This Guilt's for You

Why can't I forgive myself?" I asked Matthew a couple nights ago after the children were in bed. I was referring to my mommy guilt pertaining to an incident involving Berto, my eldest.

"I don't know. He's fine."

Men don't understand Mommy guilt. I studied my husband, bewildered by his imperturbability.

"You've forgiven yourself for your parenting mistakes, haven't you?" I asked him.

He answered with complete sincerity and a straight face, "Yep. I'm at peace with myself."

At the edge of tears, I instead burst out laughing, and he grinned back. He'd pushed back those dark clouds lowering o'er my head.

My mommy guilt had resurfaced a few days ago when an old acquaintance of mine posted on her Facebook page that her little girl had made a huge potty-related mess. She wrote about the incident with compassion for her little one and also admiration for her initiative in attempting to clean up the mess. I admired this friend of mine for seeing the humor in the situation immediately, and for being gentle with her daughter's mistake.

But it brought back a painful memory that lumbered out of the back of my mind to whack my mommy sensibilities in the face repeatedly for several straight minutes.

I risk making you, gentle reader, think I am the worst mom ever if I reveal the tantrum I threw over a much smaller potty incident than that related by my friend. So, please, let me plead my case a little.

You must understand that, as I have already written in this blog, I am a tad OCD. But not about everything. It's selective, you see. I'm not OCD about spiders or mildew or making sure that the furniture in my living room lines up just so. But I am obsessive-compulsive about locks, chemicals, avoiding running over pedestrians...and germs. Germs is a big one. You must understand this. It freaks me out if my children stand within a foot of a bathroom plunger. I get tense and irritable and bark urgently, "Back up! Get away from that!" as if it's a dangerous tool that poses great risk to their safety. It doesn't matter if it hasn't been used in months, maybe years. And taking my kids, especially my girls, to a public restroom is a stressful ordeal that sometimes inspires panic. I refuse to walk the perimeter of, let alone use, a portable potty.

So when I was a young mother learning to be a mother, and my toddler son, the first of my four children, shoved a bath mat in the toilet, I had a come-apart. As soon as I saw it dripping in his hands and knew the source of the liquid to be toilet water, my head imploded in cataclysmic OCD fashion.

GERMS!

"Did you put that in the potty? Did you?"

At the second question I was already yelling. Berto was instantly scared because of the crazy look on my face. He could only nod when I asked again.

"You don't put things in the potty!" I screamed.

I lifted him up and plopped him in time-out in the hall. He started to cry. I stormed off to get Lysol wipes, for the only thing that can trump my fear of chemicals is my fear of germs. I realized I had only a few wipes in the container and threw it against the wall in a rage; the container busted. I came back down the hall.

It was at that point that the small, sane voice of reason and wisdom told me to stop my tantrum, to calm down. Irrational emotions, especially those of fear or anger, overwhelm your intellect like a powerful drug sometimes; if you don't listen to that quiet man in the corner with the small, flat voice that tells you to sober up, you will 100% for sure regret it.

I didn't listen. I continued to yell at my son as I wiped the potty water from the surfaces of that bathroom, "We don't put things in the potty! We NEVER put things in the potty - not our hands or toys - not anything!"

I can still see the wide-eyed look on his face as he cried and hunkered down in the hall. My son was scared of me. I had stopped being his loving, playful mother and had turned into a germ-phobic monster.

When I finally calmed down, after standing still in the bathroom for several moments breathing deeply and staring at his little tear-stained face, I knew that the gratification of letting loose with my OCD rant could not even remotely equal the remorse I was going to feel about it. I knelt down by him with softened features and a sad voice. I apologized and held him for a long time.

But you can't take it back. The yelling and the tears you provoked in anger. That is the worst part of losing your temper.

I've never behaved that way since over some minor "germy" infraction involving my kids. I've learned to roll with the bacteria, so to speak. But it doesn't matter. The one incident was enough to haunt my memory and provide me six years of mommy guilt that is still going strong.

So I found myself, yet once more, talking to Matthew about it, telling him of my friend's post and how she in no way seemed to freak out over her germ-laden situation. I described again for him my atrocious behavior of six years ago and my intense regret over it.

