Crying Over Carpet

I cried over carpet today. I mean literally leaning against my front door with a rag in hand and a spray bottle in another taking on a position of defeat over carpet. It is important to note that this is carpet I can only assume was installed in the late eighties, mid nineties at best. Carpet that has been the bane of my housekeeping existence in our otherwise charming in a very rundown way apartment.

Honestly my tears were not just about the carpet. I learned in a class called conscious mothering a couple of years ago about a concept called "broken cookie syndrome," which in the simplest of terms refers to a child having a breakdown/tantrum over let's say a broken cookie or certain color cup, when in reality the breakdown is not fully the result of said cookie or cup. The actual, crying, screaming, however your little one chooses to express themselves and throw down the emotional gauntlet, reflects a deeper hurt and the cookie/cup is just the final trigger, the proverbial straw that breaks the camels back. So I guess this carpet is my straw and in the last few years has been at the center of a few of my mama breakdowns.

 It is also important to note that I have very strong feelings about where I would like carpet in my living space and where I would not. I did not know how strong these feelings were before I had children. It seems ridiculous to me for instance to install carpet in a an eating area, as well as in the entry way of a home. Really any high traffic area, or area where there is water like bathrooms or kitchens. I understand the beauty of carpet when you want to lie on the floor to watch a movie, right when you get out of bed in the morning and your feet hit the floor, and when your children are learning to walk and climb. However in my day to day life carpet is mostly my broken cookie.

I have kind of accepted that our apartment doesn't have a dishwasher or a washer and dryer and have given myself some Grace in terms of the time it takes to get those things done with two little ones running through sippy cups and clothing. However the carpet throws me every time. I think what gets me the most about it is that it turns what is just normal day to day life with kids under 5, maybe even over 5 I don't know, I'm not there yet, into time consuming scrubbing, blotting, drying and let's be honest ruining of said carpet.

When the baby eats food it gets all over the floor every time, and yes we put a very wipeable durable garden mat that looks like a carpet under the table but the truth is no mat is big enough to encompass how far a baby can get food from their tray just by the simple exercise of learning how to eat. 3 year old art projects, dirt from outside, even our landlord's friendly handyman wears his dirty work boots in here, marching all over the carpet whenever anything needs to be fixed. On any other floor these things would still be a little bit annoying, however soap and water takes care of it and scratches or nicks over time build character on a floor(well maybe not a laminate floor:) but not on carpet. Carpet just gets dirty, dingy, ripped up, matted down, stuck on food,  and quite honestly a little bit scary. Yes you can hire carpet cleaners and we have, however there are just some stains that never come out and in a couple of weeks most are back right where you left them, in fact carpet stains have to be given credit for their wherewithal and tenacity. And normally I don't care that much about this kind of stuff, which most people who have been to our place can attest to from our lack of coordination in decor and willingness to accept any furniture hand me downs, and decorating help. However carpet makes me crazy because it makes normal things that kids do, even more frustrating.

I'm not saying I wouldn't address the marker on the floor, the paint on the floor, the muddy feet on the floor or the many meals that end up there, I would and I do, however if it wasn't this carpet that probably shares my birth decade or at least my AYSO years those things could just be wiped up and moved on from. It's obvious all over our floor that no matter what I have said or done consciously or unconsciously as a mother, Leela still writes and paints on the floor with all types of art medium. Eli misses his mouth entirely at some point during all meals which he should do at this age and half our backyard and neighborhood lives within these fibers. To one extent it is slightly reminiscent of a faint penciled height chart in a home to mark all the growth and years, however all of this dirt is not ours(much of it is, but not all) and we are certainly not getting our security deposit back. So why can't I just let it go? Take it for what it is. Why am I leaning against my door crying over this carpet?

I think because it is the thing that pushes me over the emotional edge of what I have energy to deal with each day. I mean it is the law of little ones that as soon as you sit down to feed a baby or rock them to sleep your other child/children need your help in the bathroom immediately, or have found all the knives you thought were safe and decide now is the time to learn how to cut their own mango(yes that happened this week.) It's those times of unplanned silence when you know something is up, a friend of mine calls it, "paying for silence," and upon investigation there is flour all over the floor, or hair has been cut or scribbled murals adorn your walls. There are many times when everyone is crying and needs all of you right then, multiple times a day, or you are changing a diaper and at the moment you are elbow deep in it, there is a call of distress from a 3 year old and you are not sure if they just want to show you a cool bug they found or they are in a spot of potential danger. It's the meals you don't really eat because you are cutting up tiny food, while teaching how to make guacamole, arguing over who gets to pray first and answering literally the 200th why question of the day. It's the days of seeing the deep hurts of your kids while they rail about a wrong song or ill fitting shoe and you see the broken parts of yourself in them, your deep hurts showing in their tantrums and spilling out of emotions, and you are all at once terrified that you can't keep them from really seeing and embodying parts of yourself, and incensed that they even consider acting the way they do.

