life

The Best Days of My Life

The best days of my life are behind me.

At least that’s how I understand it. That’s what those gray-haired women told me time and again over the past eight years. They would see me pushing a cart loaded down with three small children and a week’s worth of food as our paths collided in the dairy aisle, and they would smile before they spoke. 

“Oh,” they would say. And I might be hyperbolic here but I picture them with their hands on their hearts and misty expressions in their eyes. “These are the best days. Enjoy them.”

The conclusion I drew from this was simple: It’s all downhill from here. This is as good as it gets.

But I’m beyond those days now. This past September, on an unseasonably warm Friday morning, all three of my kids stepped on bus number 537. My youngest, the Kindergartener, ran onto the bus without any signs of hesitation. I waved as they went off to elementary school together for the first time.

I watched the bus as it pulled away and walked back to my house to reheat my coffee. Aside from the dull sound of the microwave running it was very, very quiet. Quiet enough that I could hear myself think, which had been a novelty for the better part of a decade. And after all those years of being home with small children, it was terrible, but mostly wonderful.

***

It sometimes seems like we have a hard time moving on from things. Society tends to look back on everything with nostalgia. Even things that at the time may have been more “meh” than “time of your life.” Because I remember hearing those “these are the best days of your life” words in high school, too. Family members told me this. Mid-’90s and early-‘00s teen movies tried to sell me this, though my high school broke out into far less spontaneous singing and my wardrobe looked nothing like what Cher Horowitz or Regina George wore. 

As if high school is as good as it gets.

Because then there was college. Another time that might as well have “ENJOY IT WHILE YOU CAN” flashing around campus in neon lights. And yes, college was fun. I went to my share of parties, spent a memorable night building the biggest snowman you’ve ever seen on central campus, and frequently sat up until morning with friends. (Before getting up for an 8 a.m. class, as only a 19-year-old can.) But I spent just as many nights working on projects at midnight as I did having fun. And hanging out with friends often meant walking up sticky apartment staircases smelling of cheap beer at questionable hours of the night.

My husband and I got married fresh out of college. (We were babies. Somehow no one stopped us.) Once we returned from the bubble of our Jamaican honeymoon, it was back to the reality of an apartment so small that if you stood at the edge of the living room, you could see every inch of the place. He was in grad school, and I was trying to make enough money to support us and pay off our student loans. My futon from college and the folding table and chairs that functioned as our dining table were our crowning pieces of furniture. Bless our newlywed hearts.

All the Disney movies and frou-frou wedding cards gushed that this here, this time for real, was as good as it gets. And maybe all you need is love but surely furniture not made for the express purpose of collapsing wasn’t too much to ask?

Soon enough, I made it to those days the gray-haired women were misty-eyed about. Three years into married life, I held twin babes, one in each arm. And just two years later, we added a third to the mix. (No one stopped us. Again.)

Read the rest over at Coffee + Crumbs.

A Little Bit Tired

What strikes me first is how little they are. Their cheeks are plumper. They’re shorter, more miniature. As I scroll through photos from the spring of 2020, I spy Nolan running in his monster shoes. Those ridiculous shoes place this in the landscape of time; I bought them when he started preschool in the fall and he would wear those shoes and only those shoes. I’d forgotten about them. Time passed, life felt like survival mode, and somewhere in the tumult they were outgrown or scuffed beyond wearing before they were discarded.

He turned four and the twins turned six not three weeks before the world shut down. Two Kindergarteners and a preschooler. Old enough to understand that things were weird. Young enough that it was hard to explain why. They were so little.

+++++

My first pandemic purchase was a printer.

“They’re not going back to school,” I said to Tyson matter-of-factly. It was dark, evening. Most likely we’d gotten the kids to bed and I’d been staring into my phone, scrolling through social media, looking to other people to try to make sense of everything. What were other people doing? Was I the only one feeling this sense of dread? What did the New York Times have to say? Which resulted in me ordering a black and white printer from Amazon so I could print…worksheets? For the kids? I guess? Because Spring Break had just been extended and I was positive, had this gut-level feeling they wouldn’t return to the classroom. 

My second pandemic purchase was the Anne of Green Gables books. The same set I had when I was a kid. Because $47.92 buys you comfort in the form of books.

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I wrote snippets during the first few weeks of the pandemic.

March 18: “Just 10 days ago it was over 50 degrees outside and we bought ice cream from the ice cream truck that rolled through the neighborhood. From a stranger. In a truck. Who handed us food and we handed him money. With our unsanitized, unwashed hands. In a crowd of neighborhood kids.”

March 25th: “Caden and Brooklyn’s school sent out a video with three of the teachers singing a parody of ‘Some Things Never Change’ to the kids today and I cried.”

April 3rd: “I seem to roll with a cycle of ‘this isn’t so bad’ to a big ol’ ‘meh’ where I exist without feelings before plummeting to ‘everything is terrible let’s burn down the house and start over.’”

April 6th: “I’m so entrenched in this now it seems like this is how life always has been, is now, and shall be forevermore.”