I just wish I could intone as he did, "I'm at peace with myself."

But as a mother, and a flawed human being, I don't have that luxury.

Dream Blog: No Where Near Home

I didn't think to plan. I started driving. There was no definite destination, just any place out of the city. But I didn't take anyone with me, or I didn't think I had at first.

It's very unusual for me to just drive by myself. I even want to go grocery shopping as a family. So to take a road trip alone, even just a simple day trip, was huge.

I don't think I got out of the car, though, so it probably doesn't comply with the standards of adventure. Anyway, it was on the way home to the family, when late afternoon was setting in, that things got interesting.

I woke up. Yes, woke up at the steering wheel knowing I had been driving for a while in my sleep. Thank heaven, the divided highway leading to heaven knows where was absolutely empty of other traffic beside my minivan, but I wondered just how much my vehicle had meandered among the lanes while I was out. There were some buildings up ahead. What I could discern as I squinted through the windshield led me to believe they were ruins of some sort. (Why was I always headed toward ruins?) As I got closer, however, I realized they were modern buildings designed adobe-style to fit in with the desert environs, to blend in with the tans and earthy hues of the landscape. Beyond them a mesa rose high above the desert.

That's when I got pulled over, stopped. I didn't hear any sirens. I didn't feel the tightness in my belly from nerves knowing I was in trouble with the law. I simply remember turning to see a black policeman behind me leaning back against the hood of his patrol car as if he'd been there all day observing me. He wore a puffy blue jacket unlike any I've ever seen another officer wear. It crinkled and crunched as he adjusted his arms across it.

He was laughing as he queried amicably, "Where do you think you're going?"

How on earth did he know I was off-track? How long had he followed my van while I slept?

"Back to the city. I don't know where I am," I stated. I didn't say I'd fallen asleep at the wheel for a spell; he knew that, but I wasn't going to admit it voluntarily

Again he laughed. He was so darn likable. He was playing guardian angel.

"You're more than an hour away now," he said. "You can drive on a little ways to Highway 44 (sounded unfamiliar), and take that home. Or you can turn around the way you came and take the turnoff you missed. But, like I said, more than an hour."

That's when I felt the tightness in my belly. More than an hour. Matthew would wonder where I was; the kids would miss me. And this desert was lonely. The buildings looked as if they were about to be swallowed by it, no matter how well they attempted to blend in. I didn't see a single human being among them. And Danny Sammy would be hungry, needing a nurse. Shoot. I couldn't even see the junction with this Highway 44 ahead.

Suddenly I was back inside the van, giving a sippy cup of water to Danny Sam in his carseat. He was, after all, here with me (one of those little adjustments my mind made to decelerate my worry). Should I nurse him? Here, along the edge of the highway at nowhere? I'd rather not. Besides, he wasn't asking for one. If I could just get him home before he got really hungry. I hopped back in the front seat and started to pull away from the gravel back onto the pavement, anxious to be away from this lonely stretch of highway near a modern ghost town.

Broken

When my eldest son realized what he'd done, or, rather, when I told him just what it was in a calm tone but with a critical expression, he instantly got angry about the fact that he would be blamed for an accident, an accident that involved throwing a toy hard against the front door just for kicks, but an action that had unintended results nonetheless. Oh, my son! He should have realized that his mother was the one who had the right to the crying and yelling.

I wanted to cry, but even as I picked up the three large pieces of the broken cross I could not. Still it was the second blow to my romantic sensibilities in a month. The first had come when the beautiful purple ornament that had been a first Christmas gift to Matthew had smashed on the floor behind the TV, spattering the evidence in thin slivers of broken glass against the wall. It had engraved on it, "Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy!"

I hadn't cried then, either. But I feel very sad about it even now. Still, I had neglected to wrap it carefully and stow it away with the other Christmas ornaments, mostly because it was so large. Now, it's gone and it could have been a fixture on our tree for many years, a reminder of Matthew's and my first Christmas together. Each year as I hung it on a higher branch out of the reach of our little ones, I could have smiled as I reminisced about how I lost this gift before he came for that first Christmas visit, so I had to tell him about how beautiful it was with its gold inscription, and he didn't receive it until almost a year later. I can no longer have that memory ritual each year. It's broken, and no other Christmas ornament can be from the same time in our lives.