It's all that and so much more and then all of a sudden just as you think you have made it through a day of loving with Grace for you and them, you set up some paint and paper outside and quickly run to the bathroom. Moments later your little one comes to you with that look of mischief in their eyes and says, "come see what I did." And there they are, many orange footprints all over the carpet. You try to keep it together teach about cleaning up, treating property with respect, and being responsible with paint, but really you just end up crying by your front door because somehow right then the baby woke up, everyone needs to be fed soon, it's Saturday and you miss your husband, and try as you might, if you don't use harsh chemicals(which I can't bring myself to do) the carpet is never really going to get clean.

From one perspective our carpet is full of all the things we are in process of learning in this house, a canvas of pushing boundaries and testing limits and you would never see it and think we haven't lived. Yet it bothers me.It is a direct reminder of the defiance's of the day, the times I took the risk and let there be silence and exploration, and it at least in terms of carpet, backfired. I also think somewhere living in my mind is the idea that if your carpet is clean you are a better parent and a more respectable person. If your carpet is clean, I do respect you, call me. It's just that I know how much heart I put into parenting and it only goes so well in the here and now, so things like carpet that are straightforward, seem like things you should be able to manage and control. Try as I might I am really not in control of how this whole parenting journey turns out, just in how I approach it and I won't really really know if my kids are OK, if my approach is what they needed until they are my age, probably older, maybe never, so it seems like carpet should be a non issue. If I take carpet out of the equation it feels like there might be a little less to fight against in the things that don't matter category and a little more energy to deal with what is really underneath the orange footprints and my tears at the end of a trying week.The security deposit would be nice too.

I was in no mood to photograph the carpet however you get the idea of where these footprints were headed.

Also my new favorite picture of Leela and Eli cheering on Ben Thorburn at his soccer game.

Saying Goodbye

I have a dear friend of mines cream colored drum shaped light fixture up on a high shelf in our apartment. Its dangling cord flopping over the edge of our wall clock. The slow ticking reminding me that I had vowed to give up being a night person, at least while my children were under the age of 5. Yet here I am staring at that lamp stumbling through my first blog post. This blog has existed since 2010, a blank slate, a template to actually write something down, things as they happen, and it would help me to remember them. The lamp is both catalyst and comfort.

Staring at that lamp frayed at the end of the cord, where I can only assume my friends husband cut it off from where it hung on their ceiling with no measuring, hesitation or concern for the possible electric shock that might occur, it reminded me that my friend rarely went through a week without writing things down. Scribbled on pages, etched into journals, slid onto skin with marker. Heartfelt irreverent writing on mirrors, seashells, blog posts poured into poems. She lived fully and still somehow found the space, the words, the care to write it down. So here I am trying to write something, anything to remember that she left today and I am sad.

Mildly comforted by a lamp with exposed wires that feels just a little bit like a tether between two worlds. One where she and her reckless in the best possible way husband, blond haired boy and brown haired girl could laugh with my husband, encourage his ridiculous love of chaos, pancakes and over sized boxes of cereal that don't really fit anywhere. A world where her brown haired girl would run with my own sandy brown haired girl conjuring up full bodied laughs, mischief and 3 year old promises of sleepovers and thanksgiving dinners we would spend together soon.

And another world where Christmas cards are not hand delivered and children that made you really like children before you had your own grow up vaguely remembering they might have ever known you, read stories with you, guessed what the child growing in your belly would be, danced in your living room, or felt comfortable around you. A world where you might have to say awkward things like, I knew you when you were a baby, a child, when you weren't so tall or grown up.

Yes, the lamp is the last thing before I have to really say goodbye to that first world, to let it go and grow into what comes next.

Maybe hopefully, definitely; plane rides, letters in the mail, paying better attention to facebook, blog posts, scheduling the occasional skype session and being glad for what transpired before the stretch of States stood between us.

I offered to send the lamp, one last thing the movers couldn't cut from the ceiling. Part of me wants to be a courteous friend who boxes it up immediately and ships it tomorrow. The neat package arriving as a friendly reminder from those of us left here, saying, see we are still here for you, we are still your people. The other part of me wants to hold the lamp for ransom. Maybe they will come back for it. It's a pretty great lamp......

I am rarely bothered knowing the ending of books or movies it helps me invest on a safe level. I'd be lying if I said during our friendship I didn't occasionally play it safe, hold back or hesitate, I did. They are those kind of people that bring such heart and joy to a friendship that it stretches you. And for those of us who find the effort of stretching a tad risky when life happens, people evolve, and nothing ever stays exactly the same, a little hesitation feels like it buffers you from, well, the day you find out your friends are moving across the country and some of that thread holding your life and your community together must unravel. The truth is the stretch was more than worth whatever happens next...... And finally, something written to help me remember.