Rock Bottom

So.  Thursday night at 7 pm I stood in the kitchen and let out a wordless scream that I'm still feeling in the back of my throat today. The kids were complaining because I was late getting dinner on the table after spending a silly amount of time switching one child's Clash Royale account from his brother's ipad to his. Apparently someone had started an account on the wrong ipad and starting the game over on their own would cost them hours of their life that they'd never get back.

I didn't want to point out that the one thing they have right now is time, so I intervened.

I'm not totally sure what the game Clash Royale is about but it's security is tight and unlike all the school board meetings that have been getting Zoom-bombed by sexual predators, I had to provide a screen name, a seven digit ID number, a trophy count, a clan name, and the name of their favorite teacher's first pet in order to get their accounts switched.

Just kidding about the last part but it seemed like a lot.

I know I should know more about what games my kids are playing but when they start talking about dragons and clans I start thinking about the weird kids in college who spent their Friday nights in the quad playing Magic: The Gathering and I go down the rabbit hole of wondering if my kids are going to get laid in college and that's not the kind of thing a mom should ever have to worry about. I decided instead to appreciate the fact that it's free babysitting and move on.

And, I know I could have just told my kids to figure this out themselves but the amount of arguing I'd witnessed over who was using whose device for which game was working my last nerve. Also, after complaining for weeks that my freelance career seemed to be on hold, I suddenly have three projects this week which require me to spend time in front of my computer doing more than fighting with conspiracy theorists and filling my Nordstrom cart with clothes that I will not be wearing this summer.

(Husband, if you're reading this, don't worry, I don't actually intend on pressing "order." It's just fun to fill up the cart and then let it sit there for a while until everything sells out or I realize that I have no place to wear platform espadrilles this summer other than to my mailbox and back).

So yeah, Clash Royale has become our Mary Poppins because I need to get shit done. No apologies, these are the times we are living in. I asked my 11 year old mid-scream why it is that no one ever asks Dad to stop what he's doing to help them with school work, make them lunch, or sign into their itunes account so they can buy their way to the next level (and then have a discussion about hollow victories with them).

His response: "He's a man, Mom."

This did not help my dinner time meltdown, and only added fuel to the fire, at which point the words "patriarchy" and "white male privilege" might have gotten mixed in with the more primal roar emanating from deep within my soul.

Part of me wondered, "Is this rock bottom?" One child was crying, one was covering their ears, and one had fled from the room. My husband had raced out of his office, saw that no one was injured and nothing was on fire and proceeded to get equally enraged and verbally let loose on the kids. He's in his own personal hell trying to work from home on Very Important Stuff for his public accounting firm, the details of which I cannot divulge (mainly because I don't entirely understand them) and every once in a while he has to pause to explain that no, nobody is getting murdered in the next room, this is just what a house with three boys and a dog and a stressed out mother sounds like.

It's truly amazing that one of his associates announced a pregnancy last week - you'd think that being Zoomed into our household for the past eight weeks would have put a hold to any and all procreating amongst the members of his audit team. 

The thing is, this actually wasn't rock bottom. It was Thursday night.

And like so many other nights in the past two months when I have had moments of "Is this what it's come to? Can it get any worse than this?" I had to tell myself, "Probably, yeah.

Like when the gear needed to go on a Target run made it look like I’m headed into post meltdown Chernobyl and not on an errand for Mother’s Day cards and some bananas. And a scented candle, because it’s Target and I’m basic.

Like when I realized that I now have "regular sweatpants" and "good sweatpants."

Like when my husband told me I'm wearing my yoga pants "wrong" and we had a debate over what the term "high-waisted" really means.

Like when I was jealous of the woman in the Humira commercial. Sure, she has Crohn's disease, but she also gets to go on a girl's trip to Chicago with her mom and sister.  Diarrhea be damned, she's still living her best life.

Like when I spent three weeks trying to get my mom's friends to upload videos for a birthday video since they couldn't celebrate with her in person. Do you know how difficult it is to get Baby Boomers to understand the difference between text messages, direct messages and email?

Like when my husband stopped sending me funny dog videos on Twitter and started sending me videos of murder hornets killing mice.

Like when my nine year old asked me if I knew who Beetlejuice was and I thought he meant the Micheal Keaton version but it turns out he really meant the Howard Stern version and I realized I need to limit his YouTube time.

When that same nine year old told me that Uncle Joey is his favorite Full House character and I wondered if I should also be limiting his Hulu time as well because Dave Coulier is easily the most annoying character on that show and also he broke Alanis Morissette's heart back in the day. I mean, even if some great music came out of that breakup, seriously?  That guy? 

Like when the two women who had signed up to be in charge of  Teacher Appreciation Week bailed because they are "too busy with their kids" (even though they only have two kids each and no work from home responsibilities but sure, you do you, ladies) and the PTA president called and told me that I had been named as someone who could "maybe probably put something together last minute" and I realized that after complaining about teaching my kids for the past six weeks it was literally the least I could do to show the teachers that I appreciate the hell out of them.

Like when the Facebook page for my city became even more toxic than usual with neighbors forgoing the usual fights about who's dog was seen without a leash and which restaurant served the best french fries and instead became a place for:

--Posting about the latest government conspiracy theories. Just because you saw it on YouTube does not make it science, Karen.  
--Public shaming for those who want a designer dog instead of a rescue. As someone who sweeps up dog hair ten times a day, I respect your choice to get a dog with the word "doodle" in it.  
-- Fighting over whether or not graduating high school seniors deserve a military fly-by or if they should just be thankful that they don't have to sit through the reading of 400 names in a crowded theater.  From what I've been told nobody can hear their kid's name anyway because even though everyone was instructed not to cheer until the end there's always that one family that starts cheering five names in and ruins it for everyone else.

