motherhood

Decisions, Decisions

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What can I capture from today?

The angry parent email
with threat to principal and
superintendent, all over a book
she shouldn’t have read
(for surely she didn’t understand
its genuine meaning)?

The morose groans of CSAP prep
and note-taking
that I put my students through
year after year
(yet do they listen)?

Or

The perfect rectangle of dough
rolled and ready to fill
with a mix of scallions, dill,
butter, garlic, and parsley
(everything already chopped)
laid out by my husband’s hands?

The well-behaved seven-year-old
daughter who carried in posters,
collected pennies for tastes,
sat listening to every presentation
and (for once)
asked permission before every request?

The gutak herb fritters
and sour cream, cider vinegar,
lemon-pepper sauce
that filled everyone’s faces
with smiles and everyone’s
stomachs with thanks?

The choice,
just like my fretful decision to bake,
my too-young-to-be-married decision to marry,
my too-early-for-grandkids decision to have them anyway,
is obvious.

Dear Mother

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Dear Mother,

I know you think
that being a Girl Scout
troop leader means
I can be nothing less
than a perfect role model.

But underneath every
perfectly polite
member of society
lie the cusses,
frustration,
and brutal honesty
that you hate
for me to share.

Can I have a place
to fully expose
myself
without worrying about
what you think

considering

you never could take
the time away from your
(true love) work to be
MY
Girl Scout troop leader,
but rather,
were a cussing, raging,
violent mother
behind closed doors?

Love,
Daughter

P.S.: Thank you
for taking the time
to see me for who
I really am
and, alas,
relentlessly criticizing me.

February Daughters

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Riona

You were getting into bed last night
still waiting for us to cover you up
when you told me a story,
your three-and-a-half-year-old
version of a story

“I had to get my piwow
and then I saw that Snoopy wasn’t
he-ah, so I got Snoopy and
put him down they-ah,
and it’s my Snoopy not Isabewa’s
she thought he was hers
but that one’s mine.”

And I realize as I write this
that I have a poet
for my youngest daughter,
and if not a poet,
a poem.

Mythili

Holding your stomach all
through the crowded mall
you let me know
it was time to go
you rushed to the van
holding out your hand
“I need my blankey
I need my blankey”
the door opened wide
and you dashed inside
five minutes couldn’t pass
with your eyes turning glass
your fingers curled silk
like it was mother’s milk
your lids relaxed
sleep came fast
and all was calm in Mythili land
because of the blankey in your hand.

Isabella

Turning seven to you
means a tea party
filled with pink cupcakes
and a houseful of girls
daintily sipping from china cups
only to abandon the table
for screaming pursuits
of chopped-up white snowflakes
foam doilies and spilled glitter glue,
cat chasings and scavenger hunts
whose competition almost drew blood
a smile on your face
as you hand out goodie bags
blow out your candles
and remark more than once,
“Three hours is not long enough.”

Happy birthday my love,
my first child
whose energy fills our lives
for every waking moment.

On Valentine’s Day

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here we are
in our pajamas
munching on
leftover tea sandwiches
(mozzarella tomato,
tuna salad,
strawberry cream cheese)
before six o’clock
on Valentine’s Day

just hours beyond
a house filled with girls
in dress-up clothes
(dresses with puffy sleeves
and hems at the ankles)
who sipped from
white china cups
and licked pink
cream cheese frosting
off heart-shaped
red velvet cupcakes.

there are five of us now,
poor Daddy outnumbered
(even the dog is a girl)
and we share a box
of chocolates for dessert
given to our oldest daughter
(who celebrated seven years today)
by her boyfriend,
each girl picking out
a different fruity flavor.

and I think, as my youngest
takes a bite she doesn’t like and
brings her chocolate to my lips,
how unromantic this is,
yet
so very filled with love
on Valentine’s Day.

My Stunning Flowers

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I carry inside myself the desire to be better,
to always sit with you and help you find every
place where your puzzle pieces go,
to tell you, yes, forty minus three is thirty-seven,
to play family while I hold the piggy and you hold the koala

and not to wash these dishes
not to gather my breakfast ingredients
or set up my morning coffee,
not to look at the computer for just one moment

I think how you will be as women
falling in love
going off to college
calling to tell me about your first real jobs
and I both despise and relish these thoughts

I look forward to that time, to sharing
my life with you in a different way,
to see how you’ve blossomed
from the beauty of your youth into the
three unique flowers that I know you will become.

but now I struggle with my evenings,
my tense moments of tomorrow’s prep work,
my need to have a break when you are sleeping
in the brief time between your bedtime and mine

and I know that what I sacrifice is my vision of your future
and the interminable guilt that will mingle
with the sadness you will carry in your hearts,
the longing all of us will have for these moments,
these precious moments without which
you will never be the stunning flowers I have imagined.

