Montana Momoirs

A few months after my husband, Brent, and I first met, we took a little day trip. We drove from our homes in New Orleans through the marshlands of southern Louisiana to the Gulf Coast, where we had a picnic and swam in the warm waters, getting to know one another better and thoroughly enjoying ourselves.

As we splashed around, Brent, being a man, thought it would be funny to dunk me under the water. When I came up for air, I saw a rather enormous dorsal fin not too far from us.

“Shark!” I yelled. Brent must have thought that my cry was a lame attempt to get him to stop dunking me because he just dunked me under again. When I came up this time, there was no question – in fact, there were three very large dorsal fins swimming ever closer to us.

“Shark!” I yelled again.

Then, and this is an action of which I am not particularly proud, I pushed Brent as hard as I could toward the sharks and ran to the shore, without so much as glancing over my shoulder to see if he had become food for fish.

As you might imagine, this moment – when I purposefully tried to feed Brent to the sharks to save my own hide – has been difficult for me to live down. I can’t tell you why I did it. I don’t remember having any conscious thoughts, like, “We’ve only been dating six months and I can always find someone else.” It was pure instinct to save myself.

For a lesser man, or perhaps a smarter one, this could have been a defining moment in our relationship. After all, if your girlfriend’s first instinct is to feed you to the sharks, will she really be there in sickness and in health, for better and for worse?

Luckily for me, Brent decided to ride it out. We got married several years after the shark feeding frenzy incident, as it has come to be known, and today we celebrate another wedding anniversary.

The day after I met Brent, I grandly announced to a friend of mine, “That is the man I am going to marry.” I’d known Brent less than twelve hours. I don’t know what it was, except pure instinct, which made me so sure that he was the one. It wasn’t as if the second that I met him, fireworks went off and brass bands started playing.

But there was something. I suppose it was a level of comfortableness, like something that fits just right, and that sense that it is entirely possible we would never run out of things to say to each other. And for the years we knew one another before we had kids, we did a lot of talking, covering a lot of ground, on everything from what our day was like to our hopes and dreams to political observations.

Of course then we had Mike, and a few years later, Peter arrived on the scene. Looking back at the afternoon that Brent drove approximately five miles per hour home from the hospital anxiously looking over his shoulder at our new sleeping bundle in the backseat, I don’t think we ever could have predicted how completely our relationship would be altered by our children.

It seems now that we talk less in spite of the fact that we both probably utter more words throughout the course of a day than we did in those early years of knowing one another. And it also seems that when we talk, we often talk about the kids – the issues and challenges facing them since that is what we now face together as a family, our hopes and dreams for them since that affects what Brent and I do with our lives. And these days, our best talks are often in hushed tones as we barrel towards home down Montana’s highways and byways with the boys sound asleep in the backseat.

But even with all of that, we’re better, stronger, as a couple than we were when it was just the two of us. Parenting is challenging. In fact, parenting is hard. It has forced us to grow individually and together. You come into parenthood with your own ideas and belief systems and history and you have no other option but to work together, through the joys and the challenges, to make everything as good as it can be for every single person, big and small, who is involved.

After all of these years together, I still feel thankful to have Brent in my life, that he is the person I come home to at the end of the day, that he is the person with whom I share my hopes, dreams, fears, and perhaps best of all, our beautiful boys. I am thankful I trusted my gut and knew that I would marry him that first night we met one another so many years ago. I am thankful that he was able to forgive me for trying to save my own life by pushing him as hard as I could towards imminent danger. And I am especially thankful that he was able to outrun those sharks so that we could enjoy one another for so much longer.

Montana Momoirs

My father-in-law is the proud father of five children. But I don’t think he ever changed a diaper – just like most fathers of his generation.

He also never got up with his kids in the middle of the night if they were sick. He didn’t take anyone for their immunizations. He didn’t deal with bad dreams or hurt feelings. And, even through five very well-documented babyhoods, I have yet to run across a photo of him spooning anything into a child’s mouth.

That’s not to say that my father-in-law was a bad father. My husband, Brent, actually has many fond memories of playing with him, talking with him, and just spending time with him. He just didn’t do any of the dirty work, so to speak, when it came to taking care of the kids.

How things have changed in a generation. Brent has changed thousands of diapers. And not just any thousands of diapers. Brent was always called in to handle the particularly nasty and explosive ones, which left me gagging and crying “uncle” in a corner. He also always manages situations that involve vomiting. He has held the kids for every shot, pinned Mike down for X-rays, and when Peter was an infant, force-fed him barium for an upper GI test.

Brent handles nearly all of the dirty work when it comes to our kids mainly because I don’t have the stomach (in the case of cleaning up bodily functions) or the heart (when it comes to holding kids down for medical tests and shots) to do what needs to be done. But Brent’s parenting skills go way beyond his iron stomach and iron resolve.

I have yet to see Brent staring off into space, dumbstruck by the kids and their idiosyncratic behavior, wondering what in the world to do in a situation as I am often found. Brent actually likes going to the park. And Brent, born into a big family that talks over one another, has an extremely high tolerance for the noise levels that accompany small children. I, on the other hand, like to engage the boys in “The Quiet Game,” which has rules that go like this: “Let’s see who can be quiet the longest!”

