"You loved me more when I was a baby," said my seven-year-old son Walker as we looked at our family album.

I nuzzled his hair, and said, "I adore you more every day. I loved how cozy you were then, but now you’re able to talk.  You can read to me, and I don't have to change your diapers."

Walker seemed satisfied with my incomplete answer. I turned off his bedroom light and went back to the photos. There he was, newborn, in a penguin pantsuit with matching cap. His skin looked red and blotchy, and his eyes were shut. At six months, he was still bald, but smiling, like a wise Buddha.  At two, he had long wisps of yellow hair and clutched a Thomas the Train.

Now, Walker's head is covered in blond curls, and his two front teeth are missing. He looks like a vampire cherub.

I love all the Walkers. To me, he is an ever-transforming miracle. 

I will always remember all that Walker was. I know that's how many parents get through their children's adolescences. When their teenager has baggy pants hanging off his butt, body odor and a nipple ring, they remember a four-year-old who loved dinosaurs. When fifteen-year-old Walker is embarrassed to have me pick him up at school, I'll remember when he asked me to marry him.

I change, too.

The last time my parents visited, my mother stared at the age furrow on my forehead. It must feel odd to have one's children begin to look old.

I believe in an afterlife, but I wonder how it works. Do we get to pick our age?  

I would prefer the body I had at eighteen, and the mind I had at forty. I want Walker to be a little boy, but I doubt he'd make the same choice.  

Whatever ages we chose, I think we would eventually get bored.  

Human life is spent in motion, and I don't think I could adjust to being static. We exist as trajectory lines, not points, and I suspect that in heaven, we will get to evolve, too.  

By Beth Touchette

Labels: adolescence, afterlife, baggy pants, Beth Touchette, Buddha, cherub, diapers, dinosaurs, miracle, nipple ring, Thomas the Train, vampire

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“Today Phoebe asked me why I wear dresses all the time,” said my eight-year old daughter, Lena, one day after school.

In denial that girlie peer pressure, which I remembered from middle school, was starting in the third grade, I gave Lena’s classmate the benefit of the doubt.

“You know, Lena, sometimes kids have trouble making conversation.  Perhaps Phoebe just wants to talk with you, and discussing clothes is a way to start.  May be she likes dresses, too. ”

Lena gave me a puzzled look.  “Last week, when I wore my satin skirt, Phoebe asked if I was going to the prom,” said Lena. “Phoebe hates dresses.” 

Come to think of it, during the two years that Lena and Phoebe were in the same class, I had only seen her wearing jeans and thin, pastel T-shirts.  It didn’t matter if it was too cold for a T-shirt or too hot for jeans; Phoebe’s outfit was the same.   Phoebe’s  T-shirts either had botanically incorrect flowers, Hannah  Montana, or “edgy” slogans like “Boys Drool and Girls Rule. ” Most of the girls at Lena’s elementary school dressed in the same can’t-wait-to-be-a teenager outfit.

“Well, why do you care what Phoebe thinks?” I said, which is probably the most naïve thing a parent can say to a child.”

A couple days later, Lena wore a black skirt, bright green T-shirt, black leggings, and a black small sweater.  I thought the strong colors made her look particularly beautiful. She was upset when I picked her up. 

“Mom, today Phoebe, Michaela, Niki, and Camaron all asked me together why I was dressed all in black, like a witch.”

I patted Lena’s head until she felt better.  As we drove home, my eleven-year old son, Walker, who is soon to be in middle school said, “You know Mom, may be Lena needs to start dressing like the other girls.”

I couldn’t help clicking with disgust.  “Why does she need to follow everybody else?”

“So she can be popular, and fit in,” said Walker

“Aren’t the popular people the ones who think for themselves?”  I said.   I let my kids put in a CD, so I could have the last word. 

The next day, I picked up Elena after going to the gym.  I wore a T-shirt that shrank too much in the wash.  As I sat on the bench while I waited for Elena to load her backpack, I noticed Michaela staring at the bit of my stomach that my T-shirt revealed.  Michaela then looked at her mother, and rolled her eyes. Michaela’s mother rolled her eyes back at Michaela.  I turned crimson and frantically yanked by shirt so it would stretch into my shorts.  I was still shaken as Lena, Walker and I walked back to the car. 

I hoped Lena hadn’t seen anything, but she had noticed the eye roll, and worst of all, my embarrassment. All she said was, “Aren’t Michaela and her mom mean?”

I agreed, and finally understood what Lena had to face every day. 

