with no apartment to rent and no home to buy.  Ironically, I feel relieved, though.

 I looked at my kids today and listened, for the first time in weeks, to what they were saying.  I hugged them and kissed them, and let them linger in my lap without pushing them away so that I could address a parapet wall repair estimate.  I ate breakfast alongside them without excusing myself before my last bite.  I ran behind them as they rode their bikes as fast as they could, and didn’t even stop to talk to the seller of the building we had been trying to buy, as we ran past her down the block.  I wasn’t even mad at the woman for reneging on the deal that would now take us back to the drawing board in regards to finding a place to live.  She gave me my life back.  

I say to my kids often that it doesn’t matter if we live in a straw hut, so long as we’re all together.  I should amend that last phrase to be ‘so long as we’re all together and present.’  I can’t even begin to justify letting six weeks float by without really having any idea what’s been going on in my kids’ heads.   Throwing caution to the wind by leaving our housing situation up in the air to deal with when we get back, I'm going to follow the "Life is Highway, I'm gonna ride it all night long" chorus and just focus on my family and our fun for the next ten days.  The daily stresses of life will still be there when we get home, but my kids' being receptive to my attention will be gone before I know it.

Time Without Fanfare

The washer hasn’t been right for months now.  We live in an apartment and the landlord has been informed.  He’s not jumping through hoops to get anyone out here to assess the damage anytime soon.  I’ve had the machine rigged for weeks.  The Bic pen point stuck into the chamber that usually accepts the lid post, keeps the washer running through the cycles.  Without the pen, the cycle stops right before the rinse cycle, leaving the washer full of dirty water and clothes.  The smell is enough to make you seriously consider ever wearing that outfit a second time!

This week, the machine took a turn for the worse. I knew something was amiss when I noticed the pen cap had laying on the top the dryer.  It looked as if it had been chewed off the machine by a rabid K-9, by the looks of the twisted metal.  My neighbor’s clothes were fully submerged in stagnant water that smelled as if it had been marinating for days.  After lamenting over the fact that it had to be this week, the week of the broken washer, that my toddler had an accident overnight which required an immediate change of bedding that I did not own, that I decided to walk away from the machine.

I loaded the sheets, blankets, and covers into the car, along with the kids and the rest of the dirty laundry from the week.  We headed out for what I always remember to be, an unpleasant experience, at the laundrymat.  I asked the kids to bring a backpack of coloring books and crayons to keep them occupied while we waited.  Little did I know the backpack would be unnecessarily taking up space in my car, as those girls didn’t even have time to open it.

From the moment we parked the car, the girls were unloading baskets of clothing and cleaning supplies, transferring it all to those big wire baskets on wheels, and choosing machines that would correctly house the loads.  We talked about what the machines do, how much they hold, and why they exist.  They surveyed the articles of clothing, learned how to pre-treat the stains, and had a ball loading up the machines with laundry.  They chose wash cycles based on colors, read instructions on the machines, and poured out detergent to the little line on the cap.  My eldest daughter carried around a detergent cap filled with quarters and the two girls took turns filling the slots with coins when it was time to turn the machine on.  The three of us worked together, moving like a swarm of bees from machine to machine, chit-chatting about laundry and life, taking time to point out the cool gadgets on the machines, and what television shows were playing in the background, until six loads of laundry had been completed. 

My kids have never done laundry before.  At three and eight, it’s completely feasible that the eldest could have been doing her own laundry for a few years, like some of her friends.  She hadn’t, though.  She’s never looked at a machine, asked to pour the detergent, or voiced any curiosity about the laundry process whatsoever. They don’t want to come near the basement in our building, which houses the washer and dryer, because it’s dark, dirty, and damp.  They’ve most certainly never offered to help.  Shame on me, as I’ve most certainly never asked for their assistance!  What’s more astounding is that I hadn’t asked them for their company.

We had more real conversation in the hour and a half we were at the laundrymat than we’ve had in the past two days of bike-riding, swimming, and playing Go Fish.  We talked about things that matter, like how many quarters it takes to equal $2, and how many minutes it will take to dry a down comforter.  We wondered what type of dessert someone might have spilled to create that type of stain and laughed at the designs the soap bubbles made in the washers.  It’s not the activity that matters, it’s the quality time spent.  When the expectation of “an event” is removed, most folks, including kids, naturally relax and open up.

Sometimes I think we put all this pressure on ourselves as parents to create a rich and varied atmosphere for our kids so they will thrive on the challenge and ingenuity of the activity.  While some of that is important, I’m here to tell you it’s not the activity that matters, it’s the time spent together.  The things kids remember are the experiences with their parents, grandparents, and friends, regardless of the events those experiences were derived from.  Their memories fade of the carnival, the rides, and the treats, but they always make mention of that one time with Pops when they trimmed the trees together.  I truly enjoyed myself with my children today.  After laundry, we went to the post office, the farmers’s market, and the grocery store.  They assumed active roles at each stop, without me asking them to do a thing.  They took pleasure in completing their self-initiated tasks of shopping, checking things off lists, and price-checking.  They took time to window-shop at the farmer’s market for flowers and treats, and they welcomed the responsibility of affixing stamps to the envelopes before dropping them into the mailbox.  I looked at them not only as my children and my companions today, but also as dependable little people.  If I didn’t know better, I’d think they could almost function on their own!  

Kids like being useful and having purpose.  They’re proud of themselves when they learn something new, and most times they enjoy collaborating with others.  Interact with them outside of the formal activities we seem so anxious to plan for them, and you can see that for yourself.  Our kids are people who just want to be part of something, yet we tend to treat them as clients that we need to impress with celebration and sport.  They don’t need the royal treatment.  They just need some of your time.