Reading past posts, I realize I make everything involving Maya and Mina seem like a dreamy cake walk, like raising them is the easiest thing in the world. And though they are perfect (mmhmm, that's right, Perfection) and even though I do shower their path with rose petals ("Make way for the child goddesses, goddamnit), raising them is an exhausting constant vigil if for the simple fact that parenting is a 26 hour a day job. My day looks like a bowed reed.
Last night when I finally got my ass into bed, I looked back on the day, a typical, uneventful Tuesday. I looked over at Husband who was already conked out and I thought: It's like wrangling tornados on the daily. I've only contained them with sleep.
Yesterday started as usual, around 6:30. This is the exact moment the wrangling begins. Maya shoots up like a spring that’s been squeezed into a box for 10 hours, and she’s off and running from the moment her eyes open. Mina is sloth-like in the mornings. The bartering begins. "Mina, you get 5 more minutes is you jump up the next time Mami calls you. JUMP UP, like a crazed rabbit!" Mina thinks this is funny and may actually do it. But it’s a crap shoot. Maya has showered and is on her 45th round of "Feliz Navidad" at volume 8 out of 10. I can barely take it. But as I brush my teeth, I'm all humming, "prospero año y feli---" I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE: "Maya! Bro, seriously, how many more times will you sing that song? 5 more? 6 more? Just give me a hint so I know that there's an end in sight. MINA! FIVE MINUTES IS UP." It's really been ten.
Maya switches to a made-up, chant-like song that goes like this: "Who's the batman. You're the batman. Who's the batman. You're the batman. Who's the batman. You're the batman. . . ." And on and on. I want to cry. But I can relate because once in junior high school I got a big, fat Zero on a math test because I couldn't stop singing, "How. Now. Brown. Cow. I said, How. Now. Brown. Cow. I said -- "
I'm making their lunches and I'm singing, "Who's the batman" and I realize Mina is nowhere in sight. I go into their room and she's on her top bunk staring into space, hardly a jumpity rabbit. I'm relieved that her tshirt is on at least. "Dude, snap out of it. We gotta get going." She looks at me like, WTF?
I check in on Maya who has one side of her hair braided, the other half is wet and laying on her shoulders. She is now doing a Who's The Batman dance in the mirror. I'm like, "Nice dance. Stop dilly dallying because the bus is coming in 10 minutes." I have to say the lame "dilly dallying" for fear that HURRY THE FUCK UP will escape from my lips. Mina Check: She is under Maya's covers now, on the bottom bunk, with our dog Lupe in a head lock. Me: "WHAT THE--?" Mina scurries out of bed recognizing the edginess to my voice. Lupe shakes her off. "Socks. Shoes. Teeth. Now." Though I’m crazy rushed, I still say this with the Scottish inflection of So I Married An Axe Murderer.
There is always a point in our morning routine where I have to talk myself down. I have to will patience on myself like I'm shoving on a sticky, rubber bathing cap, ripping hairs as I pull it on. I have to remind myself that they are just carefree kids not little manipulators calculating their test against my strength. This happens many times a day, the wrestling game with the patience bathing cap.
"What do you guys want for breakfast?"
"Waffles please," they say in sweet chorus.
The word Please allows the bathing cap to slide on smoothly. They're great, I think. Lunches are done, backpacks packed, everyone relatively clean and combed, waffles and fruit in baggies, shoes on, dogs on leashes. 7:18 and we're ready to walk to the bus stop, almost on time. Mina stops to run back to her room for – I don’t know what. “God, ¡VAMONOS!” I yell.
"OH, Mami can you read and sign this?" Maya says.
"What? No," I say, "We're leaving, girl. The bus is coming."
"It's due today." She is pleading.
Mina whines, "I don't want waffles."
I contemplate if Tough Titties is appropriate to say to them. Maya hands me a dense, two-page note from the PTA about some student council horsecrap.