By Beth Touchette

 

Labels: Beth Touchette, black skirt, CD, dresses, elementary school, Hannah Montana, peer pressure, T-shirts

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Yesterday, I saw an orange "Baby on Board" diamond dangling in a minivan. I remembered seeing lots of those signs in the eighties, but I thought "Baby on Board" had disappeared, like torn Flashdance clothing, excess black eyeliner and fluffy hair.

As a twenty-something, I thought the signs insinuated that I had some control as to whether I collided into the parents' car. "Oh no, they have a baby on board," I would tell my college friends as we drove to the I-Beam nightclub. "We'll have to rear-end someone else!"

Now, I can see the point of a baby on board sign. It is not a warning FOR others drivers, it is a warning TO other drivers. I'm ashamed to admit that I've held the wheel with my left hand as I reached back with my right hand to locate and then stuff a pacifier into my screaming infant son's mouth while driving sixty miles an hour.

While navigating the steep hills of San Francisco, I have inserted the “Lilo and Stitch” CD and read the cover to locate the "Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride" track to sooth my irrational, but inconsolable, three-year old daughter. Driving across the Richmond Bridge, I've torn open a bag of Goldfish with my teeth, only momentarily taking my eyes off the road.

Now, my kids are six and eight, but they still affect my driving in a negative way. My son and daughter recently started arguing whether the Easter bunny is married like Santa Claus. After their disagreement escalated to punches, I had to arbitrate, while signaling to make a left turn off Sir Francis Drake Blvd.

Occasionally, on the way back from school, my children say titillating phrases like, "My knee bled all over the place today." or "Nobody is my friend anymore." I get to be a counselor at thirty mph.

Anyway, may be I should get one of those "Baby or Kid on Board" signs. Of course, I'll only hang up my diamond when cell phone users, tooth flossers and make-up artists display their own symbols as well.

By Beth Touchette

Labels: Baby on Board, Beth Touchette, cell phones, Easter bunny, eighties, Flashdance, Lilo and Stitch, San Francisco, Santa Claus

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On Friday, my husband and I toured the middle school our fifth-grade son will be attending next year.  I recognized parents I hadn’t seen in years, since our kids attended different elementary schools.   We had chatted at the playground as we pushed our babies in swings, or may be we had crossed paths at Mommy and Me Music Class.  All had larger waistlines and more wrinkled foreheads than I remembered.   

We listened politely to the middle-school principal.  She didn’t have the soft, sweet voice of an elementary school principal.  She told us how important it was to check our kids’ agenda every day, since our kids might lie to us as to whether they had homework or not.

I stopped listening. 

Walker would never lie to me.  I know Walker will never go near alcohol, or marijuana.  His cheeks will never grow rough whiskers, nor will his armpits stink.  My little boy has only been with me ten years and I’m not ready for him to change into a lying, odiferous youth who would rather hang out with other lying, odiferous males than me. 

I refocused once we started the tour.  We stopped by the gym first, where the eight graders were playing basketball.  Many of the kids seemed tall enough to touch the basketball hoop. Several of the girls were already one or two bra cup sizes beyond my chest.

We moved to sixth grade language arts class. I was relieved that the boys looked like kids, although the girls still looked like teenagers.  The principal asked the students what they liked about middle school.  One freckle-faced boy said he liked having several teachers and moving from class to class, because the day wasn’t so boring.  A girl with long-blond braids said she liked how she met so many new people from the other elementary schools. I asked the kids if they had any advice for us parents.  One brown- haired boy said to tell our kids to do their work, because now they had to get real As, Bs, and Cs: not 1s, 2s, and 3s. 

I gulped. 

I hoped my Walker’s somewhat laissez faire attitude towards homework wouldn’t result in a 2.0 grade point average.

That night, I read Greek myths to Walker.  He positioned his head in the crook of my arm.   I wonder how much longer he was going to do this.   I thought about asking him, but I didn’t want to make him aware that our nighttime ritual will be something he will outgrow. 

 That’s the one advantage I have in this growing up thing.  I know for certain he is going to change, but I don’t think he really believes it is going to happen.

By Beth Touchette

Labels: basketball, Beth Touchette, bra sizes, elementary school, grades, gym class, middle school, Mommy and Me Music Class, principals, teenagers

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Last Wednesday, I had the day off from work, but my own grade school children had class.  

My day was wide open from eight-thirty to three.

Sure, I could have graded a pile of papers, organized my son’s drawers, or stained the deck; but when I awoke to that fogless, windless, October morning, I knew what I had to do. 

Go to the beach.

At breakfast, I mentioned my plans to my husband. 

