In Which I Blather On About My Children

Last updated on: August 28, 2015 at 8:18 am by Anne Kennedy

In Which I Blather On About My Children 2015-08-28T08:18:31-04:00 Anne Kennedy

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Ah, the gentle early morning sound of children fighting and hitting each other with their wicked fists. That’s in the bible somewhere but it’s way beyond me to find it right this second. Every morning I awake to the kicking and squabbling of two little girls battling it out over who gets to be next to me while I toil away at this immortal prose. Though my eyes are supposed to be open at five, and my fingers typing by six, and the children not awake till seven, somehow they are given an internal knowledge, from whence I do not know, is it Satan? Is it God? They just know the moment my eyelids flicker open and they arrive, eager to jostle and infuriate me.

I suppose I should cut them some slack. They have been pretty bored all week while all their brothers and sisters lay ill with some terrible plague. A headache, a sore throat, a fever, but most of all, a deep patience shattering whine. Whatever it is that each child needed, it could only be expressed in a manner calculated to make me scream. “I know you’re sick,” I said, most calmly, because I do have some small measure of self control, seven hundred and fifty six times this week, “but you are still not allowed to whine at me like a mosquito. You must ask like a regular human being.” The poor child–whoever it was, really each in turn, for all six of them have had it, I think, I need to go back and count once more–would try again to ask rationally, fail, and begin to weep moist contagious tears.

So we did not, tragically, get any school work done. The only one who felt the severity of this tragedy was Marigold (not her real name) who was well by the beginning of the week, and who is getting to do kindergarten, finally, after waiting her whole life for just this moment.

“Will there be snack?” she asked on Monday, because she has watched a lot of soul crushing television and knows that you go to kindergarten on a cool yellow bus and play with other kids and a bunch of other stuff I forget. “Um,” I said, “I guess we could try to have a snack.” Clearly she expecting an experience that I will not be able to deliver. But that is the meaning of childhood, isn’t it? You know the world is before you and everything is sunny and golden, and then your mother comes along and ruins it.

On the other end of the spectrum is Elphine (not her real name) who will be venturing into the world of the online classroom. I’m so excited about this I can hardly contain myself. She will, get this, be accountable to another person. It’s going to be so awesome. Just two classes this year but I have hopes of many many more to come. Her excitement level, at 13, is surprisingly unlike her sister, at 5. She is almost in the way of rolling her eyes, but not quite. No breathless joy about the possibility of knowledge, she just wants to know that it’s not going to be awful. “Oh,” I say, “it’s going to be awful. You’re probably going to hate it, but it will make you into a fine, upstanding, interesting person.” As I said, I’m here for my children, always, to pour cold water on all their hopes and dreams.

Speaking of cold water, Egglantine (not her real name) the baby, though not an actual baby because she is four and a half, just brought me yet another glass of water. Her self identified purpose, as far as I can understand it, is to bring me cups of water when I am least mentally equipped to cope with them. Early in the morning, late at night, when I am about to drink something much more interesting, she arrives, her round face flushed with joy, proffering a glass. “Here is your water, Mommy,” she shouts. She has quite amazing volume. And I exclaim with joy and happiness and then try to shove the glass somewhere, hoping against hope that I won’t have to drink it right then, or at all.

There are other children, of course, three of them–Alouicious (not his real name), Romulus (not his real name) and Gladys (not her real name). Lately I have been meeting people who are super disappointed that the children aren’t named these names, that they possess more ordinary names and are not nearly as awful as I paint them here. You would think, from all my years of blogging, that I am completely nuts, and the children are completely awful. I’ve been told that we are a much less crazy bunch than I let on. But, well, this is the post post modern era. Perception is reality, sometimes, unless it’s not. We are all subject to the confines of our own imaginations, unless we don’t want to be. If I want to self identity as a mean crummy mother, whose to stop me?

And on that note, I will arise and go forth, and tell the children to Get Well so that we can Do School! And also, I have to drink this weird, sticky, lukewarm glass of water.

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