Dinnertime Joys... A Day in the Life of Mommyhood

To remember it before time erodes it, I want to document one "normal" evening with a 5 and 2 year old. The bewitching hours start around 4 and usually last until after dinner - whenever that ends up being. That is the time when, if I am trying to cook dinner, the dam of chaos breaks and leaves me in a wake of tension and frustration. No lie, one night's example follows... I'm making dinner for someone who's just had a baby, because I know what it's like to have a baby and feel overwhelmed and feel like you don't exist anymore because now you're just a vessel for feeding, changing and nurturing another soul. "Mommy, mommy, mommy... mommy, mommy," my 5 year old keeps asking. "What?" (thinking, I wish she would just start talking without ensuring my every ounce of attention is on her before starting her tirade). Mommy, can I watch the deep seas movie?" (referring to Blue Planet and her love/hate/fear obsession of the deep ocean creatures) "Maybe in a minute," I reply already feeling guilty for the TV she's been watching too much of this day. I'm trying to vy for time so she might get wrapped up in playing with a toy or making a craft, instead of being attached to the mind-sucking device in our family room. Then the 2 year old kicks in, "Mommy, I wanna wach diego-go." "Not right now," I reply, for the same reason as the 5 year old. A 2 year old fit ensues as I try to think of what I have to make next in the dinner process. And of course, I give in and turn on their respective shows because otherwise, I won't get a single thing done. The guilt continues to simmer. Okay, rice is on to cook, should I get out the steamer or boil the broccoli? I hate cleaning that steamer, it's too big and it's a pain to wash. Too may parts for such small job. The phone rings, and of course, it is Dave. The one person I'd love to talk to, and the one person I am annoyed with at the same time - because he is the only person I'd even pick up the phone for right now. He's great because he bought me a cordless headset so I can answer calls and have my hands free. This is a huge help. But it doesn't solve the need for me to have my brain free so I can actually concentrate on anything. There's a knock at the door. It's the pest-control guy explaining to me where all the ants were actually coming from and how he's sprayed here, there, and up there, and as he's talking I can feel my sinuses contracting from the whiffs of poison ('organic' mind you) that I'm sure are wafting off his clothes and cover his pen that he needs me to sign the paperwork with. I'm getting a headache as he talks, and wishing my body was not so sensitive to the stuff. No one else, including the pest-control guy, is having a problem. Lucky me. Back to Dave on the phone, and the casserole sauce that is now bubbling over on the stove, and the 5 year old telling me the tv is all messed up and my cooking show is on and will I come fix it right now?! The 2 year old yelling from the bedroom because her show has switched to Paula Dean's white-haired, Carolinian face and southern drawl instead of Diegogo. Can I help it if my awesome husband has set up our 2nd DVR to record 30-minute meals for me? I still love me some Rachel Ray - I don't care if she is overly marketed. She is the one human being in this world who taught me how to cook as I emerged from the depths of a post-pardom black cloud. Without her, I still wouldn't know how to chop an onion or even what a bechemel sauce was. I tell Dave I have to go. So I yell at the girls and tell them they will HAVE TO WAIT, I have hot oil on the stove. I finally cut up the raw chicken (with non-latex gloves on b/c I have recently realized I hate touching raw chicken, It's just gross) and get the nasty cutting board and knife into the dishwasher. Luckily, I got out the disposible containers earlier and they're ready for the food. Quiet the beep, beep, beeping of the timer because the rice is supposedly done now. Insert crying child neediness into the mix. Turn off the heat there, take the chicken out of the pan and peel 2 kids off my leg as I momentarily ponder... No wonder Rachel Ray loves cooking - she doesn't have 2 screaming, crying, persisting, painful-top-of-the-foot-standing needs consistantly interrupting her flow. Man, I told Dave earlier, I analyzed if I was just better at handling stress at work earlier in my lifetime, and if I'm just terrible at it now. And I realize, NO! There was never a time at work where a co-worker peed on the carpet while I was trying to make a presentation. Never did a co-worker not respond reasonably when I had to finish a task. No crying, no diapering or immediate feedings required. No toy mediation, tv distraction, or time-outs ever occurred while I hacked away at work deadlines. In fact, I was actually able to focus on one, maybe two, things at a time. I have gotten so down on myself that I can no longer multi-task (something I used to be really good at). I realize now, the extent of muti-tasking required to be a mother is inhumane. There is no way to do twenty things at the same time and do them well. SO THERE, UNIVERSE! I AM NOT A BAD MOTHER - YOU JUST ASK TOO MUCH! Eventually I get the dinner made, and the kids in the car to deliver it (which is no small task, because we need 3 blankies and a bottle before we can go, OH - don't forget the shoes), because as luck would have it Dave is driving back from some work meeting in Dallas and I am on my own. Joy. I realize as I am almost to the new mom's house that I've only been there once before and I don't remember the exact location and did I even bring a phone number for her? What if I can't find this place. Luckily, I do. Plug for heavenly intervention here: I narrowed it down to 2 houses and a guy was tinkiering with his bike in the garage at one of them so I was able to use deductive reasoning that the mostly-naked guy was not her husband. Her baby is beautiful and I leave there feeling glad that I could do something to help someone else. Re-enter the car, and the war zone: Mama, mama, I need my bwankie! Mom, she hit me in the face with it so it's over there now. Mediate fight. Regardless of dinner cooked and waiting at home (from earlier labors) I am exhausted and only want them to sleep. I end up at Sonic just so I can keep them strapped in the car and not terrorizing the kitchen (which I would, of course, have to reassemble later). Seriously, are chicken strips and tater tots wrong if they buy you a second of peace? Even if you rely on them too much? Insert guily conscience here. Then blow off guilty conscience with rationalized argument of imagined dinner-at-home-fight that occurs whenever I cook and try to make them eat something new. Then look around the disaster of a kitchen and think "and I did all that for THIS?" Seriously, and they wonder why LDS women in Utah use more Prozac than any other state. Any other woman at this point would be self-medicating with large amounts of wine. Any man would be tuned out watching sports or the news while the kids ransacked the house for someone else to clean up later. It's only because we women CARE, that we stress about it. I will forgo delving into the other feelings that bubble under the surface during all of this, but will only mention them briefly. Thoughts of how I have no underlying mommy-ness about me; how I wish so much to be doing something I was good at and that gave recognition and a paycheck but know that the guilt of daycare would cancel out any other positives thereof; how I wish I had any clue how to entertain my kids with crafts or games but always come up woefully emty-handed, wishing there was a How to Entertain Your Kids Without TV class at the local community college; how if I only knew WHAT I wanted to do outside the home, I would attack it full-force, and mercifully that knowledge has been kept from me, most likely for the sake of my children - and when I am in my right-mind, I am deeply grateful for that. I know now, only slightly, how grateful I'll be for not missing out on the giggles and the cute faces and the silly sayings that happen when I'm not looking for them. When time has passed and I have 2 adults instead of 2 children, I have a feeling I will be so glad I did not shirk this job, this most important, passing task. Dinners and all...