It’s 7:55 a.m. I’ve made breakfast, changed the toddler’s diaper and clothes, consumed one cup of coffee, made and packed lunches, and am waiting for the outcome of one of two classic getting-to-school-scenarios: 1) everything moves according to plan; 2) nothing moves according to plan.

I stand by the front door, open it, glance at my watch. “It’s time to leave!” I announce hopefully, trying not to betray the mounting tension, doubt and anxiety the last five minutes at home often produces on school days.

The third grader arrives. She has spent the last fifteen minutes wrapping her forearm in toilet paper, held together like a cast with scotch tape, because she “hurt it falling out of bed.” The voice inside my head, disbelieving, scornfully asks, “What IS it with you?” I would never have gotten away with this kind of plea for attention.

And then the first-grader: she appears, this time, with hair and teeth unbrushed, socks and shoes not even found, her breakfast half-eaten, some still on her face. “Mommy, I brought this especially for you,” she says in a tender, meaningful voice, as if to say, I Love You With All My Heart and there is NOTHING else that matters, especially school.

“How S-w-e-e-t,” I manage to get out while I glance at my watch and evil-eye the plastic sparkle ring that she’s offering me perched atop a bed pillow. Time ticks, toddler begins to run amok. The internal voice again, louder, “I asked you to brush your hair and get your shoes four times already and you never listen and now it’s time to leave and we’ll probably be LATE.” Thanks, I say. It’s time for school. Time to GET IN THE CAR, I say. Do you UNDERSTAND?

Then the toddler comes in the house and throws a handful of dirt from the potted plant on the Persian runner, like an offering of the worst kind, straight at my feet. I begin to assume the look of a crazed and rabid dog.

Recently, I put an old, paint-peeling Adirondack chair on our front porch. It is my official time-out spot. I go there almost every morning to remember how to breathe.

Breathe, write, breathe, write….

by Lauren Cargill

Labels: Adirondack chair, breathe, Coffee, diapers, front porch, Lauren Cargill, Persian Rug, Scotch Tape, toilet paper, unbrushed teeth, write

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My eight-year old is clearly overwhelmed.

I sit in front of the computer listening to, and striving to maintain, some level of empathy for my daughter’s crying jag. But I realize that it’s the byproduct of a life-long collision course in self-discipline. She lies on her bed at once pouting and sobbing.

“I’d rather spend the whole day in bed than do this project!”

And how best do you respond to a third grader who bemoans the fact that she can’t spend her Sunday afternoon shopping with Dad because her first real research project is due in two days? You talk to her. You show her how. You convince her to take the reigns of her own self and break the task into smaller pieces. It’s fun! I used to LOVE homework!

But the yelling and lecture fail. She’s still in uncontrollable tears. I dig for the empathy. (Dig, dig, dig…)

I come from the ethic that you must be responsible and finish your work. Do it the right way, before having fun. And it wasn’t until the freedom of college that I had any sense of option about the matter. It is in this practical mode that I commit the heinous act of erasing a sentence at the end of her report so that she could write more and be factually correct.

She now comes completely unglued. I have to take a step back and be human, not Mom. Not a scholar. Do you remember third grade? After my family moved to Washington D.C., in the sixth grade, I clearly remember being overburdened by school. Arkansas elementary schools hadn’t even required a research project, but once I enrolled in a prep school, there were moments I went crazy from the pressure. The amount of work we’d cram into three to four hours every night seemed relentless.

The top mark, grade A, was rare to come by. B+s were more common. Mother helped me study until she gave it up for her own labors in law school. And I seemed to get the hang of things better once I became more familiar with the study process in general and less naïve about the teacher’s expectations.

I do remember Mom’s sense of empathy and compassion one night. She said, “Lauren, I don’t know how you’re going to get through all this!” Followed by, “You can do it. I know you can.” We had the first quarter of medieval history laid out on the dining room table and an exam the next day. It seems, in retrospect, as if she were saying the same doubt/little cheer to herself, the young, self-conscious wife of a newly-elected official.

My daughter, Lilia, and I popped some popcorn and eventually revisited the table where the project lay in all its vexatious glory. We came up with a plan for the next step and I apologized profusely for erasing her sentence.

Then I said, “You can do it. I know you can.”

By Lauren Cargill

Labels: grades, homework, Lauren Cargill, medieval history

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Is it them or me?  I investigate the roots of my foul mood on Father’s Day as Sweetie fishes in Mazatlan, Mexico, with his father.

Friday: the fourth grade graduates with big fan fare. We go out for lunch, the toy store, home, and to the park for a four-family picnic. We meet the world champion slack-liner. 10 has a friend sleep over. 

Having fun.

Saturday: we eat breakfast at Muffin Mania then install the Wii I bought for Sweetie, still fishing in Mexico. 10’s friend goes home. We drive to San Francisco to celebrate another friend’s 8^th grade graduation.

Life is great.

Sunday:  we do nothing but hang around the house.  Sort of a girl’s Paradise Island becomes paradise lost.  When 10 isn’t whining and crying about her cold or her Nintendo, it is 7.  When 7 isn’t whining and crying about her bee sting or about 3, 3 is manipulating a fistfight among 10 or 7 or both. 

An outing to In-and-Out is slashed in favor of watching “Spy Kids 3.”  So, soup and sandwiches substitute. 

Still happy.  (But I really wanted that burger.)

