I am this very hour returned from an Overnight! Of! Fun! with my brother, sister-in-law, and sister-in-law’s sister, and I am half-surprised to be alive. I am not sure if you have already noticed this about my temperament, but I am anxious and morbid by nature. My natural reveries, if left unchecked, are along the lines of “What I would do if there were an intruder/fire and I couldn’t save all the children at once” and “How long could we survive with only the items already in our house” and “What things around the house would be poignant to everyone if I were to die unexpectedly.” So whenever I go away for an overnight and need to drive for a full! hour! on the scary! highway!, my thoughts as I pack my overnight bag are mostly along the lines of this being the last memory the children will have of me.
Nevertheless, here I am, still among the living. And I have come to a fresh realization that I am a country mouse, or actually a town mouse, whatever, but what I mean is not a city mouse. (I think “country mouse” can have negative connotations because of the “mouse” element, so it’s important to remember that the mouse from the city was ALSO a mouse.) I say this because I got trapped in a city driveway. Trapped. In a city DRIVEWAY. Completely stuck. I kept slowwwwly backing the car out, and then another car would slam on its brakes and lean on the horn for a good 10 seconds to punish me for wanting to use a road I couldn’t see, and then I’d scurry back into the driveway. After trembling and trying not to cry for a minute, I’d realize there was no other option: I HAD to back out of the driveway. So I would creeeeeep back out again, and there’d be the screech of brakes, and I’d scurry back in. My brother, my YOUNGER brother, had to come out and RESCUE ME, including patting my shoulder and then DRIVING AND RE-PARKING MY CAR FOR ME while I went into the house and tried to resume normal breathing.
Well. Anyway. I do enjoy VISITING the city, because it is so pretty and there are so many cool buildings, and because it is so nice to be able to walk everywhere (NOT DRIVE) (PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME DRIVE) (THERE ARE ONE-WAY STREETS OMG SAVE ME) on big wide sidewalks, and there are all these restaurants that serve delicious unfamiliar foods, and there are crosswalks with pedestrian signals so you don’t have to wait for traffic to voluntarily stop for you. And there are movie theaters! And so many take-out options! And stores I’ve heard bloggers refer to, like Urban Outfitters! And there are TEA SHOPS!
I had a second revelation this visit (the first one was about being a town mouse, in case you have lost track), looking at my nearly-3-year-old niece and my nearly-6-month-old nephew: THIS is how we bottle it. THIS is how: by spending short amounts of time with other people’s children. I often wish I could have saved some of that overwhelming/frustrating/anxious/boring/endless time with my small children, because it seemed like everyone kept telling me to enjoy it and I KIND OF was and also I COULDN’T enjoy it when that baby would NOT let me put him down for EVEN ONE SECOND and I needed to PEE and I was so TIRED and I smelled like baby barf and I was so hungry but it was time to feed the baby again and I was ruining my toddler’s life because I couldn’t spend any time with him anymore and this baby was probably the biggest mistake I’d ever made but I love him so much and he’s growing up way too fast and one day he’ll get old and die waaaaaaaaaaaah!
My point is that it’s hard to enjoy that, but that once it was over it became a place I’d like to VISIT. I’d like to pop in, pick up tiny infant Rob, and enjoy the way he would! not! rest his head on my shoulder when I held/burped him, instead of having to fret that it meant he would never love anyone and would end up rocking and keening on the streets (one-way CITY streets) as an old man. I’d like to go back and squeeze 4-year-old William and fuzz his fuzzy head and snuggle his snuggly self and write down more of the funny things he used to say, without worrying that the newborn twins were depriving him of everything he needed. And so forth.
Visiting a niece and a nephew is like getting to go back for a visit. It is of course not exactly the same—but since we can’t have that, this is as close as I’ve found, and I will take it. I squeeze my baby nephew’s satisfying baby shape, and I play “Hi! Hi! Oh, HI! Hi! Hi, baby! Hi!” with him, and appreciate the cuteness of his kicky feet and bunchy keeks and feetie sleeper, and it reminds me of my own babies. And I watch my niece playing, and I admire her little ponytails and her baby teeth and her funny dancing, and I am so amused by how every single thing she says is so cute AND so funny in phrasing and tone and pronunciation, and it reminds me of my own babies.
But it’s a VISIT, and I don’t have to potty-train anyone or get up in the night with anyone or worry about which preschool to choose or feel like I can’t put a baby down for even a second or figure out how to fill an endless day or wonder if we’re doing enough / too much tummy time or ANYTHING. It is ALL GRAVY. I assume this is what people mean about grandchildren later on.
oh, I love this post so much! I was just thinking today about how now that Miss L is getting a bit more independent (she’s only 2, but still, not a BABY!) it’s kind of… NICE! No more babies! With a happy ! instead of a sad !
I’m going to have a new nephew to enjoy in only a couple of months and I’m looking forward to the gravy more than ever!
Also, that driveway story gave me heart palpitations. That is the VERY sort of thing I hate about driving.
(well, that and getting hopelessly lost)
I agree – that must be exactly what people enjoy about grandkids. And I always have friend (or their husbands) back me out of driveways. I’m pathetic at it.
Oh, and that description of what it’s like to have little kids? Spot on. Also, the description of how you feel when preparing to go do something fun. I feel the same, which then makes it a requirement to tidy the entire house if we go off on a family road trip. I don’t want well-meaning relatives having to come in and divvy up our belongings in the middle of a godawful mess. How posthumously embarrassing!