“I would never do that,” he said, as if going to the beach on a workday was the moral equivalent of having an affair.

I made sure the workmen who were installing our furnace all week were not looking when I loaded my boogie board, towel and snacks into the car.  I didn’t want them to think I was a good for nothing woman of leisure.  Plus, I didn’t want them to know I would be gone all day.

I thought again about staying home. 

I could answer any questions they might have, or create some PowerPoints for my class.  Of course, the workers could always call me or better yet, my husband.  

I walked along Stinson Beach, watching the morning light sparkle on the receding and approaching waves.

Pleasantly worn out, I spread my towel and lay down.  I didn’t miss my children’s arguments about who brought which beach toys, or whining about not being able to eat a sandy sandwich.

After a while, I decided it was time to boogie board.  The ocean was freezing.  Not wanting to dip my chest in the water, I missed catching the first big wave.  When the next one came -- I was ready. 

I swam furiously, and caught the break. 

I rode twenty feet to shore and back, nearly colliding with a seventy-year old couple. 

Then I did it again.

As I ran to the sea, I was glad that my non-maternal, non-professional, non-wifely self had persevered.

By Beth Touchette

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I learned a lot about education by not teaching my four-year-old daughter how to swim last summer.

From September to June, I work as a science teacher.  When I took Elena to the pool for the first time last summer, I decided I would teach her to swim since I was a credentialed professional, unlike the teens that staffed the swim school. 

"Come on, kick, kick, kick."

After we were ten feet from the cement pool stairs, Elena began to sob. "Mama, take me back to the steps."

"I'm holding you," I said. Elena stopped swimming and curled her legs around me. She would not budge until we were back at the steps. "Hey Elena, when you were two you let me take you out further than this," I said, more to myself than to her.

I continued the swim lesson near the cement steps to the annoyance of everyone trying to get in and out of the pool.  I had Elena sit on the side. "Come on, you've done a sit jump before. Just slip in. I'll catch you."

"No, I'm scared."

Elena wouldn't budge. The ‘cling to mama routine’ continued day after day.  Desperate, I decided to try bribery.

"Elena, if you jump in three times for me I'll get you a Beanie Baby."

"That's not fair," said Elena’s six-year old brother, Walker, "You don’t give me toys for swimming."

"OK, OK. If Elena jumps in three times I'll get you a Beanie Baby, too, if you encourage her."

As Elena was getting into her swimming suit she said, "I'm going to do it, Mama, so I can get a pink doggie."

I jumped into the icy water and waited for Elena's leap. She didn’t move. I picked her up, but as usual she refused to release her legs or arms from my neck.

"C’mon Elena, you can swim! Be a mermaid," Walker said in saccharine voice.

"Show her how you can do it," I said. "Do you want a Beanie Baby? You've got to support her."

Walker jumped in three times.

Elena approached the side of the pool, but again her feet wouldn't move.

Realizing I was defeated, I signed up for lessons. 

Elena's swim instructor, Sarah, was a curly haired fifteen-year old with a nose ring. She told the three other five-year olds to sit at the pool's edge until class began. While Elena and her class waited, Sarah flirted with the lifeguard. She began the class by asking the kids to hop into the pool and hold onto the side. Everybody, including Elena, jumped in without a whimper. They began to kick furiously. One by one, while the others waited, Sarah took a child out to practice. When Elena's turn came she sat her body on Sarah's arm, blew bubbles and kicked, without a complaint. 

I did notice Elena’s face looked a bit pinched.

Five lessons later, Elena was doing cannon balls and dog paddling across the width of the pool.

I don't think I was a bad swim teacher.

I think my mistake was in not understanding that the relationship between teacher and student is as important as the “curriculum.” Mothers offer security, while instructors encourage risk taking. 

Unfortunately, I could not fill both rolls at the same time. 

By Beth Touchette

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This week I flew, alone, from San Francisco to New York City.  On both legs of the trip, I had two-hour layovers in Denver.  My parents live in Boulder, which is over an hour from the airport.  I didn’t have enough time to visit, but I did call them.

Dad gave me suggestions for good airport food, not an oxymoron anymore, and I described what I hoped to see in New York.  We talked about movies.  I told him how much more I liked Iron Man than I expected.

“Robert Downey Jr. sure brought some depth to that role,” Dad added.  The flight attendants gave the first boarding call. I told Dad I had to go.

Five days later, I was back in the Denver airport. I called Dad again.  If he had other things to do, he didn’t show it.  I told him all about walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, seeing the Egyptian tombs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and going out for dinner at eleven p.m. 