The cross, a wedding gift from Matthew's aunt, survives - carefully glued back together, a chunk or two missing. But it is affixed to its proper place by our threshold again, there to witness all our daily hellos and goodbyes, a gatekeeper of sorts. I hope it lives long and prospers.

But its taught me a lesson, this breaking of romantic relics. What goes around comes around, so they say. Now I understand how my mom felt.

When I broke the slender blue-green vase that she and Dad had gotten on their wedding day, I understand why she cried so much and kept asking how? how did this happen? But, most especially, I am close because of the smashed Christmas ball to understanding how she felt the day my brother and I were playing in my sister Vinca's room, rummaging through the closet. We found so many curious relics from Mom and Dad's early years in some boxes there - seashells, identity bracelets, old pamphlets from when Dad ran for State Rep in Idaho. The most boring object, the plainest thing we discovered was a small glass bowl. We carelessly laid it aside in our quest for the interesting, and somehow it broke.

We knew it at least had to be old, so we went to confess, but we were in no way prepared for the emotional response that gripped our mother's face. She sobbed as she took the broken pieces, and then she explained, as I had to do with my own son, that this plain glass bowl had held flowers given to her by our father before they were married. So many years it had been preserved, and we had destroyed this tangible piece of romance in a few careless minutes.

We apologized repeatedly, but our words weren't making a difference. When Mom told us it was okay, that was for our sakes, to make us feel better, less desperate. It didn't alter at all her heartbreak.

It makes me sad to remember that. But I do remember. And now I understand.

V-Day

We did not get along until ten years ago. I had expectations, maybe fairy-land expectations, but an anticipation of something to happen nonetheless. And every year when the fantasy bubble was popped, I was that clown in the corner blowing her bulbous red nose.

Okay, too dramatic. But all I have to say is Valentine's Day? Shmalentine's Day. I didn't get nothin'. Not once as a young woman did a young man declare his infatuation with, his adoration of - not even his might-like-and-hope-to-get-to-know-better feelings for me. Nothin'.

Wait. I lie. I did get a beautiful bouquet of flowers delivered to my house once when I was 18. But they weren't from some guy; they were from my sister.

Vinca took pity on her little sister that year, knowing I had never once been given flowers for Valentine's Day, or - what hurts more to someone of my tastes - chocolate. Not one lousy truffle. She and Annie, of course, received something every year. I think young men just threw roses at them in the hall as they walked to class, cheering and whistling as they passed and probably laying down their jackets over old bubble gum and spilt soda to protect their lovely feet from the filfth of a high school floor. Sometimes my sisters came home with several romantic gestures stuffed in their backpacks and straining their delicate wrists.

I was attractive, too...in my own way. Sure, I had a large nose, a lazy eye, pimples, wore braces from ninth grade on, and had the constant appearance of pink eye due to contact lenses that, while aiming to make me more attractive, were viciously sucking all the juices from my eyeballs. But, man, I was a looker. Really, dammit!

Well, well. I've forgiven V-Day for its blatant disregard of my ego. I never had much use for the roses and hearts machinations of the day, anyway. Roses are not my favorite flower. They're too...well, full of themselves. Too delicate and prissy. And I've always hated hearts; they're so damn cute. Matthew teases me every year. "You want that key in a heart necklace, don't you?" or, "Oh, look at that heart locket. I'm going to get you that!" Still, he knows if he really did, it'd be the first gift he's given me that I'd take back. But in the spirit of generosity and for the sake of the holiday, I tolerate the heart-shaped chocolates - as long as they're not milk chocolate. Milk chocolate is the only thing worse than heart-shaped jewelry.

