It can be precarious, parenthood.

Every once in a while my kids get along. It's rare enough that I stop what I'm doing to watch.

Last weekend they spent about a half hour tearing apart an old Hemlock stump to make mulch for the gardens. Elias and Olive stood on either side of the once ancient tree; they laughed and cooperated and laughed some more as they grabbed the rotting bark by the handful or kicked it with their dirty shoes.

It was beautiful. Until it wasn't.

Until they moved on and fought over a felled Alder tree stuck in a Spruce, Elias determined to pull it down, Olive set on climbing it. You would think it was the one and only tree up here on this mountainside. Never mind the fact that a giant slash pile lay next to us, filled with Alder and Spruce, or that thousands of living trees, a forest-full, graces our place.

But yeah, they both needed to bend that particular Alder to their stubborn wills.

Sibling love, composed of competition and protection, jealousy and companionship--with whole long stretches where, try as you might, it's almost impossible to unearth the positive. You just hold onto the hope that somewhere behind the squabbles, pulled hair, tears, and slammed doors resides a brother and sister who love each other. 

Elias blows up less often, with weeks, even months, between rages; Olive runs faster these days, but she remains his primary trigger and his strength has surpassed my own. So we still can't leave them alone, unless they sit apart, plugged into screens, and its only for a short walk within screaming distance.

It can be precarious, parenthood.

Loving these little ones who do not remain small and who despite our best efforts can not be contained.

Children grow and change and become people with lives separate from our own. It's always happened, throughout time, and yet somehow this metamorphosis still seems remarkable with our own kids.

The other day, I walked into Olive's room with an armful of folded clean clothes and when I realized I couldn't even cross the threshold due to her creative chaos, I said something like,"Olive, I don't even know where to put your clean laundry because I can't walk into your room."

Instead of cleaning, she spent the next hour building a place for me to put it.

That's Olive, my little engineer, whose 4th grade team won the junior division of our school district's Rube Goldberg competition called Mind of Mazes. And here I can barely figure out how to open a package or take a selfie or fold fitted sheets.

And then there's Elias, with his memory for details when I can't remember where I set down my coffee or beer. His need to fully zip every zipper and close every drawer; he straightens his books by his bed before settling in for the night, and always, always hangs his coat on a hook instead of throwing it down by the door.

No wonder my children clash, regardless of the diagnoses that Elias collects--as if medical terms can contain the soul of a child.

Too often, I am guilty of seeing him through this lens of disabilities, instead of for the complex teenage boy that continues to unfold before me. To see him just as Elias, an ornery big brother, not as a boy with special needs.

Parenthood trips me repeatedly, hits me on the head, sucker punches me in the gut, and still I claim this role of mother before all others.  Even when I want to hang it up in the closet and silently slip out the door, especially then, because no other job or relationship has taught me more about my fallible ever-changing self.

We are all works in progress, messy and beautiful, flawed and rising anew.

 

Comments

[Laura]

We have never met or even corresponded, but I thought of your family the other day. I teach high school and came across a young man lurking outside my building instead of going to an assembly. After he gave several reasons that didn’t make sense for why he was there, he confessed it was really to watch and see if the elevator came down. He just really loves elevators you see. His face lit up and he told me all about the OTHER elevator at the school and why he likes them so much (“when the door closes it’s like a whole other world in there”). I walked him over to the assembly and we chatted the whole way about elevators. Now I see him hanging around by the elevator, which he doesn’t every day, I smile and he smiles back, and I think of your boy and how he’s got a kindred spirits out in CA.

[Carolyn]

Lots of insight here. Great writing.

[Greta]

Beautiful