Motherhood Comes Naturally (and Other Vicious Lies) (15 page)

All of the books tell us to embrace our kids' differences, to foster and celebrate their idiosyncrasies. And I believe that to a degree; there's nothing wrong with a little boy who wants to play with a Barbie doll, or a little girl who prefers the company of books to that of her classmates.
Those
are phases we should get on board with.

But when I see Lily competing to the death in every single thing she does, I force myself to resist the tendency to blame it on a phase. When your third-grade daughter is so competitive that she can't even play Pickup Sticks without hurting someone, you have no choice but to step in. Because if I don't, next thing
I know I'll be bailing her out of jail for a drunken game of Quarters gone wrong. I know her competitive streak is not a phase. It's part of her nature, and it always will be. But if I work now to help her rein it in and channel it into something productive, I think it will end up being one of the qualities that make her a successful adult.

I take the same outlook with Ben and his stubbornness. That kid will not do something if he doesn't want to. I remember when I first noticed this side of him, when he was about four. It's just a phase, I told myself, after I forbade him from eating anything until he ate one piece of broccoli—and he didn't eat anything for twelve hours, until I caved. I'm working on ways to embrace rather than antagonize stubborn Ben, because I realize it is part of who
he
is.

And Evan's tendency to RUN—rather than walk—everywhere he goes and the fact that he body-slams his family and friends as a salutation may very well be a phase. Or it could develop into one hell of an annoying personality trait. If it continues, I'll most definitely have to find some way to better channel his intense physical energy, or we'll all end up in trouble. And with some hefty ER bills to boot.

My kids are all young, and the moment I feel like I've mastered how to deal with a certain phase, they enter another, leaving me entirely clueless. I think the best I can do as a parent is help guide them to be the type of person that
I'd
want to spend time with and hope that society agrees. A motherly civic duty, and a public service to the rest of the world. Lord knows, we could use fewer annoying people around here, and I can only avoid that trip to the mall for so long.

I emptied out and threw away the contents of my daughter's backpack without thinking. She's twenty and still hasn't forgiven me for ruining the self-portrait she worked on all year.

—Scary Mommy Confession #254979

T
here is little that is sweeter than a handmade macaroni necklace presented to you by your adorable toddler. The first time you receive one, you will, no doubt, proudly wear it around your neck like it was made from the finest cultured pearls. Your precious child painstakingly threaded each individual piece of pasta! With his bare hands! Look at that color composition—look at that sense of style! It's a masterpiece, and you are the luckiest mommy in the world.

Macaroni necklaces are followed by more macaroni necklaces, until you start to feel like the hostess at a Macaroni Grill.
Soon other trinkets make their way into your life, one at a time. A paper weight here. A wind-chime there. Before you know it, your house is overridden with keepsake memorabilia that threaten your sanity.

It's a tough situation to find yourself in, suddenly facing your very own Sophie's Choice: your children's feelings or your own sanity. I remember the moment I made the choice myself, swimming in piles of the kids' artwork as I tried to organize our files. It was then and there that I decided there had to be a better way. There had to be a compromise. And so began my career as a selective curator of kids' shit.

Once I decided on my course of action, I was all in. I was committed to ridding the house of excess junk that the kids made, while maintaining a respectable amount of memorabilia. There was no room for emotions, and I had to take no prisoners. And so I purged. And purged some more. I weeded out their handiwork by category: useless, dangerous, and ugly. Wouldn't you know it, about 90 percent of the stuff fit into one of the three. Frankly, there were a few times I had trouble picking just one category! I ended up with a nice smattering of keepsakes, each one bringing me back to a place and time.

That was a turning point for me as a mother. That was the moment when I put my sentimentality for children's artwork in check and reclaimed my house.

These days, it takes a lot for an item handmade and brought into this house by one of my children to last the night. I have to work quickly and quietly to avoid hurting anyone's feelings, but so far, so good. There have been paintings and tongue compressor puppets. Mugs and pillowcases and plates and clay. The list
is never-ending. We haven't had any tears yet—from me or from them. And we are all better for it.

I'll never forget the time I drove to a Dumpster in the parking lot of our local Walgreen's so that I could discreetly and permanently dispose of the first semester's bounty. I waited until the kids were asleep and pulled up just as the store was closing. To my initial chagrin, I wasn't alone. There was another family-sized SUV parked near the Dumpster as I drove up. I watched as the driver stepped out of the car, opened her automatic trunk, and pulled out a kitchen trash bag. She walked over to the Dumpster, hurled the bag over her head into the trash, and got back in her car and drove away. With the coast clear, I got out of my car with my very own trash bag and made my way toward the Dumpster. As I walked to the perimeter of the big blue box, something caught my eye. It was a hole in the bag that the other women had just deposited. And there, sticking out of the hole, was something that was clearly made by a child with preschool teachers who get a good laugh at Mommy's expense.

Perhaps I was predisposed to have a weak sense of sentimentality. With a mother as sentimental as mine, I am sure that the need to rebel is partially to blame for my urge to purge. I'm also quite confident that my kids will hold on to every last thing to compensate for their mother's excessive trashing. Save too much, save too little . . . we mothers just can't win. The best we can do is choose what to save wisely. And, of course, use the utmost discretion when disposing of the rest of the crap.