Patriotism Then and Now

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my mother and I,
we’re here behind a World War II vet
who sits on a stool as we wait in line
(it folds up into a cane)
and I think
it’s Memorial Day
and I remember both grandfathers
already buried,
their triangularly folded flags
now tucked away
just as the quills we are about to see
have been put to rest

he smiles, chuckles,
shakes the tour guide’s hand
and introduces his children,
grandchildren, great-grandchildren
who have all driven here from Baltimore
so he can see this

we enter Independence Hall
and my mother takes my hand
for just one second
but it is long enough
(almost long enough)
and as the tour guide leads us into the room
where six feet in front of us
the founding fathers swore to thirty years of secrecy
pledging their honor
for the greater good,

I see the veteran take off his hat
and wipe his eyes with the back of his hand
(I can almost feel him wiping mine)
and I think how my mother hasn’t said
one unkind or critical word all weekend
and how modestly George Washington
won a war and spoke words and led the country
and how all these years later we are still
trying to defend what was written in this room

while the tour guide struts with a framed,
fake version of the longest lasting laws
any country has ever known,
and the vet puts his hat back on,
puts his arm around his wife,
and leads his family into the beautiful sunshine
of the city of brotherly love,
another generation of freedom fighters
listening to every precious word he has left.

How I Spend My Saturdays

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Once upon a time, Bruce and I used to sleep in until almost ten. We’d enjoy each other for a little while and share a shower, then inevitably head over to the local LePeep, which changed each time we moved—four times in our first four years together. He always got a skillet or a combo of eggs, bacon, peasant potatoes, and pancakes, and I used to order the eighteen-wheeler, which had French toast, the same famous potatoes, eggs, and a side of some type of pork that I would quickly shove over to him. We also loved to order the fancy $3 drinks, hot chocolate for me and a mocha for him. By noon, we were stuffed and ready to enjoy an afternoon of going to a movie, walking around the mall, or picking up a few groceries for our mid-week, mostly “freelance” (make what you want) meals. Then we would go out for dinner—our favorites were Chili’s, Old Chicago, or Noodles and Company. We might rent a movie after dinner, stay up late, and repeat the whole process on Sunday.

How foreign it all seems now. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve had three babies, because I’m old, or because I’m too set in an early-morning routine, but even if my girls sleep past 6:30, there’s no way I ever will again. Now I might drink a glass of water while I cuddle on the couch with Mythili or remind the girls relentlessly to go potty and get dressed while I sip coffee and fix up a breakfast of homemade pancakes. (A restaurant for breakfast? Paying $3 for a cup of Joe? My flaxseed whole wheat w/applesauce pancakes beat anything I’ve ever bought at LePeep, and I make my own “mocha” with a scoop of hot cocoa in my morning coffee). Then we might linger before our first activity, which could include anything from going to Target to buy yet another birthday gift for a party Isabella’s invited to, taking the girls to a swim or skating lesson, or visiting the library to pick up the books we have on order and the movies we’ll need to entertain the girls so we can have ninety minutes of peace. We’ll come home and fix sandwiches with our homemade bread and set out our grass-fed beef for a meal that we chose from a recipe and whose ingredients we put on the grocery list a week ago. The afternoon will be filled with girls playing outside in the cul-de-sac or whining about using the computer or, like today, in a line of cars around a Lowe’s waiting to pick up Girl Scout cookies, and we’ll finally settle everyone down for a pre-dinner bath and movie, a delicious home-cooked meal, and a nice early bed time. Bruce and I will stay up “late” watching our own Netflix movie, hitting the hay around ten.

Just like they always say: having a child changes everything. Having three makes you change your whole routine, your whole attitude towards what’s important, where your money goes, and how you spend your Saturdays.

A Mother’s Guilt

/ lovizmytrio / 3 Comments

Are mothers destined to be plagued by guilt
that stems from houses we’ve carefully built?
Can we escape remorse from what we do?
Can we give to them and to ourselves too?
When a child is sick and I sleep all night
my heart feels a pain that’s tugging and tight
Guilt flows from the money that I bring back
from work that whispers to me what I lack:
Time with them to be the one who attends
and in the dark of night, to make amends.

Am I destined to be harassed with shame
as I search my soul for what desires blame?

Give Me till May

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You come from Latin meaning away from
and that’s exactly where I’m sending you—
away from me, from my scale, from the fears for my future
take my backside with you and
don’t let the door hit you on the way out
because I will beat you
work you
crunch the tar out of you
until you’ve vanished
and left only
the smoothness of muscled skin,
the absence of all my baby fat,
and the delicious satisfaction
I will taste with my hungry eyes
every time I look down at my belly.

January Daughters

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Mythili, 5
she has the same deep-set eyes and heavy brows,
the same rounded nose and thick pink lips as her father,
but as she sits beside him at the table,
shyly peeling every tiny piece of white from the Clementine
and piling them, meticulously as a worker ant,
on the table,
as she raises her eyes and offers me that
quiet smile still filled with baby teeth,
then takes a moment to rediscover what her
older, loud-mouthed sister is up to downstairs,
I know that truly, she is my daughter.

Isabella, almost 7
in an instant she can recite the alphabet in two languages,
always trying to fill in the letters for her sisters;
she lives for her Girl Scout meetings,
hates when the neighbors pick on her
to the point that she will pout and want to cuddle
like a toddler in my lap,
and she always, always, always
has to be the boss, be right, and be defiant,
as if to remind me, day in and day out,
just who I was at age seven.

Riona, 3
don’t mess with the youngest who, upon a recent approach
to a button outside of an elevator,
screamed, “It’s my turn!”
her hands outstretched like miniature wings
in her oversized puffy purple jacket,
rushing in front of two older sisters
her eyes sharp and holding perfectly a glare
that belongs on a much older child,
and proudly pushing the button
before anyone else could go near it.