So never mind Valentine's Day. V-Day is for everyone, but an anniversary? Now that's for two special people, and it just so happens February 14 is the anniversary of the day My Man announced he wanted to be My Man, my guy for life. Because of the way he proposed, a stroll in a zoo is quite romantic to me. That is where we were ten years ago when he popped the question. We had talked about marriage before I moved down to San Antonio. He had even asked my Dad's permission, so I shouldn't have been surprised when after walking around the San Antonio Zoo for a while, he led me off into a little area with small round tables surrounding a lush pond where a large blue parrot perched, squawking noisily. I gazed around absent-mindedly at the pretty spot and then turned to leave, and I came face to face with Matthew. Smiling up at him, I put my hand on his chest.

"Wow, your heart is really pounding!" I said lightly, completely oblivious. Then I made to go around him. He grabbed my hand and whirled me around. He was kneeling down with a small box in his hand and speaking, but I have really no clue what he said after, "Hillary..."

"No way!" I cried, cutting across his words and trying to bolt, even as he gripped my hand tighter. He pulled me closer to the little pond and continued his declaration of love until I woke up a few seconds later and heard, "Will you marry me?"

"Yes," I said in a shaky voice.

He slipped the ring on my finger, and we kissed and embraced at which point I took the opportunity to examine the diamond over his shoulder.

My diamond. It was lovely. And there's absolutely no doubt that that V-Day caught me up. I even got flowers. And I've been spoiled every year since, including one exceptional year when my love gave me a guitar, leading me out to his car so I could discover the wine-colored instrument.

Matthew has a running joke that he'll no doubt be entertaining us with until we're ninety or beyond. For when we see some sappy commercial, movie, or TV show where a man is proposing, he always says with a twinkle in his eye and a smile just for me, "See, she doesn't try to run away."

Well, he needn't worry. I'll never run away again. Not with these four balls and chains around my feet, also known as children.

Oh, and the beautiful big blue parrot who witnessed it all? Well, Matthew did consider asking him to be best man, but in the end we just went back, took his picture and framed it to hang on the wall of our home. And there it is still - ten years later.

Genetic Glitch

Whenever I make a right hand turn at an intersection, I have to glance back in my side mirror after completing the turn and then in my rearview as I'm accelerating away - sometimes looking back at the corner several times in quick succession.

This is to make sure I haven't run over a pedestrian.

It's an OCD thing, you know. My sister tells me she does the same thing; she's even circled around to make double sure there's no one lying prone in the street. We can't help the fact that we're terrified a policeman will pull us over someday and say sternly, "Lady, do you realize you just ran over a pedestrian back there?"

Even as we exclaimed, "No!" in horror, we'd be thinking to ourselves, "Damn, I knew this would happen one day!"

The fact that we have this strange fear is a genetic glitch. It's nonsensical and hereditary.

The other evening as I was pressing persistently on the front door lock and knocking my finger repeatedly against the light switch of the front walkway (which everyone knows is instrumental in deterring burglars), my husband Matthew said, "Stop! It's locked and the light is on! I can't do it. I can't sit here and watch you do this anymore."

Then he imitated my compulsive behavior with mannerisms that resembled an idiotic chicken examining and pecking at a kernel of corn. I was offended. Until I laughed. Still...I can't help it. They say if you concentrate and be in the moment with that compulsive behavior, you can overcome it. For instance if you say to yourself while checking that lock, "I know this door is locked. It's locked," you should be able to move on with your life. It doesn't work, though. Basically, it just gave me another compulsive thing I have to do while securing the house, for as I'm banging that switch and pressing on that already secured lock, I have to repeat at least a dozen times to myself as if meditating, "I know this door is locked. I know this light is on. This door is locked; the light is on..."

That's how I was able to break a deadbolt once - by obsessively pressing on it for the billionth time. I woke Matthew up immediately, so he could find another lock and repair the damage. He told me then and has told me many times while observing my lock-checking ritual that I shouldn't bother waking him up if I break another deadbolt. Instead, I should make myself as comfortable as possible with blankets, maybe a little fire, some marshmallows and wieners, and prepare to guard the door all night.

After all, we must all take responsibility for our genetic glitches. Even if we can't help it.

