Yesterday I cried. Prior to that, I can’t tell you the last time I had cried. Well, except for when I watch videos of soldiers coming home. Or people saving animals. But let’s be honest, if that stuff doesn’t make you a little weepy, you probably have no soul.
And this wasn’t one of those cries anyway. This was the real crying, with the sobs and the runny nose and the red swollen eyes. There’s nothing pretty about it. It wasn’t the tears that gently stream down rosy cheeks and make people want to pat your back and say things like, “there, there, dear.” No, this was the holy-mother-of-God-what-happened-to-that-lady-let’s-stay-away-because-she’s-making-me-uncomfortable kind of crying.
It all came from a joke gone horribly wrong. It started innocently enough. It was Friday night and we were going to have family-fun game night. In some houses, this may be cause for merriment. In our house, every time the kids suggest such an event, I die a little inside. There is little fun and much fighting on game night here. This can be confirmed by the fact that we began game night with a nomination process for choosing the game. There is so much vitriol that goes into the selection process that we have to take away free will and randomly select the game. Each child came up with a different option for the nomination process and the fighting began.
They wanted me to be the decider. As I mentioned, family-fun game night embraces none of the qualities of its namesake, except for the night part. So, I may have been a little under-enthusiastic about it. While trying to sort it all out, my husband, the “fun” dad, made a comment suggesting that perhaps I could loosen up a bit.
Anyway, at first I was mad. OK, I was extra furious. And I can hold a good mad for a long, long time. Anybody that has spent time with an angry woman knows all the signs: I wouldn’t make direct eye contact, I was disturbingly quiet, all answers came in short form and there was just a little too much of the whites of my eyes showing for anyone to feel comfortable.
Sadly, my long-suffering husband is unfazed by this behavior. I have a quick temper and he spends a lot of time on the other side of my fickle moods. It’s one of the down sides of being my roommate for nearly two decades. He takes it in stride and knows when it’s best to use few words — and when he should never put his back to me.
Usually, I spend a few hours cursing him in my head. I call him all the names that would cause my mother to wash my mouth out with soap. I tell him (again, in my head) how good he has it and that no other woman in her right mind would put up with him. It goes on and on, and when it’s over, I’ve come full circle. I’ve worked the anger out, let it all go and am once again, the shiny happy person that he calls his wife.
This time, it hit a little to close to home. Though he was teasing me and only trying to get me to relax and have fun, he hit a nerve. And it was a big ole raw nerve that had me waking up in the morning in a puddle of my own tears, with the sobbing and the shaking and all that emotional stuff that makes my husband tremble with fear.
Yelling? No problem. Growling? He’s got that. Mumbling under my breathe as I stomp through the house like a crazy woman? Nothing new. Hysterical crying? No sir, he did not sign on for that.
After numerous apologies and affirmations of my wonderful mothering skills, he scurried away until I had once again gained control of that emotional wreck who only shows herself every couple of years and was back to the old me. Balance was restored to the universe.
What caused this unprecedented breakdown? Well, honestly, I’m not that fun. I’m the responsible one. I’m the mom who makes sure everyone has had a vegetable with their meal. It’s me that asks if they are wearing clean underwear. I ensure that our animals don’t starve to death, while waiting for an errant child to remember that they need to eat, every day. It’s my job to make sure the toothbrush is wet, after it’s been promised that they have cleaned their teeth. I follow behind the masses, nagging them to pick up the dirty clothes that have been left in their wake. I make the food, do the shopping, wash the clothes, clean the things, schedule the doctor’s appointments, blah blah blah. Don’t I sound like a total bore?
In every single thing that I do, every choice that I make, my very first thought is how it will effect my kids. But it doesn’t seem to matter that I’m the one that gets up in the middle of the night to hold back hair when kids are vomiting; that I rearrange my schedule to get ballerinas to class or basketball players to practice; that I pack lunches and bandage boo-boos, or spend sleepless nights holding feverish kids in my arms; that without a seconds hesitation, I would forfeit my own life for any one of theirs.
Because I don’t drop everything to play Twister. I don’t understand the allure of video games. I am loathe to give up two hours of my time to some mindless Hollywood trash. I can’t imagine anything much less fun then braiding a dolls hair. And Uno, oh Uno, how I loathe thee and thy redundant and time-sucking card flipping. Yeah, I sort of suck.
And while I’m washing just-one-more dirty dish, or folding just-one-more tee shirt, I quietly hum Harry Chapin’s Cat’s in the Cradle. It’s that song where the dad is so busy, he misses his boy growing up. Then one day, his son is an adult and just like his father, he’s too busy with his life to find a minute for for poor old dad. Depressing, right?
So when my husband called me to task on this, it was more then I could bear. I know it’s a shortcoming. I know that I’m so NOT the fun parent. I know that I could stand to loosen up a little, grab a doll brush or a lego, and spend some time being totally and completely unproductive. Because it will mean the world to my kids. And in the end, I guess that’s the most productive I can be.
Some of the things that I do love to do with my kids involve getting outside. We love to take the dogs for a walk together. My vicious pit bull (yes, I’m being completely sarcastic) is fabulous on a leash and happily responds to my 9-year-old’s commands. We often combine it with a trip to the community garden or the playground next door.
I can’t convince them that it’ll be fun for everyone if they help me clean, but I’ve found that they do enjoy baking with me. It’s a great way to sneak in a little math, what with the measuring and all, and get a valuable weekly chore done at the same time. Yes, it does seem I can suck the fun out of everything. It’s a gift.
To be honest, I actually like to play board games. What I don’t like is the guaranteed fighting that comes with game-playing in my house. If we could even choose a game without an all-out war, it would be a miracle. The only exception to this rule seems to be Pictionary on the Xbox. We rarely fight about it and have a great time mocking the characters, as a family. It’s good, clean fun.
At the end of the day, we can only do so much. We strive to be a little better then the day before. We try to give our kids the world, and we each have our own way of telling them how much we love, adore and cherish them, no matter how much they make us want to tear out our own hair and trip them with it.
As the weather gets warmer (or so I’ve heard it might), I desperately want to get the kids outdoors. It’s been a long, long winter and one more family fun night might give me a permanent twitch. My kids love the forest and my oldest has been asking for months to take a hike in the pine barrens. It’s something we always did when they were babies, until we came out of the woods one time, covered with over 20 ticks each. It was super disgusting.
Though I’m hoping this extra cold winter killed a lot of the little buggers off, next time, when we head out, I’m going armed with a massive bottle of homemade tick repellent. Oh, and as ridiculous as it looks, we will all tuck our pants into our socks, ’cause being super cautious and overbearing is my job.
Tick Repellent
Use a small spray bottle, about 4 ounces (available at most stores in the beauty aisle).
Fill halfway with boiled and cooled water, or distilled water.
Fill almost the rest with witch hazel.
Add about 10 drops each of essential oils of eucalyptus, geranium, catnip, citronella, and thyme. Shake well before each use and be careful not to apply the oils directly to your skin without dilution.
This is the second time around for a recipe I shared a couple of years ago, but as we come into bug season, I think it bears repeating.
How do you put a little fun in your life? Let me know — because, clearly, I need the help.
Laurie Nigro, a mother of two, is passionate about natural living. Laurie resides in downtown Riverhead and is co-founder of the River and Roots Community Garden on West Main Street. Contact her by email to laurie@riverheadlocal.com.
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