But, it's tiny.
What looked like generous-to-the-point-of-unfairness (like the game was rigged for us) storage when Prowler was empty I now realized, in this moment, was shit. How am I going to fit all our stuff in here? Meanwhile Wolfman is outside in the sticky heat building a makeshift fence, alone, and I feel guilty and frivolous for focusing on how this open cabinetry will look (because it is the first thing we will see when we arrive home). I think--has Instagram and Pinterest mashed my brain to useless goop? But then I think, no, this is important; I'm making a home, not just a place to sleep and fart. And then my little guy--one of the people I'm making this home for (the VIP, actually) interrupts my furrowed brow with his need.
He's bored. He wants me to play with him---the make-believe game where his cousin's Rapunzel doll (that's me) doesn't realize the new airplane she just bought is actually a Transformer (him) and then, eventually, after the shock and confusion are settled, they must work together to defeat Darth Vader.
It's the same scenario every time, the same game, which is part of the reason I'm reluctant to play but, also, where am I going to hide this ugly propane burner now that all my cabinets are blissfully open?
It's really easy for Wolfman and I to spout tough love in our morning (and afternoon, evening, before bed, geez we're obsessed) talks about our son. "He's just going to have to get used to being a little bored. He'll figure out what to do with his boredom eventually." It's another thing to face it head on as you're bleeding and sweating and standing in the place that is supposed to be your home, your hearth, and it looks like nothing but a jumbled collection of odds and ends unearthed after a natural disaster, a volcano maybe.
Perhaps I'm not conveying to you the existential dread I experienced standing in that dinette, looking at all the objects before me, cataloging all the objects still at home and thinking, not for the first time, this is not going to work. Also: I'm crazy. Also: I'm damaging my son. All these uncertainties and fears crashing down on me in my own voice and also the voices of people I hate, people whom I have fought who take up residence in my head when I'm sad or scared.
After the third or fourth "I'm bored," I snapped at Mads. I wasn't particularly cruel or harsh, but I was exasperated and frustrated. I spoke to him as a person, not a mother.
Yes, of course, motherhood did not negate my personhood, and so perhaps I should not be so hard on myself. But, motherhood did elevate my personhood, or maybe just complicate it. Motherhood, at the very least, has added layers to my personhood. My son, Mads, does not know me as Michelle. He knows that is my name, but it is not what he calls me. He knows his dad calls me Shelly, but, again, that's not Mads' name to use for me. And he knows practically nothing of when I was a little girl called, dismissively, Mouse. No, Mads knows me as Mom-Momma-MOM! My role in his life is a big one, arguably the biggest one (we once shared a body, after all). My relationship with him will build the parameters and foundation of so many of his relationships, particularly with women. And my voice will become his inner voice. If he is ever standing in a kitchen, mid-move, feeling overwhelmed, I don't want the voice in his head to be one of exasperation and frustration, directed inward--frustration with a situation, sure, but never himself. I don't want him carrying my very particular and dramatically weary sigh with him through manhood like a boulder strapped to his back. (Have you ever heard me sigh? I could do a voice acting spot where all I do is sigh, my sigh is that pronounced and definitive.)
Wolfman and I are devoted to kind, patient, respectful parenting of our son. But we have our limits and shortcomings. Very occasionally one or the other of us will use a careless astringent tone with Mads, and I become a child again myself. I hear it and step away from myself, and I am Mouse, shame and anger bubbling up in my belly--anger at the unfairness and tyranny of adults. Then, in combination with whatever irritant caused that tone and those words in the first place, guilt--a wave of it. What can I do in that moment but tell Mads, "I've hit my limit, bud. I'm overwhelmed. I'm hot. I'm cranky. I'm bleeding. I'm sweating. I don't feel good." I'm sorry. Give me a minute. I am just not feeling up to the challenge of motherhood in this particular moment.
At six years old, Mads has a lot of compassion for me and my moods (fears, shortcomings). He also, however, reserves the right to be bummed out by them and a little exasperated himself.
I read one parent's account in How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk. He wrote, "the more comfortably you can accept bad feelings, the easier it is for kids to let go of them. I guess you could say that if you want to have a happy family you better be prepared to permit the expression of a lot of unhappiness."
"I'm bored," is not my favorite thing to hear my son say. But I'm sure he doesn't love it when I say, "I'm frustrated." Not every human emotion is pleasant, and none of us are perfect. Mads knows his parents are not infallible. We're just people, but we're his people. He's not being raised inside a floating incandescent bubble in the sky by angels with perfect teeth. He's being raised by Mom and Dad, whose teeth are less than perfect, and who struggle with the awkwardness of humanity and the caprice of bad feelings and are honest with him about it. Just as I have to be honest with myself and face the facts that not every kitchen appliance I own is display worthy.
