05.12.08 Motherless Mother’s Day (Day 3)
I don’t know how Sophie, Kat, Shannon, Melanie and Ree do it. I really don’t. How does a mother - sans servants - have time to blog?
Of course, I’ve never met these ladies’ kids. They may be the smelly kid in their class, subsist on a diet of Pop Tarts and Bagel Bites, wear shoes three sizes too small and speak only in quotes from Lost and The Office. It’s probable.
After I put the kids down at the end of Motherless Mother’s Day weekend day three, I spent an hour cleaning dishes and sweeping up cereal shrapnel and stray marker lids, talked for fifteen minutes to Becky on the phone about how it’s going in New York, resented her good time oh-so-slightly for another five, then spent the last hour of my evening returning e-mails. And then I rose from the couch, sighed deeply and actually said to an empty room, “Geez, I just need a minute of doing nothing alone.” And that sounded familiar.
And it’s not like I don’t help out when Becky’s in town. I do quite a bit I think. Because of my “work” I am able to choose to be around more than most dads. But I am quite spoiled, still, by the few hours I get to spend each day totally alone. “Working,” yes. But alone.
I miss alone. Peeing without having to cut things off mid-stream to play Jimmy Carter in the middle of America (wanting to eat all the cheese sticks right now and by himself) and Hezbollah (wanting to throw all the cheese sticks in the trash as retribution for something. Or just because she’s three and, therefore, temporarily bi-polar).
I miss peeing.
And me without my catheter.
But - and I know this’ll sound really cheesy - I envy Becky. I’m getting to see every little thing I usually miss. Miss because I’m not fully present when I’m “present” because I’m thinking of what I just did or what I’m about to do or what I won’t have time to do. Or missed because I’m off in my office doing doing doing. With Becky out of town, I’m done doing. I’m not missing a thing. I’m just here. Just taking a walk, flying a kite, eating ice cream, sitting in the grass, playing Candyland, pouring the millionth glass of water. And playing Jimmy Carter occasionally.