We're walking to the bus stop, Maya quickly, Mina dragging. The dogs are bananas. They scatter in all directions thrilled by outside smells. They run this way and that like they're feral until my legs are mummified by the leashes. Lupe shits in the middle of the street as we cross it. I don't understand this. We are a yard away from grass. Carmen steps in the shit, possibly on purpose. I see the bus lumbering up a half a block away and the girls kiss me and sprint towards the stop.
I go to work and do amazing and brilliant things there until 4:30.
Tuesday is my day to pick up the girls. Tuesday is Library Day. The plan is to go to Wild Oats after I pick them up, eat a little some-some and then head to the library for homework and good ol book fun. After spending 15 minutes gathering them and their shit from all corners of AfterSchoolProgram and saying farewell to every single friend and staff member, we are finally off to Wild Oats, where I barely survive. Taking both kids to the market is like trying to herd rabid cows. Aisles are not big enough for these two. They want to play tag in the wine section. They horde samples. They bump into other people with impromptu, creative jumping games. If I allow them to push the cart it's a guaranteed ruptured achilles. They reenact scenes from school elaborately as I catch knocked-off boxes from the shelves. I make them hold onto the cart, one on one side, one on the other. "GGgrrr, walk!" I yell behind a locked jaw, "Like stiff marchers." They walk. They march. Then they're high stepping. They're dancing, doing a jig. They’re po-go’ing. They're hanging off the cart like side-car racers tipping the basket into a turn. If I have to concentrate on a label or directions to a recipe, I make them sit down in the aisle. Fuck it. It contains them for 2 seconds. Until they are rolling on the ground tackling each other knocking into a chips' display. I am laughing but I say, "Have you guys been in public before? I mean, for reals?" They are dumbfounded, like, What do you mean? I let them make their own salads at the salad bar. They are surprisingly focused. Mina's salad is made of egg yolks, peas, carrots and sharp parmesan cheese. Maya's salad is a sample of every item at the bar. We get to the check out and Maya asks the clerk -- and this scene happens every single time we're in the store --, "Can I bag?" Clerk, sweetly, "Sure." Maya, to me, "Paper or plastic, ma'am?" "Paper, please." She is quite good at packing a bag now. The clerk always offers her a job. This is part of the scenario. The bill is paid, bags are packed and Maya says in a feigned baritone, "Would you like help to your car, ma'am?" Me: "Why yes, yes I would." "I'm helping her to her car," she tells the clerk with a wink.
We eat in the car like a pack of homeless ladies because they don't want to sit at the tables in Wild Oats for some reason. We talk and laugh and eat. We make the food talk and we eat chips in different ways, like a wood cutter or like the Cookie Monster. Inevitably, they spill some shit on the seats that will smell up the car for the next 48 hours. Then we walk to the library and the girls hide behind every pole and tree because each car is their "Enemy Foe." At the library it's a series of Sshh's and Do Your Homework and Yes, I'll Read That and No, You Can’t KickBox the Magazine Rack. My own writing and reading go untouched.
At home, they run around and square off in extreme Tae Kwon Do battles, until someone's crying. They jump on the bed and chase the dogs and nag each other. They get to watch one show a night and they demand that I lie down between them. If I'm physically closer to one or the other, they go to blows. The whining drives me bananas. We watch That's So Raven, quite possibly the funniest show on TV. And we talk about the themes and scenarios of the show. We talk about every theme and scenario that comes to mind. They beg for cereal and candy and apples and Luna Bars. They fight over what book I should read them. Then the Go to Bed Dance begins. I'm exhausted now so the bathing cap is sticking together and shrinking. I have to Do Their Pillow because I showed them how Bugs Bunny used to fluff his pillow to perfection. I have to sing Fly Me to the Moon twice because I've been singing that every night since Maya was in the womb. There's a couple "I'm scared of my dreams" by Mina which are easily soothed. Finally, I announce, "Guys, I'm so tired and I have to do stuff still. Can you just chiz-ill now?" Maya says, "You're the best, Mami." Gulp. I say, "'Cause I'm a push over?" She laughs, "Pretty much." But they hug me like there are a slue of other reasons too.
