Why I Need to Slow Down

Posted January 22, 2008

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^{Ever wonder what Catherine sounds like? Listen to her read this blog entry.}

When I look down, what I see, extending from the cuff of my sweater up to its elbow, is a thick and dripping smear of fabric glue. "Focaccia," I say, only I skip the second two syllables, and Ben says, "What is it, Mama?"

The kids have been watching me wrestle with a craft project for work -- trying to determine if gluing could work just as well as sewing to turn a pair of old corduroys into a doll. Right now, if I were a billboard, I would have one word on me, and that word would be, "No."

Sometimes I make terrible choices, and this is one of them. Michael's working, and the kids and I have just enjoyed a lovely dinner together -- complete with candlelight and squash soup that the children consented to eat because I drowned it in coconut milk, and fresh gingerbread and relaxed conversation -- and then, it seems, I thought to myself: "In the one minute before bedtime, why don't I cover every square inch of the house in fabric glue?" The setting I'm on is fast forward, even though my poor kids are still on play.

It's multitasking at its worst. I'm so certain I can figure this out quickly that I don't really get set up the right way -- for example, I don't make sure the kids are busy with something or cover the coffee table with newspaper or have a roll of paper towels handy. It's the way I was as a graduate student, when I'd count on getting in and out of the library with the books I needed in only a minute or two, and so, hours of research later, I'd still be wearing my coat and peeing in my pants and digesting my own esophagus because I couldn't commit to being there. It would be so much smarter to get the kids to bed and then relax over the project with a ~~bottle~~ glass of wine.

Alas.

"It's this," I say now, and hold up my gluey sleeve to show him. "Honey, could you please grab me a paper towel?" Ben skips off to help, and Birdy says consolingly, "Well, Mama, at least it's fabric glue, and, luckily, your sweater is fabric!" Good point.

I try to wipe off the sweater, then dart into the kitchen to run it under water, then return with my sopping sleeve bunched up around my elbow. "Do you maybe want to take your sweater off?" Ben counsels sagely, and I shake my head. Why model meticulous workmanship and healthy self-care when you can bend frantically over a sloppy project in your soaked and gluey clothing? I'm Jack Nicholson in The Shining, if what he did for a living was develop children's craft projects. The remake potential strikes me as hilarious: Jack Nicholson with the scary teeth and psychotic eyebrows, hunched over a fleece appliqué of a ladybug.

Almost before I've sat all the way down, I drag my other sleeve through the glue. I could cry. "Mama?" Ben says. "Mama? Daddy says we're going to put this rocking chair in the basement." I see now that I've also succeeding in gluing the corduroy to the coffee table. "But I like this rocking chair, Mama. I like rocking in it." I've now glued a spool of ribbon to the cuff of my sweater. I'm the glue version of Edward Scissorhands. "Mama, I want to keep this chair in the living room." I jerk my head up to face him. "Ben," I say not patiently. "This is the wrong moment to pick an imaginary argument with me. I think you're really old enough to see that."

Ben's face falls, and Birdy puts a little hand on his shoulder. "Mama," she says gently. "I don't think it's nice to tell other people how to do things." And I so totally miss the beautiful and amazing forest of this moment for its trees, for the way the trees need pruning or didn't grow the right kind of pie apples, that I snap at them both. "Everybody stop arguing with me!" I say. "Go clean up the pretend kitchen, and then we'll get ready for bed."

Suffice it to say that what follows is tears and the capping of the glue, the drying of my hands on a dish towel so that I can gather up these poor, helpful, neglected children, so that I can apologize to them for being speaking sharply, to Ben for expecting him to be more grown-up than his eight years. We lie in bed in a heap of sniffling relief (theirs) and choking regret (mine), and I say to Birdy, "That was so brave of you to stick up for Ben." She furrows her eyebrows. "What?" she says, and I say, "When you said it wasn't nice to tell people how to do things." "Yeah," Ben says. "That really was brave, Birdy." Birdy's brows are still furrowed and then her face lights up. "Oh!" she says. "I meant the gluing. I meant that if you wanted to sew that doll, they shouldn't have told you to glue it."

"Mama and I had an argument tonight," Ben writes in his journal -- then crosses it out and writes: "Mama got mad at us tonight." I transcribe for Birdy into her own journal: "Mama didn't understand what I meant and spoke sharply to us." I write in my own journal: "Glue night." That will be more than enough to remind me.

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Why I Need to Slow Down

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rockabye26 says:

January 29, 2008

You know...all I could think of while reading this blog was the picture accompanying it. "Don't we look so, so angelic, mama?" And they do.

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CatheriNewman says:

January 28, 2008

I have such mixed feelings about being reassured, you know? I mean, it's great--it makes me feel so much better in some ways. And I agree, too: I'm human, I show my kids that, I apologize. These are fine life lessons for them. But then I sometimes think I'd do better to imagine living in a world where I couldn't apologize. I would just need to be more careful at the front end. Not Stepford careful. Just taking-care-of-these-little-dear-people careful. Like today, when I spoke sharply to Ben for reading the IKEA catalogue for too long. Kill me.

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andij1967 says:

January 28, 2008

I often find that when I push myself beyond my limits (which as a female and a mother, I have somehow been trained to ignore), the one who suffers the most is my child. She feeds off my frenetic energy and is wounded by my insensitivity. But I feel like I am giving her a primer in reality when I fall short and apologize to her for it. I wouldn't want her to grow up with a Stepford Mom who never admitted her faults. At least she sees me setting things right, and I think that's a great example for her in the end.

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Dalai Mama Dishes

by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Why I Need to Slow Down

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