A Date at Chaco Canyon with Matthew, My Love - Revised

Matthew thought I should have set up this post with a little more detail about our preparation for that first trip to Albuquerque together. He claims I made him run out with me at 9pm the night before we left, so I could buy a new outfit in which to meet his folks. My sister Annie was in collusion with this last ditch effort to dress to impress, and I bought a pink shirt and capri pants, he says. I find this detail highly suspicious. First, because it's very doubtful a man would remember an outfit his wife bought a month ago, let alone ten years after the purchase. Second, because I'm no great fan of capri pants. But leaving that alone, the only other thing I will say about the journey west to meet my new folks is that west Texas is pretty ugly. No, not pretty. Just ugly. And forlorn. And I've seen it many times since.

I'm thinking about decades and milestones and how I still feel in many ways like that young girl who traveled from San Antonio to Albuquerque with her fiance to meet his parents ten years ago this March.

And I'm wondering at the fact that we have four children now.

With a smile I'm recalling what Matthew's parents asked me on that first introduction to New Mexico, "Is there anything you'd like to see?"

Later I bet they wished they'd never asked that question. You see, I didn't say, "Oh, Santa Fe would be nice," or "How about Old Town Albuquerque?"

I knew exactly what I wanted to see, even though I had no clue how far away it was. I wanted to see Chaco Canyon where a whole slew of ancient and beautiful Native American pueblos stood. I'd recently seen a documentary on PBS about the ruins, about the exciting discoveries being unearthed there, some even that suggested cannibalism could have occurred. I knew the archaeological dig was still in progress, and that thrilled me.

"Oh."

Day-picking, plans-laying, map-spreading preparation had to be done for such an excursion. But they had, after all, asked.

On the appointed day we headed northeast toward Sante Fe in my mother-in-law's jeep, stopping at a little restaurant in Bernalillo where Matthew's parents treated us to breakfast. I thoroughly enjoyed my oatmeal with caramel ice cream. Then we skipped across the road to look at all the kachina dolls and turquoise and pottery for sale in the ubiquitous shops they have here in the Southwest. We hopped on another highway, heading northwest now, and some time later we were on a dirt track headed for the great houses of the thousand-year-old ruins.

I say dirt track, because to say road implies a smooth and well-maintained trail of transport, and this was by no means smooth. The track was narrow and there were deep ruts in it. After a good haul of bouncing and jangling on such a trail, Matthew's dad decided to speed up. At this point the road ceased to be a track through the desert and became a mild roller coaster. With every rut or hole in the road, Matthew's and my head were launched toward the ceiling, a few times making contact and at other times spared by our upraised hands pushing back against the roof of the vehicle. We laughed like two teenagers on a carnival ride, but I also began to get the impression that my father-in-law either loved speed or that he really hated that he had agreed to such a hair-brained trip. I don't think it helped that between bonks on the ceiling, his son was attempting to canoodle with me in the backseat of the car. I was already feeling the angst coming from the front seat, so I hissed, "Matthew!" many times while giving my lover boy hard looks, my eyes popping in an attempt to dissuade his amorous advances.

It didn't help when Matthew's mom said, "Okay, cut it out back there!" without even lifting her head from a book, and Matthew just grinned at my flushing face.

It must have been three plus hours after starting out that we parked at the visitor's center in the high desert and began to traverse the trails. Matthew and I borrowed jackets from the back of his parents' vehicle - so like them to always be prepared for anything. The only thing we weren't prepared for was the fact that the visitor center had no snacks, so we pulled out suckers (years old?) from the jacket pockets to tide us over.

As we navigated the extraordinary ruins, I for one was giddy. It was my first close encounter with ancestral puebloan ruins. The complex of great houses, all oriented to solar, lunar and cardinal directions, was extensive. The great houses themselves were large. Pueblo Bonito, just one of many, contained 800 rooms at one time. And all the magnificent Chacoan ruins, sacred to the descendants of the Anasazi - including the Navajo peoples, are rimmed round with beautiful mesas. Long ago, there were many roads leading from Chaco Canyon to other great houses in the region; it appears to have been central to the region's ceremonial, economic and administrative activities.