I leave. Two more bathroom runs. A couple more hugs. They bicker from their bunks over something. And Papi walks in and says, "QUIET." And they are obedient angels under his command.
The tornadoes are wrangled once again. Until 6:30. The next morning. In a couple hours.
Special shout out to Maya for taking the picture, and to Lupe & Carmen who made me laugh as they tried to eat the cucumbers off my eyes.
I just got back from my annual trip to the Bay Area to visit one of my best friends Betsy, whom I have known since the 7th grade. I love this tradition because in two short days and two shorter nights, I'm able to submerse myself in a world very foreign to my own. Betsy and her man, Jim, have carved a quality, tailored life in the East Bay that is adventurous and free in many ways. They are both fire fighters which is obviously taxing, but it also affords them enough time to travel extensively especially since they have no children. Most recently they've been to Hawaii, Panama, Italy and Fiji. And they don’t stay in chichi, Americanized hotels either but in remote surf resorts and ornithologists’ perches tucked away in the jungle and bungalows stilted over lagoons. They are kayaking and sculling and running and hiking and climbing and camping and skiing and surfing their way through life. They are living, man! I know I’ve posted this picture before, but this is how Betsy lives her life: (Jim’s in the background - oh, and above is Betsy in the tube, dude.)
For example, by chance we caught the opening day of the Chuck Close and Kiki Smith exhibits at the SFMOMA. I like Chuck Close very much, but I was stoked to be able to see Kiki Smith. I had really only seen some of her drawings and earlier works before, but I know she exudes some kind of power that I wanted to experience live. I had also been reminded of her work recently because my girl Andrea has a link for Kiki Smith on her site. Seeing art live is mind-blowing compared to the effort is takes trying to capture the emotion of a piece from a photo. Betsy and I walked into the first room of Kiki Smith’s exhibit which housed her more recent sculpture. It is far too simplistic to say that Kiki Smith is an amazing feminist artist because she has evolved into something beyond the two dimension of the statement. The first piece I saw, Rapture, was a life-sized black bronze cast of a naked woman stepping out of the carcass of a wolf while holding onto its leg. Stepping out of, leaving it behind -- thanks for the ride, you couldn't consume me. Resurrection, being called to something and the woman moves confidently towards the calling. It was an exciting kick in the gut. I was thrilled by it.
I could tell you about every Kiki Smith piece from the show. I could. Really. Ask me. But the only one I really want to talk about is Blue Girl. This was a midnight-blue bronze cast of a life sized girl about 7 years old, naked and bald, kneeling, head down tilted to the side, arms away from the body, but palms up. The girl does not look broken, yet – almost -- but the turned-up palms look as if it’s an unintentional plea. It is such a mature and painful pose for a child. It looks like what an abused or forgotten girl would do out of some subconscious instinct. Something else (something divine?) was pleading for her, to help save her, and it used the gesture of the pose to do so whether the girl was aware of it or not. I was not prepared for her, to see this, to see this girl that I knew. I choked up severely. For a second, I felt a moment of panic because if I had let myself cry I wouldn’t have be able to rein it back in. I wanted to be alone with the piece to let it all out for the kneeling girl I had known, that had felt this exact way once. In a fit, I might've tried to pick up the sculpture, stand her up, or at least hold her, but I suddenly became very self conscious of all the people in the room, and of course Betsy. She said, "Are you crying?" when we had moved on to the next room. I wasn't crying, hadn’t, but I had halted huge tears from coming down and they just stayed bubbled in my vision. "It's just," I started, feeling panicked again trying not to think of the kneeling and the palms and her down-cast head. "This?" Betsy said pointing to a wax sculpture on the floor I had not noticed. "Uh, the--" and I thumbed towards the other room. The dam was close to giving. "The girl?" she asked. And I had to just look at the wax and not talk about it any more. I had to push my blue girl back down, a girl I don’t think about too often anymore.
