Me First

Recently, a dear friend asked me, "Who comes first, you or your kids?" To justify my hasty answer of "Me first, of course," I cited the old airplane safety example...

Everyone knows that in the event of an in-flight emergency you secure your own oxygen mask before assisting your child. It's common sense. Why then, do so many parents (mothers mostly) have the tendency to take care of their children before themselves, even if it sucks the life right out of them? I for one, consider my happiness an emergent situation. Which isn't to say that I don't see to it that my children's daily needs are met along with a reasonable amount of petty wants. It just means that I don't always make myself low man on the totem pole. Sometimes I take the biggest slice of pizza, the longest shower, the last chug of milk from the carton. It wouldn't be like a mediocre mother to be magnanimous ALL the time.

However, I did relinquish the better part of my adolescence to take a crack at teenage motherhood. (I'll tell you the whole story in due time.) Suffice it to say, that while "Juno" and "Teen Moms" have made unwed pregnancy as trendy and nauseatingly contagious as whatever Ke$ha song is currently climbing the charts, when I was in high school getting knocked up was still considered an unsavory thing to do. In fact, upon learning of my unfortunate condition I was summoned to the principal's office at Viewmont High and invited to attend school somewhere I might feel more "comfortable". Somewhere turned out to be The Young Parent's School in Farmington, Utah--a nondescript brick box of a building that housed between 30-40 pregnant girls. And I thought I was the only teen trollop in Utah!

A far cry from wise-cracking Juno, I was the sort of pregnant girl who--while waddling to the school bus--waved back at the teenagers from nearby Davis High who heckled me from their passing cars. "Slut!" They'd sneer from their open windows, sometimes tossing Big Gulps at me while on their way to Seminary class. "I know," I'd shout back apologetically, "Sorry about that." It was a different time, and a different me.

These days, you'll get no apologies from me for stealing a nap before sorting Legos with the boys or for shopping the clearance rack at my favorite thrift store before sitting through another flag football game. Why? Because this former harlot has learned the fundamental in-flight safety rules for life--when Mom's happy, and she has enough air to breath, even if she isn't riding first class, there's no such thing as a crash and burn. When I'm with my kids, whether it's waiting poolside or potty-side, I'm exactly where I want to be--there's nothing unsavory or obligatory about it. Nowadays nobody tells me where I'll feel more comfortable but me. So what if that means bath-time for me before bedtime for the boys? So long as I'm the one tucking them in, nobody seems to mind.

The Not-So-Promiscuous Prom Queen

Had there been a Prom Maternity section or willing teenage suitor during my own Senior Prom, I may have attended, swollen belly and all. How ironic that the daughter I was seven months pregnant with during my own Senior Prom was just crowned the Prom Queen at hers. Isn't life funny?

Happy Hands-Off Mother's Day

When I said all I wanted for Mother's Day was a nice, relaxing picnic at the park with the family, that wasn't entirely true. Oh, I meant it when I said I didn't want any gifts (wrapped that is), but there is a short list of things that I'd like to include as Must-Have's for Mother's Day.

People who live with me: Please pay attention.

I don't want to do dishes, laundry, cooking of any kind (social or survival), wipe noses, butts, tables, or chocolate pudding off the walls. I don't want to de-poop the yard, refill the snake's water dish, find missing mates to shoes, socks, wayward Lego parts, or the ever-elusive remote control. I don't want to remind anyone not to fart at the table, but if they do to say "excuse me", or not to fiddle with their boy parts or that--for the last time--diarrhea is not called dynamite, but perhaps, should be. I don't want to cringe today when my son calls a fat woman fat to her face in public when he genuinely meant it as a kind of compliment for being so big, a mere observation of a physical fact and not an insult in any way. I don't want to be the mother who loses her kids in the store when they run away from her and hide under the clothing racks, only to race to the front to have her paged over the loud speaker just so they can hear their last name announced for all the world to hear. I don't want to sweat or swear--unless it's for sheer enjoyment and not out of frustration. I don't want to make peace, paper airplanes, or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut in half diagonal NOT horizontal. I don't want to kill spiders or anyone's formative hopes and dreams. I don't want to clean a toilet, dog, or toys from the floor of the boys bedroom for the gazillionth time in a day. I don't want a teenager--mine or any other on the planet--to give me attitude, grief of any kind, or a last minute list of expensive things that need to be purchased, like, yesterday. And most of all, I don't want anyone to be unhappy, especially myself, meaning no tantrums, tears, lost toys, pets, or tempers, on this: My very special day of celebrating the many joys of motherhood.

Basically, all of the things I do twice on a regular day, I don't even want to do once today. I just want a healthy, happy, hands-off Mother's Day where I can sit in a patio chair and watch--from a safe distance--my children engaged in relatively unsupervised, but safe and mess-free play.

Is that too much to ask?