I confess I wasn't thinking about all that historical significance, though. Okay, maybe I was gaping now and then at the thought that these structures helped feed the social needs of a culture that flourished hundreds of years before, but I was more or less intuitively sopping up the atmosphere of Chaco Canyon, as if my eyes and feet were parched sponges.

We were the only visitors, and the day was unusual, seeming to cast us on the whims of the ghosts of the place, for one moment it would feel warm enough to remove our jackets; a few minutes later, large ethereal flakes of snow would drift down from the dancing clouds.

We only saw a portion of the ruins, mainly exploring Hungo Pavi and Pueblo Bonito, but they are by far the most outstanding puebloan ruins I've ever seen. Granted, I've only gazed upon Montezuma's Castle and crept about Tuzigoot since (both in Arizona), but neither one of those compares even remotely in size to Chaco Canyon.

We left after wandering around the trails connecting the ruins for what could have been hours. I was so smitten by the experience of being surrounded by that remarkable ancient architecture, of catching glimpses of rooms where archaeologists were excavating, that I'm not sure exactly what time it was. I do know once we left the track and got back on paved roads, we had to stop for gas. That's when Matthew said suddenly, "Hey, Dad, isn't that a sign up there for I-40?"

Matthew's dad was obviously glad to see that it was, and the way back to Albuquerque was considerably shorter than the journey to Chaco had been.

I've convinced Matthew to take me back there this year, our tenth together. We'll take the short route, though - back to explore the history, the beauty, and a portion of the landscape of our romantic beginnings. Only this time, we'll have four of our immediate descendants trailing us. As it was for the Anasazi, so it is for us. Time marcheth on.

Blessings: Thanksgiving Cupcakes, Raccoons Steal the Milk and a New Fridge

It's freakishly cold here now, and I'm afraid I no longer feel able to brave a daytime high of a mere 44 degrees without ringing my hands together and wailing into the cold freezing wind like a little child. Yes, I know many of you are laughing right now, but I almost feel I should drag out that long coat with the rabbit-fur lined hood ( poor bunny) that has not seen the sun since Idaho. It's covered in a substantital layer of dust, however, so I think I'll leave it. Besides, in this climate surely this weather cannot survive long?

Today, I'm thinking about the cold - I can't help that - and blessings. The blessing of a furnace that works, a good car heater, plenty of food and adequate living space for my family.

Today my son Berto said, "When I'm a teenager, and I come home for Thanksgiving, I'll bring cupcakes. I'll bring twenty, and I'll eat fifteen!"

I had to help him back-paddle a little before he drifted out into his own little sea of illusion.

"Cupcakes, huh?" I said. "Okay, but you'll be living with us when you're a teenager, you know. You won't leave until you go to college, and even then some kids still live with their parents into their early twenties."

He seemed very discouraged by this. No - mad, actually. He got very surly about it.

That's when I reminded him we wouldn't always live in a house this small, that since he was the oldest, he would someday have his own room.

"Well, it'll still be boring!" he cried.

Again, the blessings - thank God for the blessing of a sheltered life, here classified as boring by my son.

I wrapped up the conversation.

"Even if we lived in this small house all our lives, we'd be fine. We'd be blessed," I told him. "Some people live in mud huts with dirt floors. In some places several orphans live together in one-room houses. We are very blessed."

I am grateful that I realize how very blessed we are. I am convinced that many people lose that perception in their scheme for a nicer car, a bigger home, the latest technology or just more period. I, too, get caught up in the pursuit of things that cannot really affect my family's ability to be happy and healthy, but I am also aware of how much there is for which to be thankful. We are able to expend money on plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables without worrying about the cost of groceries. If the car breaks down, we do not panic wondering where we'll get the money to fix it. When a doctor's visit is required, we do not stress or delay; we have health insurance.

I saw what it was to struggle when I was growing up. My parents were careful about money spent on groceries. We had no health insurance, and if the car broke down, it was a disaster. Though we struggled, I remember us as blessed. We loved each other, trusted God, and there were times when God provided in remarkable ways.