I have an unnatural fear of gymnastics. I think it's a fantastic and suspenseful sport. But I'm fearful for my kids to participate in gymnastics. I am convinced that the sport is so taxing on those little bodies that when I watch competitions on ESPN, -- because I'll watch ANY sport -- I watch through my fingers. I'm sure a gymnast will snap a leg during a landing. Or hit an apparatus with a body part. Or pull something out of socket. Or fall off some beam or bar that is raised too high up. It's very stressful for me to watch. But here's the part that makes no sense: I'd let my girls play tackle football if they wanted. I'm big on physical-style basketball. Maya spars in Tae Kwon Do and I've seen kids get knocked out with head kicks, and yet I still encourage her to be aggressive and go for it and, most importantly SHAKE IT OFF if she feels the sting of a kick or punch. But gymnastics, which is unknown territory to me, seems way more grueling.
Since Mina could grip a bar, her favorite activity has been the monkey bars. In preschool and kindergarten, she spent so much time on the monkey bars, the palms of her hands turned into one big callus. It hurt me to hold her hand because the skin was so rough. I'd ask, "Mina, what did you do at school today?" "Monkey bars." "Did you do art and writing?" "Yes. And monkey bars." She was so good, that when we'd go to the park, other parents would ogle Mina going back and forth and forth and back across the bars, then swing for literally ten seconds BY ONE ARM before she'd change direction and then repeat. She developed lats like an Olympian swimmer. You think I'm kidding? Look at that picture. I had written in a previous post that though she does Tae Kwon Do, she tells everyone she is a gymnast. I'd say, "You're a green belt! Aren't you proud of that?" She'd say, "Yes. But I like gymnastics." FINALLY, as I panicked internally, Husband convinced me that I couldn't deny it any longer. We had to sign her up. What was one hour a week going to hurt?
The gymnastic school is a musky warehouse with dull, industrial lighting that seems oppressive to me. The air is wet and thick and parents populate the Parent Pen anxiously and humorously. Husband and I were naively joyful during her first class and we clapped and laughed as Mina had a ball. But when we looked at the other gymnasts we realized that these kids and these parents are not fucking around. Every single body on the floor was a taut specimen of a child. Every single body had a quarter-bouncing ass, long oval muscular thighs and 24 pack. We know Mina is small for her age, but all these girls are small and packed into little superhero bodies wearing velour bathing suits, lavender and pink and royal blue. They pranced around seriously with fat-bare limbs slathered in white chalk and their hair was pulled tightly and gelled and glittered and bowed. They were all doing one-handed push ups, practically, like 500 of them. And climbing ropes with their fingertips, and doing sit ups by hanging upside down. And the militant coaches lacked joy. They were serious too and just bigger, aged versions of the same body type. The banner on the wall read: "Gymanstics: The Art of Perfection" which scared the shit out of me and only confirmed my fears about this crazy, tortuous sport. But, of course, Mina loved it and apparently caught the eye of one of the vulture coaches that accesses athletes like quarter horses; maybe because they look like them. After only three classes, they invited Mina to be in the excelled class. And at age six, she will now do gymnastics two days a week for an hour and a half a pop. Until they kidnap her to Romania and really whip her ass into shape. I caught the end of her first excelled class on Monday. This is when they have the tiny little group of girls climb a rope that stretches from the floor to the warehouse-sized ceiling. I arrived just as they said, "Mina are you ready to try The Rope?" And I clasped my hands and thought thoughts like, Just do your best, baby. Climbing a rope is really hard -- and wouldn't you know that lil mufucka scurried up the rope like it was NOTHING. I sucked in my breath emotionally as I looked at my baby way in the air. I then wondered what kind of super strength she possessed. But obviously the monkey-bar lats came in very handy.
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