I bring up the babysitter I’ve scheduled so I can go to The Writing Mamas Salon tonight.  As if she were suddenly made an orphan, 7 breaks into teeth-torturing yelps and projectile tears.  3 wants a cookie and 10 launches into a story about a story about a dog, the details of which she assumes I’m grasping as I continue to sauté sausages for dinner.  At 5:00 I call the babysitter “just to be sure,” and she informs me she’s “napping.”  

“Didn’t you get my e-mail with the confirmation, directions and time?” I ask. My heartbeat quickens. 

“Yes, but people usually call to confirm.” With a clearly reluctant tone, she says she can still make it but she’ll be late because blah, blah, blah.

I say to myself, “shit.”  I go to 7’s room, where she’s been banished so all of us can hear.

7 adamantly and tearfully claims she hates new babysitters because “they always start out nice but end up really mean.”  Double shit.  I feel the tingle of a cold sore coming on. I don’t have a book idea to pitch to the literary agent who will be speaking to the salon tonight. 10 is nursing a cold.  7 hates babysitters. 3 is the only one behaving with any cooperative attitude, and that NEVER happens.

So, I do what no man would ever do: I cancel the babysitter. 

I take the road turned inwards, and I pour a glass of wine and watch Tiger Woods make the clutch putt for an 18-hole play off. 

There will be something to look forward to tomorrow.

By Lauren Cargill

Labels: Lauren Cargill

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School: It’s 7:55 a.m. I’ve made breakfast, changed the toddler’s diaper and clothes, consumed one cup of coffee, made and packed lunches, and am waiting for the outcome of one of two classic getting-to-school-scenarios: 1) everything moves according to plan; 2) nothing moves according to plan.

I stand by the front door, open it, glance at my watch. “It’s time to leave!” I announce hopefully, trying not to betray the mounting tension, doubt and anxiety the last five minutes at home often produces on school days.

The third grader arrives. She has spent the last fifteen minutes wrapping her forearm in toilet paper, held together like a cast with scotch tape, because she “hurt it falling out of bed.” The voice inside my head, disbelieving, scornfully asks, “What IS it with you?”

I would never have gotten away with this kind of plea for attention. And then the first-grader: she appears, this time, with hair and teeth unbrushed, socks and shoes not even found, her breakfast half-eaten, some still on her face. “Mommy, I brought this especially for you,” she says in a tender, meaningful voice, as if to say, I Love You With All My Heart and there is NOTHING else that matters, especially school.

“How S-w-e-e-t,” I manage to get out while I glance at my watch and evil-eye the plastic sparkle ring that she’s offering me perched atop a bed pillow. Time ticks, toddler begins to run amok. The internal voice again, louder, “I asked you to brush your hair and get your shoes four times already and you never listen and now it’s time to leave and we’ll probably be LATE.”

Thanks, I say. It’s time for school. Time to GET IN THE CAR, I say. Do you UNDERSTAND?Then the toddler comes in the house and throws a handful of dirt from the potted plant on the Persian runner, like an offering of the worst kind, straight at my feet. I begin to assume the look of a crazed and rabid dog. Recently, I put an old, paint-peeling Adirondack chair on our front porch. It is my official time-out spot. I go there almost every morning to remember how to breathe. Breathe, write, breathe, write….

By Lauren Cargill

Labels: Lauren Cargill

Stumble This Post

My eight-year old is clearly overwhelmed.

I sit in front of the computer listening to, and striving to maintain, some level of empathy for my daughter’s crying jag. But I realize that it’s the byproduct of a life-long collision course in self-discipline.

She lies on her bed at once pouting and sobbing. “I’d rather spend the whole day in bed than do this project!”And how best do you respond to a third grader who bemoans the fact that she can’t spend her Sunday afternoon shopping with Dad because her first real research project is due in two days? You talk to her. You show her how. You convince her to take the reigns of her own self and break the task into smaller pieces. I

t’s fun! I used to LOVE homework! But the yelling and lecture fail. She’s still in uncontrollable tears. I dig for the empathy. (Dig, dig, dig…)I come from the ethic that you must be responsible and finish your work. Do it the right way, before having fun. And it wasn’t until the freedom of college that I had any sense of option about the matter. It is in this practical mode that I commit the heinous act of erasing a sentence at the end of her report so that she could write more and be factually correct.

She now comes completely unglued. I have to take a step back and be human, not Mom. Not a scholar. Do you remember third grade? After my family moved to Washington D.C., in the sixth grade, I clearly remember being overburdened by school.

Arkansas elementary schools hadn’t even required a research project, but once I enrolled in a prep school, there were moments I went crazy from the pressure. The amount of work we’d cram into three to four hours every night seemed relentless. The top mark, grade A, was rare to come by. B+s were more common.

Mother helped me study until she gave it up for her own labors in law school. And I seemed to get the hang of things better once I became more familiar with the study process in general and less naïve about the teacher’s expectations.

I do remember Mom’s sense of empathy and compassion one night. She said, “Lauren, I don’t know how you’re going to get through all this!” Followed by, “You can do it. I know you can.”

We had the first quarter of medieval history laid out on the dining room table and an exam the next day. It seems, in retrospect, as if she were saying the same doubt/little cheer to herself, the young, self-conscious wife of a newly-elected official.

My daughter, Lilia, and I popped some popcorn and eventually revisited the table where the project lay in all its vexatious glory. We came up with a plan for the next step and I apologized profusely for erasing her sentence. Then I said, “You can do it. I know you can.”

By Lauren Cargill

Labels: Lauren Cargill

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