April 15th: “I wake up and think, ‘Oh. Here we go again.’  And it takes every ounce of strength I have to pull myself out of bed. Even though I just throw on my glasses and some sweatpants and walk downstairs to get coffee. The monotony of our days is its own brand of exhausting.”

Bright little ray of sunshine, wasn’t I?

There’s a song going around on TikTok. “Do you get a little bit tired of life? Like you’re not really happy but you don’t want to die? Like you’re hanging by a thread but you gotta survive?”

If that song had been around two years ago, it would have been our pandemic anthem. Even now, this side of the pandemic, it hits different than it would have before.

+++++

Recently, Beth from Pantsuit Politics said “I’m stressed because what else would I be?”

I’m not sure I’ve heard a truer sentence

If I were to make a list of stressors—and you know this Enneagram One loves a list—there wouldn’t be anything surprising on it. March 2022 is almost nothing like March 2020, when we woke up to new news every single day. We were all home all the time. We thought vaccines were years—plural—away. We actually wiped down our packages and groceries with bleach, bless our little early pandemic hearts.

My days are largely back to the ordinary of life. We need to eat dinner. Again. The kids are on break and Tyson and I are both working now and what do we do with them? My body is stiff because I haven’t been doing yoga. We need to solidify our summer plans. 

But my corner of the internet keeps reminding me that the body keeps the score. And mine is tighter, tightening more as Spring Break approached; the week two years ago that marks the time life changed forever. I’ve had these unusual, near-constant headaches. I feel unsettled, though I can’t put words to emotions. Something inside me is busy keeping score, remembering what happened two years ago.

And really, what else would a millennial be but stressed? What else would we be but a little bit tired of living our unprecedented lives?

+++++

I wonder if the coming of spring will ever be normal again. It still feels hopeful—when you live in a state with five solid months of winter, warm weather and budding trees will never feel anything short of miraculous. Dread follows that feeling of hope, though. At least for me. My body still keeping the score.

Sometimes it feels like the kids should still be four and six. Their very early elementary years feel misplaced. Nolan’s preschool years were completely lost in the shuffle. Can they really have just turned six and eight? How did they get so tall? What happened to those monster shoes anyway? Can’t we just rewind two years? Aren’t we in some infinite 2020 time loop? Aren’t we all, still, just a little bit tired?

They were so little. We all were.

This post is part of a blog hop to share our pandemic stories. It's hosted by www.laurapbass.com and you can read the next post in the blog hop by clicking here.

If Parents Wrote the Headlines

I don’t want to brush aside the importance of following along with the actual news. I typically start my day with a glance at the headlines and a podcast or two—but does anyone else feel like their own day could warrant a headline or two? What if parents wrote the headlines? Really, family life covers all the basic news sections and storylines: we’ve got warring factions (aka siblings), drama (miscellaneous tantrums), business (balancing work and childcare), an arts and culture section (dominated by paper and crayons), food and recipes (staring at the pantry at 5 pm), and even romance (on occasion).

Here are some stories that might make the news if parents wrote the headlines:

Missing Mitten Rocks Morning

The mudroom was overturned this morning as a search was conducted for a missing mitten. “It looks blue and black just like the other one, except the thumb is on the other side,” said a boy familiar with the item. After searching through several backpacks, shelves, and the entirety of the floor, it was eventually found in the storage bin, exactly where it was supposed to be. While the children involved made it to the bus on time, their mother was left to deal with the resulting chaos of the mudroom on her own.

Coffee Shortage Leaves Mom in Crisis

A local mom opened her pantry today to discover she was out of coffee beans. “I don’t know how this happened,” she said, sounding close to tears, “I was just at Target yesterday.” Sources close to the family report that it had been her third trip to the popular big box department store chain this week alone. She was seen again this morning at her local Target, where despite purchasing two pounds of coffee beans, she also left the store with an iced coffee with oat milk from the in-store Starbucks.

Brothers: The Worst Ever

Our special 7-year-old correspondent reports that “brothers are the worst ever” after they “ruined” her day by not listening while playing a game and also taking six crayons. This is despite the fact that other reports suggest a bin filled with hundreds of crayons sitting next to her and that the game was made up with ill-defined rules. Despite those facts, our 7-year-old correspondent advises you to use caution when interacting with someone who could, in fact, be a brother.

Read more parental headlines over on Twin Cities Mom Collective!

Morning Routine Reality Check

Ah, morning routines. There’s something about the allure of the millennial morning routine, which, according to TikTok, is some combination of drinking a glass of water, working out, skincare, supplements, making your bed, coffee, and having a paleo-Keto-Whole 30-approved-grain-and-dairy-free breakfast. 

These routines…are not my reality. Well, besides the skincare. But I never make my bed.

The thing is, off our screens, real-life pops up, no matter how aspirational a routine we had planned for the day. Instead of a glow-y filter with perky music and “6:00 am” text floating across the screen as you rise out of bed, the baby was up several times that night, so you fight to stay in bed as long as possible. A kid throws a tantrum over getting dressed or brushing their teeth, and that was 20 minutes you didn’t plan for. Cheerios and milk get splashed across the entire kitchen floor. School gets moved to distance learning which doesn’t throw off only the morning but your entire week.