Oh, white people. Can't we just be grateful no one murders us when we go out for a jog and move on?

Anyway, those are just some of the moments from the past eight weeks that made me think, OK, it literally cannot get any worse than this. And they don't even include the daily Trump press briefings or the amount of times the people in my house have asked "What's for lunch?"

But the absolute kicker - the moment that I thought to myself, this is it, we have peaked - came about an hour after that dinner time scream sesh.

The kids had been outside playing basketball in the driveway. The neighbor kids, who by this time in the year have usually worn a path in the grass that separates our houses, were playing basketball in their own driveway. The kids were yelling back and forth to each other about jump shots and the rules of HORSE and if you couldn't see them out the window it sounded almost...normal.

But then my six year old came bursting into the home office that I share with my husband hysterically crying.

As I mentioned before, Husband is working on some Important Stuff and I also have three freelance projects going on. With online school and housework and cooking what feels like twelve meals for five people taking up the better part of my day, my evenings are when I do most of that work. At this particular moment he was on a Zoom call with coworkers and I was updating social media graphics for a political campaign I'm working on (Robinson 2020 y'all). I'd been trying all day to find the time to devote to this project and this was the third time in that hour that this child had interrupted to complain that his brothers were "being mean."

"Being mean" in my house could mean anything from not sharing the basketball to trash talking his basketball skills to throwing the basketball in his face at full force from six inches away. Since there were no visible bruises or bumps I figured it was one of the first two, but I had had it. I marched into the garage and demanded that all basketball playing STOP and all of my children come INSIDE for the night.

Honestly, I didn't really expect the 11 year old and 9 year old to obey me. Their listening skills on a good day are at a 5 on a scale from 1 to 100 and these kinds of demands are usually met with an eye roll and a promise to be nice "from now on." But something in my voice must have told them that Mom wasn't playing. They dropped their balls and came inside.

That's when shit started to get real. The nine year old walked into the kitchen, reached into the back of the drawer where the kids had been hiding their Mother's Day cards for me. I'd been pretending not to know they were there because having something to open on Mother's Day has been one of three things keeping me going these days and the other two involve empty calories and substances that are only legal for medicinal purposes in the state of Ohio. He grabbed his card, walked up to me, and ripped it in half right in front of my face.

Oh. My. God.

May I remind you that this was my middle child. My sweet, funny, no-drama middle child who would rather sulk and pout in the corner than confront me when he's angry? The one who is usually the first to smooth things over with his brothers, the one who goes along to get along? This kind of overly dramatic, reaction seeking, just plain hurtful behavior was so out of character that it took me a minute to process what had just happened. And when I did, I just turned around and walked out of the room.

Five minutes later, when I was laying on my bed questioning pretty much everything I had ever done as a parent but particularly in the past fifteen minutes, my middle child appeared at my door and proceeded to collapse into a puddle of "I'm so sorry" tears in my arms. In between sobs I heard the words "I wanted to give you that card and now it's ruined" and "I just wanted to play with my friends who I never see anymore."

That last line kind of killed me. Because while I've been feeling sorry for myself because I have to make lunch and teach math, my kids are suffering too. Everything they were used to has been taken away from them and there's no way of knowing when and if they are going to get it all back. And they are too young to really grasp that their lives are pretty good compared to other kids who might not have the luxury of personal electronic devices, a mom who can make sure they show up for their Google Meet's and complete their assignments more or less on the days they are due, and a pantry that has consistently been stocked full of snack food.  So. Much. Snack food.

Because of the above, they haven't really suffered, but they aren't oblivious to the trauma either.

They know that from 2-3 pm every day I  listen to the governor and I can't imagine how they feel when each press conference starts with him listing the number of deaths that have occurred in the past 24 hours.

They see the anxiety on my face when I watch the news before I quickly assure them that kids are safe(-ish) from COVID-19.

They know that all of their summer activities are either cancelled or on hold and that we aren't really sure when they will get to play with their friends again.

I keep telling myself that all they need they have inside these walls, but is that true? In a physical sense, absolutely. In an emotional sense? Maybe, maybe not. 

At this point both my nine year old and I were sobbing into each other's necks and holding on to each other for dear life. He apologized for destroying my card and I apologized for all of the things that he was missing out on. I'm not even sure he realized that losing it over an evening of parallel play was symbolic of all of the losses that he is experiencing right now, but I apologized for them anyway. He looked a little confused when I said that I was sorry that he thinks Uncle Joey is a good role model but most of the conversation had the wisdom of Danny Tanner with a little bit of the profanity of off-camera Bob Saget thrown in for good measure. 

So, that's it. That was my rock bottom moment - for this week, anyway. Once we had calmed each other down, my middle child retreated to his room to make me a new card which I still have not read  because I enjoy the suspense of wondering whether or not he knows how to spell "mother" "appreciate" or "shitshow." I retreated to the office to finish my work and felt the satisfaction that comes from using the right side of my brain to do something that might actually help move the trajectory of the state of Ohio away from the whack-jobs who refuse to wear a mask because 'Mericans have rights!' and towards those of us who trust science and are relieved to have an excuse to leave the house without lipstick.

By the end of the night life in my house had settled back into the normal that isn't so new anymore and also isn't so normal. But, snuggling with my nine year old on the couch watching Uncle Joey pretend to be Bullwinkle while explaining to Michelle that it's OK to be sad sometimes, rock bottom didn't feel such a hard place to land.