Dad told me about his short time as a bachelor in New York City.  Not being much of a cook, he would take a sample of his boiling spaghetti and throw it on the ceiling.  If the piece stuck, the pasta was done. 

“Good thing you met Mom,” I said.

We talked about my brother and sister, and the weather in Denver.  We agreed that it might rain later in the day.  Then, it was time to board the plane.

I always think about death at take-off, at least for a little while.  I grab my husband’s and children’s hands, if they are around.  As my plane leveled out in the stratosphere, I thought that calling my dad was kind of a surrogate hand hold.

I remembered what my friend, Sophia, said three months after her mother died. “I got through the funeral OK, and it wasn’t like my everyday life changed since we lived four hundred miles away from each other.  But what still gets me is the phone.  I pick it up to tell Mom my good news or about my horrible day, and I realize that I can’t reach her any more.”

I have my own house, husband and kids, and state, but I’m still attached to my parents. 

After my first day of kindergarten, my mother dutifully listened to my rambling synopsis of the day. 

 Forty years later, my parents are still listening.  I dread the day when they can’t. 

 By Beth Touchette

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Until last month, my main job was being a mom to my son, Walker, and daughter, Elena. I filled nine years with nursing, changing diapers, sweeping Cheerios, preschool and play dates. Although I always worked part-time as a tutor or elementary school science teacher, I made sure that my kids' schedules came first.

Now, I'm teaching high school biology full-time.

I'm responsible for other people's children, and my kids go to before and after school daycare every day. My husband wakes Walker and Elena up and makes their breakfasts and lunches, because I have to be at school by 7:30.

When I pick up my kids as the sky is getting dark, I'm exhausted. Some days, I'm just too tired to help them with their homework or play a game with them. Instead, I ask if they want to lie next to me on the couch and watch "Sponge Bob" and "The Fairly Odd Parents."

Driving back from daycare one day, Elena reported that her friend, Anna, told Ms. Bruner's second-grade class that she wanted to be a mom when she grew up. Walker snickered and said, "Being a mom isn't a real job."

I stopped the car, so I could turn around and glare at him.

"Being a mom is one of the most important jobs in the world. Do you know how much work it was to feed you, potty train you, and keep you happy?"

"But now I go to school," said Walker

"Your school would fall apart without all the moms who give their time, for free." I gave a dramatic pause. "Who do you think drives on those field trips, organizes those October fundraisers, or volunteers to help with math?"

"But you work, and you're still a mom," said Walker.

I felt like saying, ‘Yeah, but now I'm a cruddy mom who does take-out for dinner and forgets to prepare my kids for Friday spelling tests.’

I wondered if Walker knew that I couldn't name more than three kids in his class. When he was in second grade, I volunteered once a week to help with science or math, and I knew every child's name and face. I thought of how I no longer knew how much organic smooth peanut butter we had in the refrigerator, because my helpful spouse had taken over lunch duty.

I thought about how long it had been since I had culled the too short pants out of Walker's drawer, or dusted anything. I thought about the two withered house plants that had paid the ultimate price because of my lack of domestic concentration.

I thought of the scratchy pencil sketches Elena had drawn for her homework cornucopia project, while other mothers had lovingly supplied tempura paint, glitter, and magazine clippings. I didn't even know Elena had the assignment.

I thought of how I paid VISA two weeks late, because it had gotten buried in my To-Do pile on my dresser.

"Being a parent is a full-time job, Walker. We just don't get paid for it. "

I felt like continuing, ‘I have TWO full time careers now and I'm not doing a great job with either.’

Instead, I said, "You probably both will have lots of jobs when you are grown up. Just remember that the value of the work is not how much you get paid, but how much good you do. Being your Mom is the most important work I'll ever do."

By Beth Touchette

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I remember the first time I picked up my husband, then boyfriend, at the airport. It was ten years before 9/11, so I was able to meet Reese at the gate. I positioned myself at his flight's assigned jet way exit fifteen minutes before his scheduled arrival.

The first person off was a forty-ish looking man in a suit. He wrapped his arms around his wife and two kids. I walked closer to the door, figuring Reese would soon be exiting. A couple more business travelers trotted past. A family with a stroller came out. The guy holding a sign for Mr. Fred Jones found him. A flight attendant exited with her rollaway bag. Still, Reese did not emerge. I began to look for a pay phone to check my answering machine for messages. I was surprised when Reese hugged me from behind.

"What happened? Were you on a different plane?" I asked.

"No, I always sit and read while everyone else rushes out."

I was amazed. He sat for five hours in a cramped plane, yet after landing, he wanted to sit an extra twenty minutes.