I do have a morning routine, though I’m not sure how aspirational it is. Maybe less aspirational and more relatable? Below, I present to you one Mom’s morning routine reality check. This is no TikTok video, so please imagine some dramatic Rocky-esque music while you read through:

6:30: Lie in bed semi-awake, hoping to fall asleep again.
7:00: Alarm rings. Hit snooze.
7:09: Turn off alarm. Take quick scroll through Instagram and weather forecast.

Read the rest over at Twin Citie’s Mom Collective.

That Minivan Life

Brooklyn and Nolan tumble into the mudroom where they kick off their sandals. I’m right behind them, glass of iced-coffee-going-to-water in hand. 

“You have one hour. I’m going to eat breakfast. Make sure your teeth are brushed and you find your water bottles before we head out again.” They scamper off to play and (hopefully) follow directions.

Summer began barely a week ago and already I feel as though I’ve been living in my minivan.

Our day kicked off with a near hour-long trek to drop Caden off at Summer Academy by 8 am. (Praise hands that concludes before The Fourth.) Brooklyn and Nolan have PlayNet on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9:30-noon. There have been playdates and park meet-ups. There will be day camps.

I’m already regretting not taking advantage of the bussing option to get Caden to and from Summer Academy. I thought I was saving him close to an hour each way. Well, I am, but I didn’t stop to think who would be spending that hour driving instead. *insert raised hand and slap-face emojis here* Tyson told me we should bus him and let it be known in writing here today honey that you were right.

(Also, the pollution. Why didn’t I do the communal drive option? I mean, I guess we hardly went anywhere last summer—the first eight weeks of lockdown we didn’t fill up a tank of gas once— so maybe I’m allocated some extra miles this year? Still. Ugh.)

This minivan life can be chaotic. And I’m not talking about the lunacy that is Minnesota roads under construction in the summertime. I’m talking about what happens inside those marvelous power-glide, push-of-a-button sliding doors.

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There are kids who expect me to do some sort of backward yoga move to retrieve whatever toy/snack/piece of trash they dropped while also navigating us safely through traffic. Kids fighting over things like “looking at me” and “breathing” and “maybe they rolled their eyes at me.” There’s the general state of the car, what with the leftover Starbucks cups and granola wrappers and Goldfish dust and LEGO pieces which are expressly forbidden to leave the house but somehow migrate out to the minivan anyway. (That they escape in pockets and tiny fists while I distractedly dash through the house to go to the bathroom, yell at everyone else to go to the bathroom, ensure everyone has a water bottle, mask, and shoes, and run back in the house because I forgot at least one of these things is just a guess.)

We’re managing. Wow in the World has already emerged as the podcast of choice to get us through the long drives to and from Summer Academy. Water bottles and snacks are a must, even if stray pretzels and fruit snacks end up atrophying on the floor. 

Sometimes we’re more than managing. There are giggles during the podcast, even if it’s about poop and I’ve already heard that word or one of its many iterations 34 times that morning. Sometimes we sing along to Hamilton or Taylor Swift. Yesterday they practiced the song and actions they’ll be performing at church on Sunday, Nolan’s voice practically shouting despite the song being called “One Small Voice.” (Guess that title is only a nice suggestion.) 

There’s Caden climbing into the car after Summer Academy, full of stories about his day and reminders for tomorrow. “I made my picture like this and no one else did it this way, Mommy. They all made a flower because that was the example but I decided to do something different!” and “Don’t forget we need to wear our Summer Academy shirts tomorrow.” and “I spent my fifty cents of snack money on a Fruit by the Foot because you never buy them so I took my chance.”

There are the times where we drive and it’s blessedly quiet and I see their big blue eyes staring out the windows as the trees and the lakes and the buildings pass by. They seem to be just taking it all in and I think, “This is nice.”

I’ve only ever thought of the minivan as a thing to get us from point A to point B; from this one thing we’re doing to that other thing we’re doing. It’s time to kill: please sit down and buckle up and let me think and don’t ask too many questions. But having spent several hours in the car each day this week, I’m discovering it’s all its own time. 

It might not be exactly how I wish I were spending my time, which would preferably be reading a book in a hammock with a light breeze, cold drink, and children playing in the background. (Reader, my children never play in the background.) (Also, I don’t own a hammock. Details.) At the very least, I might wish I were listening to a podcast of my choice instead of the same few episodes of Wow in the World on repeat.

I’ve heard people talk about how much time they spend in the car running kids around, how they feel like a chauffeur, and I thought, Surely they’re exaggerating. Guess not. I have spent so. much. time. in my minivan this week. This wholly ordinary thing I never thought all that much about when it was only eight minutes to school and back, twelve minutes to dance class, ten to hit up McDonald’s for Happy Meals. 

All these drop-offs and pick-ups and the kids are there and so am I. We’re our own little universe bumping down the road, and sometimes they fight over who gets to put their hand where and I wonder if I should even bother with the ground-in crackers in the carpet and other times they ask about each other’s days and pass around compliments like candy and sing along to We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together and it’s both harmonious and also entirely off-key.

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This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series "Minutiae".