This past week I made the insane decision to have Danny and Annie’s annual check-ups performed at the same time. We’ve had a rough month, with way too many trips to the doctor with some combination of the three of them, so I figured a well visit would be a piece of cake. And, hey, why not take Jay along for the ride too. So Danny is getting four shots today, no big deal.
I really thought that. And who needs a doctor?
From our first moment in the big old family-sized check-up room, I knew we were in for trouble. The initial part of the visit had gone OK. Danny had focused enough to pass his eyes and ears testing. After much coaxing Annie had stood with her back straight against the wall to get an accurate height reading. My husband Dan had even been able to slip out and join us between conference calls. Yes, there was a moment as I jotted down the latest heights and weights in my little baby books that I thought, this is great, no problem at all. The Bradys, the Waltons, that bizarre family with 18 or so kids, they have nothing on me. I am in control.
And then Danny started jumping—literally, two-footed bunny-hopping—around the room, his kid-sized Johnny flapping in the wind. Jay began uncontrollably eating books and sobbing for me to hold him. Annie, immediately identified by our doctor as a “drama girl”, moved quickly from tears when told it was Danny’s turn on Mommy’s lap to picking up delicate medical instruments (items actually labeled as such) and running across the room with them. And then my big boy, who typically never even cries when he gets a shot, began uncontrollably screaming and wrestling away from his dad, shouting, “I am going to die” when the shot lady appeared.
I have often heard people talk about “flop sweat”. It exists. I lived it.
But ironically this wasn’t the worst of it. Because in as much as the chaos surrounding us was louder than a circus and more out of control than an MTV docudrama, it’s our chaos and we have basically learned to tune it out, just like we have learned to let our kids wander off unattended at birthday parties. Yes, somewhere between kids two and three, we became those parents.
I remember fondly when I had just one baby how disgusted I was by parents with older children, not to mention multiple kids. When my kids are older, I would think to myself, I will watch—and wash—them better. They won’t climb on my furniture. They won’t eat with their hands. They won’t eat crayons. They will always say please and thank you. They will never color in a book, let alone lose a library book. They won’t scream in the car, spill on the floor, push younger kids down and claim it is out of love. And, most of all, they will not run wild in restaurants while their selfish yuppy parents down margaritas with friends.
Oops.
The worst part of this visit was our beloved pediatrician’s advice to us as parents. “What your kids need most of all,” she said (with a straight-face), “is time with the two of you together. Set up a sticker chart, reward them for good behavior, for chores done, not with a toy or with food but with what kids crave most of all, one on one time with their parents as a unit.”
I cannot imagine getting a more impossible assignment.
First off, I must say that I absolutely love spending one-on-one time with my kids. The stories that they tell and the ability to actually listen to one kid at a time without having to wipe someone else’s nose or ask someone else to wait their turn to speak is truly amazing. I feel so free when I have just one child with me. I feel like I can take on the world, can accomplish anything, can be an amazing, focused mom. Even if I am just playing dolls on the kitchen floor with Annie, singing with Jay or playing soccer with Danny, I feel like we have a moment to really connect, to not have to worry about what comes next, who needs what or, more often these days, who did what to whom. I wouldn’t give up this time for anything and I know that someday I will miss this time terribly, just as much as I will miss the circus.
And in theory I absolutely love the idea of doing something with just me, Dan and one of the kids. It reminds me of the old days, when Danny was a baby and we could still move slowly on a weekend morning, could both go to a Gymboree class and marvel at everything he did together. Today, Jay took his first steps and it was noted and praised, but it wasn’t celebrated and obsessed about like when Danny did the same thing. I’d like to be able to keep giving my kids all that individual love, that showering of two parents watching your every move all the time. But, frankly, who is going to watch the other kids?
I have an amazing nanny who already goes way beyond the call of duty and is in every sense a member of our family. She is, in fact, babysitting for us for the second Saturday in a row while Dan and I do something incredibly rare for us, adult nights out. But in order for us to have quality time with each kid individually even just once a month she’d pretty much have to kiss her husband goodbye. And I don’t think that would go over so well. And plus there is that little matter of work to take up some of my time. And then of course those rare but needed adult nights out.
So, for the first time ever, I am going to have to decline my doctor’s advice. As much as I want to be able to guarantee that two-on-one time for all my kids, as much as I want to recapture those days of blowing bubbles in the backyard and never missing a nap, it just isn’t reality. In a day that is already stretched to its breaking point, there just isn’t time for a trip to the park or a dinner alone. There is no more us three, there is an us five.
But I can commit to giving each person a bit more attention within that five, to making sure everyone gets heard, everyone gets hugged. And that us five have fun times, blowing bubbles, going to the park or just eating a big old messy dinner.
And I can commit to sneaking one-on-one alone time with each one of the kids. To practicing walking with Jay while the big kids are in the bath, kissing his sweet flushed cheeks in the early morning hours when the rest of the house is still. To reading Annie fairy stories as she twirls my hair, and painting her fingernails a glossy pink while the boys play down the hall. To holding Danny’s hand as we race each other to preschool and then holding him close and quiet as we listen to songs before he drifts off to sleep.
And when we are out walking together, Dan and I can take turns putting one child between us at a time, and counting one, two, three, and swinging them up to the beautiful, endless sky.
It’s not really alone time, but for us five it will have to do.
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