Brent is also infinitely more patient than I am, and patience is something of which you need loads when you have a couple of small children around. Sometimes when completing tasks with Mike and Peter, I toss my head back and groan very dramatically in the style of someone who is waiting in the rain for a bus that never comes. Of course this never makes me feel better and it does little to improve the situation for the boys.

For instance, when trying to teach a three year-old Mike to ride a tricycle, I remember saying to him with my jaw clenched, “Can you tell me, exactly, what is so difficult about PEDALING?” To which Mike replied, “I never want to ride a bike again.”

Brent, on the other hand, has spent hours of his life running next to Mike as he has weeble-wobbled on the sidewalk with graduating levels of bicycling, with Brent announcing, “Almost! You’ve almost got it!” And Brent barely winces when Mike crashes into him yelling with excitement, “Dad! This is the most fun I’ve ever had on a bike!”

With Brent, fun seems to be the operative word. Whereas I like to stick to schedules, good nutrition, and impeccable hygiene, Brent has been known to take the kids to the park where he lets them play for hours with little regard for our regular bedtime hour. Then he will feed them Dairy Queen for dinner – right in the car – without using the hand sanitizer first. Blasphemy!

But the boys love it. And they sure adore their dad.

Of course Brent isn’t perfect. He always forgets the sunscreen. He never brings jackets for the kids in case the temperature suddenly drops. He gives them doughnuts and suckers and ice cream cones for snacks. He has been known to engage in rather juvenile behavior at the dinner table, making me fear that the rest of my life is going to be one big whoopee cushion joke after another – even after the kids move out to attend Harvard.

Lots of parenting experts say that today’s dads are staggering blindly through fatherhood because they didn’t have good role models to be such hands-on parents. Yet an overwhelming number of dads I know are getting it exactly right, which is certainly the case at our house.

Anybody can remember to bring the sunscreen or change a diaper – even one that is oozing from the sides; for goodness’ sakes, I can even do it if I turn my head and hold my breath. But it takes someone special to always be there and to always want to be there on so many levels – whether it’s to hold a leg steady for an x-ray or to steady a wobbly bike. Happy Father’s Day!

Montana Momoirs

If you read any parenting books on two-and-a-half year-olds, you notice a theme: independence. Apparently, at the ripe old age of 30 months, a child no longer wants mom or dad to do everything for him. According to these parenting books, parents are supposed to encourage this developmental stage so that when the child turns 18, he will hopefully move far away to attend Harvard on a full scholarship.

My two-and-a-half year-old, Peter, had a speech delay and there have been many days that it seemed he might never talk. When he did speak, one of the first words that he could say clearly was “Own!” as in, “I’ll do this myself.”

As his language skills have evolved, so has Peter’s ability to assert his independence. Now he is able to announce, “Do it on mine own!” I had once grandly pronounced that when Peter started to talk, I would never take a single word he said for granted. Flash forward a few months to a typical day during which I hear, “NO! DO IT ON MINE OWN!” approximately 732 times. Because that phrase makes me want to bang my head against a wall. Repeatedly.

I'm all for Peter wanting to get himself dressed and attempting to buckle himself into his car seat. But with a two-and-a-half year-old, a little independence goes a loooong way. And if you should dare to hurry the aforementioned little person along by, say, helping him get his cute little self strapped into his car seat, his head will spin completely around as his forked tongue shoots from his mouth hissing at you and he announces in a voice that could shatter glass, “NO! DO IT ON MINE OWN LADY!”

The largest part of the problem with all of this independence seeking is that it has been scientifically proven that two year-olds are a) illogical and b) slow as molasses. And, while they can walk and talk and use the potty and sleep in big boy beds, a two year-old cannot button a shirt. Their little fingers do not yet possess the fine motor skills to button. But this fact doesn’t stop him from trying.

So after hearing my favorite phrase repeatedly and having my hands pushed away, I leave Peter to try to button his own shirt. I go off and make a seven-course meal and drive to Bozeman and back and when I return, Peter is still fumbling with that first button. When I ask him if he wants help, he responds by saying, “No. Want new shirt.”

Of course most of the time, Peter still expresses his anger and frustration a lot like he did a year ago back in the good ol’ days when he was one – by screaming and yelling. The combination of wanting to do things on one's own coupled with an inability to reason or express oneself results in much discord -- at least at my house.

To illustrate Peter's problem-solving skills and his amazing range of self-expression abilities, I've selected a small sample of meltdowns from the past week:

Problem: Peter did not want to leave the park to come home for dinner. Two year-old solution: A 20-minute drive home from the park during which Peter screamed so loudly that not only did he turn heads the entire ride home, but his voice echoed, ECHOED, off the buildings downtown.

Problem: Peter wanted to get the towel down himself after his bath. Two year-old solution: Since I had mistakenly believed I was helping him by grabbing the towel, he then wanted to take another bath just so he could get the towel down himself.

