This is a picture of my nearly 13 year old daughter, Chloe, about to attend her very first school dance.
Now, I know what you’re thinking.
You’re thinking,
“Why, Kerri, I would have expected an actual photograph of such a momentous occasion as a first school dance, not merely a few hasty scratchings on your phone’s note pad!”
Frankly, I expected it, too.
There is so much drama that goes into a pre-teen girl getting ready.
All those raging hormones wage full-on war against such atrocities as a dress with too wide a neck, or hair with too many lumps.
One wrong look at one, and suddenly they’re starting over from scratch, and destroying all progress, because “You OBVIOUSLY think I look weird. I can tell from the face you just made.”
That face that was just you being alive.
I’ve learned to breathe more shallowly when Chloe is getting ready.
I’ve learned not to make suggestions lest I be turned to stone.
To keep my face as still as if it were in death if I want to make it to the other side where we are actually leaving the house towards a destination.
So, on this night, I just let her be.
Through 3 wardrobe changes, and some weird banging sound, and through the crisis she had over the size of hair tendrils she wanted to make look like had casually fallen free.
Those tendrils were anything but casual.
I waited,
and when she finally presented herself,
I smiled a careful smile, and we walked to the car in silence. Once there, I cautiously told her she looked pretty.
(Easy….Easy….You don’t want to spook it…)
I asked her if she was excited.
She answered that she was.
All was going well until we pulled into the drop off circle at the school, and as she climbed from the car I said the words,
“Oh! I forgot to take a photo! Can I do it over there in the light?”
“Over THERE?!” She looked around horrified.
“Where people can SEE US?! That is SO embarrassing, Mama. No, Mama. Please no.”
And so I took no decent picture.
I instead spent my time waiting for the dance to be over and to return to pick her up at a local brew pub, sipping a glass of wine, staring into space, and doodling my own blasted picture as a waitress asked if everything was OK here.
These kids, man.
Sometimes they chew you up and spit you out.
They need you, need you, NEED YOU, need you, and suddenly it’s a closed door in your face and you’re asking if you can come in.
Thank goodness for my oldest, Alena, who stands to remind me that they usually come back around.
Eventually their tails shrink, and the purple smoke fades, and they re-humanize once more.
She reminded me that it really takes until adulthood for them to see we parents for who we are.
The other day, due to an overreaction of an urgent care nurse, I spent almost 6 hours in the emergency room.
Because of being sent so quickly, I had no time to make other arrangements, and so I had my daycare baby, Greyson, with me.
There I was being triaged, thermometer in my mouth, blood pressure cuff inflating,
and even as the nurse checked my pulse I found myself mumbling over that thermometer asking her where the closest vending machine was in case Greyson needed a snack.
While I was there,
in came another woman to be triaged on the other side of the curtain, mere feet away.
She was experiencing terrible heart palpitations.
She mentioned that her father was out driving her baby around to try to get him to sleep so she could be seen.
She then told the nurse that as she, weakly, had nearly reached the entrance to the ER,
her dad had honked and called out to her from the still-running car,
“BUT WHAT DO I DO IF HE POOPS?!”
She then told the nurse, as he strapped her to an EKG machine, that she may need to step out soon to help him, and would that be OK?
I hollered through that curtain when I heard that.
“Girl! Isn’t this just the WAY?!
We are literally in the EMERGENCY ROOM and STILL we are taking care of everyone else!”
That mom and I knuckle bumped as I went back out to wait.
I know these days are all a part of it.
These deep-sigh, pushed-away feeling days.
I’ve mothered long enough to know that kids aren’t the only ones that have growing pains.
We do our best.
We feed them snacks.
We wash their feet.
We dose the Tylenol.
We come if they call,
and then one day learn that sometimes we just have to wait outside the door for them to be ready.
For a dance.
For life.
Last night a friend posted a video of her kids carrying a giant piece of cardboard out to the trash bin.
She had videoed from inside the house and was dying laughing watching these two, void of all logic and problem solving skills, as they attempted and failed miserably at getting that sheet of cardboard into the bin.
She commented that she wondered what she had done wrong.
I responded to her post by telling her how often I look at my kids and wonder if they would survive the wild.
How at some point you just have to shrug and know that you did all you could and, bless their hearts,
they’re in God’s hands now.
Maybe one day Chloe will want my opinion again.
Maybe someday she will realize that I actually know a lot about hair, and outfits,
and how little other kids actually care about seeing you having your picture taken.
For now I’ll just keep patiently waiting for her to be ready.
Maybe I’ll sketch while I wait.
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