Early one spring in my childhood, our refrigerator gave out. We began to be creative about food storage for a while as my parents tried to figure out how to pay for a new fridge. They bought food for supper on the way home every night, and we cooked it up immediately. We kept half-gallons of milk in the cold spring under the bluff that shadowed the creek. Every morning we walked down the lane to get our milk for breakfast, and sometimes we found the raccoons had been there before us. The clever animals figured out how to unscrew the lids on previously unopened jugs, and we were left without milk because of their ingenuity. Meanwhile, my dad fiddled with the old fridge, trying to coax it to work again.

One Saturday morning we were surprised by a small group of men on our porch. When my dad asked if he could help them, one of the gentlemen answered, "We've brought you a new fridge."

I remember watching with excitement as the group of strangers and my dad unloaded the yellow fridge from a truck. When it was in place and humming familiarly, Dad, his tanned face softened with gratitude, asked who our benefactors were.

"We're Christians," was the simple reply. "We give this to you in Jesus's name."

Memories have their legacy. Whatever Matthew and I may accumulate in the way of material possessions, I hope that in essentials our life with our children will be what I knew with my parents, brother and sisters. I am not ignorant of the blessing of having the necessities when there is love and a desire to forge a relationship with one's Creator. For myself, I wish not to squander my awareness of others' struggles. If I fail to acquire the finer things in life, I hope not to fail in sharing the blessings I do have.

I Love You...and I Promise Not to Sell You to the Zoo

I tell my kids all the time that I love them. I tell them several times a day. But it's not because I love them, though I do - so very much. Still, it's the guilt. The guilt is killing me.

The "I love yous" mostly come out when I've said something insensitive, because my offspring are driving me out of my wits. Usually, this happens in three different ways:

    They're making too much noise, being too rowdy or getting into fights. So I turn on them and yell, "SHUSH UP ALREADY! YOU ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY!" Then I add as I rub my forehead wearily, "But I love you. I love you."

    One or more of them is throwing an enormous tantrum, and my nerves are wearing thin, so I ask bluntly, "Why are you being such a bratty Mcbratterson? You are being so rotten right now! But, hey, I love you."

    Or they keep coming back for water or hugs at bedtime, so I give a crazed laugh and say with a thin smile, "Alright, alright. Crying out loud, go to bed already! Mwa! Mwa!" Then I call out as they're grumbling down the hall, "Sleep well! You know I love you!"

This last usually applies to my sweet Ana. If she could find a way to hang on to her Papa and me like a baby chimp at night, falling asleep wrapped around our legs or clutching our backs, she would. She has to get in that final kiss and hug. This goes on for several minutes after the last bedtime story has been read. By the time our little love leech has gotten ten of these final gestures of affection in, you're ready to slingshot her to her bed without further ado. Because, I mean, let's face it: by evening time a mama is all loved out. A mama wants peace. A mama is running out of energy to recite one more "Love you!" before she runs for the chocolate, decaf tea and that neglected mystery novel.

And, okay, if I'm honest, mostly the guilt "love yous" come out after I've threatened to sell my kids to the zoo animals. I'm just teasing them, of course. But after years of hearing me clap my hands loudly at them and exclaim in random moments, "Okay that is it! Get in the car. You're going to live with the zoo animals!" you might understand their moans of, "Stoooop it, Mama!" or their irritated cries of, "Oh, come on!"

That's usually when I say, "You know I'm just kidding. I love you." It hurts my apology that I'm still chuckling.

Besides, it has always been my line of defense for this particular sanity cookie to tell them how much their Uncle Natie teased me while I was growing up, and how, since I was the youngest in my family, I cannot help but tease them now because I had no one to pass "the learnins" on to when I was a kid.

At least my youngest, the baby, still laughs with me as I coo at him, "You want to go live with the mama orangutan, Danny Sammy? You want to?" before his big sister Ana interjects with a whine, "Stop it, Mama! Just stop it! You love Danny Sammy."

Of course I do. I love all my children. I tell them so at the end of every lecture. Too bad they've figured me out, though.

For instance, I was giving Berto a talking to in the kitchen a couple months ago. It went on for a while. I paused at the end before my usual wrap up, but Ella beat me to it.

She grabbed Berto's hand, looked deep into his eyes and said solemnly, "It's okay, Berto. Mama loves you."