Compost Studios

Did you hear that? That was my sigh of relief. The kids are back in school today. Thank God!

Since the E-Man left for Australia more than a week ago, I’ve been outnumbered and outgunned. I’ve been a hostage to the demands of domestic terrorists—who are forever hungry, often bored, and slavishly devoted to littering every flat surface in the house. The word “Mama” is carved into my eardrums. I feel like the pooper scooper at the back of their parade. I could not wait to push them onto the school bus this morning. And this makes me feel guilty. Why is spending protracted periods of time alone with my own offspring such torture?

Before E left, I had a few Norman Rockwell moments imagining how the kids and I might spend their five-day break. I imagined us baking bread or making cookies, doing Christmas crafts, maybe taking the train to a new destination. Instead I woke up every morning to an enormous mess in the kitchen from their unsupervised and unapproved cooking projects. By the time I’d finish shuffling through the wreckage of their adventures, my slippers sticking to the filthy floor, they would have moved on to other pursuits, and I’d have chased any thoughts of recipes, arts and crafts, or travel from my brain. I was forever on the defensive, dedicated to damage control.

During their little vacation (aka my home confinement), the hamster’s cage broke under rather suspicious circumstances. My son declared with authority that since Lefty’s cage was now BROKEN, we HAD to buy him the new one that my son had spotted (and coveted) in the local pet shop. Being an Alpha Bitch Mother, I told darling son that I was not spending one more euro on hamster toys or accessories, and that if he wanted a new cage, every cent for it would come out of his allowance. This sent darling son into an angry sulk which drove him to tease and annoy his sister as well as nag his mother ENDLESSLY about the f-----g hamster cage. I am not fond of hamsters (a pet rodent--what was I thinking!), but I do secretly admire the hamster mothers for eating their young. They’re damn smart animals.

Foiled in his attempts to wring a new hamster habitat out of his mother, my son decided to “re-engineer” the existing cage, and he cut his arm with a pocketknife in the process. He then spilled all the band-aids and left them scattered all over the floor, along with the paper wrapper and tabs for the one he used. With his injury treated, he proceeded to continue work on the cage, spilling hamster bedding in nearly every room of the house AND the bathtub.

My beautiful, sweet-natured, girly girl who smothers me with hugs and kisses, left a wake of books, clothes, art supplies, school papers, hair accessories, pencils, papers, scissors, and clippings across all three floors of the house. She seemed incapable of even lining up her single pair of sneakers in the foyer. I labored for hours in her room, getting her permission to thin down the toys that take over. I spent a good part of two days in there and swept it clean right down to the floor. In the end, it looked like a room from a Pottery Barn catalog—all white and pastel and fresh as spring flowers. That lasted less than 10 hours. She and her brother dumped the doll bins and pulled the mattress (and the dust ruffle) off the bed and pulled up all the rugs in their quest to create a “baby hospital.” They also completely soaked several towels, a rug, and EVERY wash rag in the bathroom, which I might add, had several piles of wood shavings from the hamster cage in it plus a sink full of marbles. Yes, marbles. Why they’re in the sink—I have no idea. There were wet socks all over the floor and wet hamster bedding in the tub.

Tired of either cleaning their messes myself or nagging them into doing it, I declared we were not leaving the house for any reason until the house was clean. They responded by reading all day, talking about how tired they were, and declaring after hanging up a jacket or two that they “had already cleaned.”

I demanded they clean the kitchen floor, which had, among other things, melted butter, wheat germ, and apple sauce on it. They surprised me by cheerfully taking on this task and doing it well—but that was it. No more. Despite repeated requests, the hamster junk was not swept up, the tub not scrubbed, the beds not made, the toys not put up, and all the jetsam and flotsam of their existence not put into its proper place. So we all stayed home. Even though I didn’t have eggs, bread, or cheese left, we did not go to the grocery store. We skipped a planned trip to the library and didn’t take a ride on the Metro. They were not permitted to have friends over.

Finally, on the last day of their break, they rallied and cleaned. Not perfectly but good enough. Really, they have no idea what a slacker mom I am. Their Dad would not have let them go so far and would have disciplined them much more stringently than me.

Today I leave them to the professionals and do a happy dance. I get the house to myself until 3:30 p.m. , when I’ll begin the task of supervising homework, music practice, showers, tooth brushing and bedtime. Oh yeah, I plan to cook dinner too. Still a tough gig, but at least I have from 8 a.m. on to get ready for it.

November 14, 2005