Our differences in airplane style became more apparent the first time we rode an airplane together, to meet Reese's parents in Virginia. We got to the gate with about twenty minutes to spare. Reese sat, reading his soccer magazine. Just after the announcement offering early boarding to children traveling alone and others who need a little extra time, Reese announced he was going to the bathroom. Our row was called. Still no Reese. I contemplated getting on the plane myself, but then decided I didn't want to be alone visiting Reese's parents. Just as the flight attendant made the final boarding call, Reese sat down next to me.

"That was close," I said.

"We have lots of time. They won't close the door for another five minutes. I hate the airplane bathrooms. Are you sure you don't want to go?"

I shook my head. Once we got seated, Reese reopened his soccer magazine and ignored the flight attendant's safety instructions. I pretended not to be listening, but as usual, I held the laminated instruction card and looked for the closest exits, both in front of and behind me.

The plane began to lift. I knew that was the time for engines to blow-up and wings to fail. I grabbed Reese's hand. He used his other to keep his soccer magazine open. We landed in Reese's home airport, Washington National, which is about twenty minutes from his parents' house. I was perplexed that neither of his parents was at the gate to meet us. Reese walked up to the pay phone. "I'm going to tell my parents we’re in and on our way."

"Your parents are home, but they don't pick you up at the airport?"

"No, my parents travel too much to ask to be picked up at the airport, and they don't do it for anybody else."

As we waited for a cab, I remembered how my father always drove an hour from Boulder to the Denver airport. He'd get to the gate early to make sure he was there when I emerged from the plane.

Over our ten years of marriage, Reese and I have worked on our airplane incompatibility. Through consistent nagging, I've gotten him to make his bathroom visits before the plane starts boarding. I've come to appreciate waiting till the crowd exits before leaving the plane, especially now that we have two young children.

Reese agrees with me that it is wonderful to have family meet you at the airport, even if the reunions can't be at the gate anymore.

Ever since our first flight together, Reese has held my hand during take-off, usually without me having to ask. During our last family flight together, our seven-year son, Walker, refused to take my hand as the plane tilted upward. Instead, he held both his hands in the air, like he was riding a roller coaster. I let go of Reese's hand, and we all held our arms up, to ear level.

We were starting our own airplane tradition.

By Beth Touchette

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My six-year old daughter believes in fairies.

I think it might have started with that scene in Peter Pan when Tinkerbell is near death. Only the chant, "I do believe in fairies, I do, I do," resuscitates her. Sometimes I hear Elena mumbling that chant as she draws fairies, always with long hair and double wings.

Elena constructs offerings for the tiny fairies that inhabit our backyard. She folds ivy leaves around peanut M&Ms and coins and reinforces them with clear tape. "The fairies are my best friends," Elena said one day.

Stumbling, I said, "Aren't I your best friend?"

"You are my mommy, not my friend," she chided me.

Trying to be casual, I asked Elena what the fairies do to earn best friend status. “They gave Annika fairy dust. I want the fairies to leave some for me, too. Annika sprinkled some on a dead squirrel and it came back to life."

"I don't know if fairy magic is that powerful."

"It is Mama. When I get some fairy dust, I'm going to sprinkle it over the bunnies' graves, and they’ll come back to life.”

"But those bunnies have been dead for a couple of months. They've become parts of worms and plants. If they come back to life, the worms and plants will die."

Elena seemed confused. So was I.

A couple of days ago, Elena asked if we could have a tea party for the fairies. "Sure, let's make some invitations," I said.

Elena made fairy drawings, and she asked me to write, in the fanciest cursive, the time, date and location of our party. We decided on Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m., after her non-believing nine-year old brother had gone to school.

Elena took the invitation down to the birdhouse she had redesigned as a fairy home. It had a perch by the front door and medal lid positioned on its side so the fairies could study their reflections. I noticed Elena had taken three plants from my flower bed and put them into tiny plastic pots next to our home. Placing the invitation on top of the house, Elena said, "I can't wait for you to meet the fairies!"

The day of fairy party arrived. I made Earl Grey tea, and put it in a ceramic tea pot I hadn't used in ten years. Elena insisted on arranging ten chocolate cookies on a plate. "Fairies like cookies a lot." I suppressed my urge to make some phone calls for work, do the breakfast dishes, or sweep our hallway.

We sat on our deck, drinking our tea. I thought Elena would be upset that the fairies didn't come, but she seemed content sitting still, listening for fairy giggles in the nearby rose bush.

"Fairies are very shy," she said.

By Beth Touchette

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