Problem: Peter did not want the cherry jelly on his PB&J that I made for him and instead wanted the peach jelly that grandma sent. This, in spite of the fact that when I asked him what kind of jelly he wanted, he very clearly answered: "CHERRY." Two year-old solution: Refusal to consume a bite of food while reminding everyone at the table repeatedly, "I don't like to eat."

These are just the larger, more drawn-out 30-minute+ meltdowns. This does not even touch on the approximately 429 mini-meltdowns that have occurred over such inane acts on my part as cutting a piece of toast in half when everyone should know that Peter “NO WANT TOAST CUT IN LITTLE PIECES,” or pulling a shirt over his head when everyone should know that Peter can “DO IT ON MINE OWN,” or by putting a top on his cup so he doesn't spill a smoothie everywhere when everyone should know that Peter “WILL NOT SPILL.”

But remarkably when he does spill everywhere, Peter is suddenly incapable of doing anything on his own except standing around yelling, "MOM, CLEAN THIS MESS UP!"

Montana Momoirs

My five year-old son, Mike, recently went to a party at a friend’s house. When he returned, I asked him, “Did you have a fun time?”

“I did,” Mike said. “But I’m not having fun anymore!” With that, I whisked Mike further back to reality by making him share his toys with his brother (a ZERO on the “Fun Scale”) and by giving him vegetables and fruit at dinnertime, as opposed to the cake and ice cream Mike was certain his friend was eating for dinner.

“My friend’s house is more fun than our house!” he told me. “At his house, you can watch a movie and decorate cookies and eat candy and cake and ice cream!”

“Maybe you should go to your friend’s house when he isn’t having a party,” I said to Mike. “I bet their house is a lot like our house then – NO FUN AT ALL!”

But when I paused to think about Mike’s life, I realized that it is actually one fun thing after another. Mike’s life is punctuated by fort-building, art projects, volcanic eruptions with baking soda and vinegar, or hikes in the mountains, swims at the pool, soaks in hot springs, visits to the museum, and trips to the library, toy store, pet store, or the park.

This is the way a child’s life should be, at least in my mind. But as I thought more about Mike’s life, I realized that, in fact, there is little in his life that isn’t fun. Even the most mundane chores and tasks are made more fun by happy sing-along songs (the “clean-up song” for cleaning up his toys), pint-sized cartoon versions of adult objects (a Bob the Builder potty seat, dental floss held in place by plastic dinosaurs, a toothbrush shaped like an astronaut) or brightly-colored, sugary, kid-friendly varieties of everything from dental floss and toothpaste to milk and medicine.

But the fun doesn’t end there. In fact, as I thought more and more about it, I realized that everywhere Mike goes and everything he does is specifically designed to appeal to him and his pint-sized tastes.

Even a trip to my son’s dentist makes going to Disneyland seem a fairly dismal prospect. In the waiting room, there are video games, a train set, stuffed animals, boxes of toys, and a flat-screen TV playing children’s movies. The exam room is painted to resemble the bottom of the ocean, and stuffed fish hang from the ceiling while a huge aquarium bubbles away nearby.

At the risk of sounding like my parents and grandparents, who all apparently wore burlap sacks and hiked 27 miles to school barefoot in mile-high snowdrifts, I learned a hard life lesson early: life isn’t always fun. And you still have to do what is expected of you – fun or not.

At my childhood dentist’s office, I sat in the waiting room, which I remember as being very grey, without a toy in sight. At home, I brushed with a plain ol’ toothbrush using Crest, in its super minty pasty form. At my childhood doctor’s office, I was lucky if I could find a seven year-old tattered issue of “Highlights for Children.” My mom and I passed the time in the exam room by thumbing through the “Physician’s Desk Reference,” a tome that exceeded any respectable dictionary in size. At home, glasses of milk were completely unadulterated and were thus white and tasted suspiciously of milk. My medicine tasted like medicine. And when someone told me to clean up at school, I was just expected to put things away – without a happy song accompanying the task.

I understand the reasoning behind making the most mundane and sometimes awful tasks seem fun; this isn’t lost on me. But when do kids learn that life isn’t always fun and games? When do they learn that not just sometimes, but often, they must complete tasks that aren’t fun at all?

I don’t want to be the mean mom who takes her kids to the crusty old dentist with the windowless exam room. But I have to pause and wonder about the message I am sending when everything about my kids’ lives is fun, fun, fun and the only thing that’s missing is a giant bowl of candy with a sign that says, “FREE! TAKE ALL YOU WANT!”

I think all children should lead joyful lives where they have few worries and concerns and the bulk of their experiences are positive and happy. But I want my kids to understand that not everything will bring them joy and happiness and still, they will have to do these things because that is what is expected of them.

I wish life was all fun and games. I wish that every day brought nothing but candy and trick-or-treating and videogames and kids’ movies and books and toys and happy sing-alongs. And maybe for a chosen few, this is the way life is. But for most of us, life is about getting up in the morning and getting dressed so we can go to work or to a meeting or to the doctor or to the dentist. And still, we get up and we go do it – fun or not.