Yes, yes, yes. That is why people enjoy grandchildren so much – all the fun, none of the work!
I sometimes think I’d do very well in the city. Then I hear stories from my coworkers about how one accidentally left her purse on the front stoop while carrying groceries in, went back out immediately after putting the bags down in the kitchen, and it was GONE. Or how someone was killed in a mugging just down the street. Yeah, I’d rather be a visitor for the day and go back to my safe little neighborhood where people only lock the doors when the house is going to be empty for more than an hour.
I kept waiting for tge part of the post where you got to drink a remarkable bottle of wine. Only now I realize it was the perfect title. Very awesome.
Although really, she could have had some wine, too. Without worrying that the time she was spending drinking the wine was cutting into her precious sleep time, because how are you supposed to enjoy every precious moment when you are so tired you want to weep, except that it would freak the toddler out, which makes you want a drink.
OK, it made ME want a drink.
Is having kids like exercise, where you don’t enjoy it during, but enjoy that you did it? WIth a 21 month old, and hoping to have some more, I’ve been pondering this. “It is all Gravy” Love this!
@Suburban Correspondant I worry about the same thing–if we die on a trip, I want my house to be clean when Mom comes to pack it up! We are going out of town, and due to unexpected illness, the house is NOT going to be picked up and clean when we leave. For the last two days I have been constantly talking myself off the ledge of panicking about it. Glad to know I’m not alone in this worry. :)
So sweet. And I am totally a country mouse, too.
phancymama- Ha ha! I do that too. My house is never so clean as when we’re about to leave.
And oh my, city driving terrifies me too. Example: Jim and I sometimes go to Pistons games, but we always end up having to drive through Detroit at rush hour to get there. I am always rigid with fear by the time we arrive and need a drink or two immediately.
Also, when I was in Ann Arbor last year was when I finally bought a GPS, because just trying to stay alive while driving was enough- I couldn’t handle having to read a map too.
I grew up very close to a large city and then moved to the country(ish). I still very much considerd myself a city person, especially compared to all the very country people around me. Then I visited the city a few years ago and realized I had changed a lot and am now YES, a country mouse.
Here are other ways in which I agree with you: (1) I am (hopefully not creepily) delighted by others’ small children now that mine are not small and (2) my reveries very closely match yours. They seem like an interesting mental challenge until I begin to talk about them, at which time they are revealed as something not quite that.
Your story about the driveway…seriously made me hyperventilate. This is why I 1. never drive in the city and 2. try really hard not to drive in unfamiliar places.
And OH! What movie did you see?
this is why the older i get, the less sure i am i want to have my OWN kids. i’m pretty well settled into a nice, selfish routine after 30 years. perhaps i should just enjoy OTHER babies…?
The driveway scenario = why I couldn’t live in San Francisco again, even though I love it. The driving and parking there raised my blood pressure and gave me wrinkles at 22. I can’t imagine how it’d be now.
And yes, I agree, there is something so sweet about holding someone else’s babies now. I know we are done, I miss those days, and I treasure the ability to visit that precious time.
Yippee for time away. Curse stupid city driving. I don’t really agree that what you’re describing is the same as bottling it, because when I’m sad it’s because I want MY babies as they were when they were babies. I see your point, but it’s never going to be the same. Especially because no one else’s kids ever like me best. Hmph.
“figure out how to fill an endless day” YEEEEEEEEEEEES.
The hubbin has often mentioned how great it would be to get to jump around in time and see one’s own children. It would be nice to appreciate this baby/toddler phase later, like when they’re teenagers and we’re embarrassing them, and it would be nice to visit the teenagers and feel however that would make us feel about the baby/toddler.
Also, it is THE WORST road. Just the worst.
My nieces live 3000 miles away from us now (waaah), but when they let us near them (because we are STRANGERS, awful awful strangers!), it is just like this. Of course they don’t look a single thing like my kids and are girls and not boys etc etc etc, but STILL. Still it is very, very nice, especially when we get to leave at naptime and go out for a coffee while their mother endlessly rocks them. Yes, that.
And, while cleaning the bathtub today, in preparation for going out of town (which I was trying not to do but I can’t help myself.), I realized that I have actual experience in the tidy-before-event category.
I was 39 weeks pregnant with first child, and it was my last day of work. It was also our last evening as a couple because my mom was arriving the next day, and within the week we’d have a baby. We went out to eat and picked up a few things at Target. For the first time in my life I bought a fancy plush bathmat, since I figured I would kneel to bathe a baby soon. We got home exhausted, and I figured I would clean out the guest bathroom (that had the only bathtub in the house that was full of my bath oils and candles since I’d been using it every evening) and change and wash the bedsheets on the guest bed all the next morning before my mom arrived at noon.
Of Course, OF COURSE, my water broke at 2am, and I spend the next five days in the hospital, and my mom had to take a taxi to the hospital and then go to my house by herself the next evening and make the bed and clean the bathtub.
I still get twitchy about the guest bathroom being clean days before guests are meant to drive.
um, make that “meant to arrive”
Bibliomama- Oh, I disagree as well, of course. But “any port in a storm” (port, wine, see what I did there?) is getting to be my feeling about it, considering that none of the ACTUAL same-as-bottling-it options seem to exist.
I very belatedly love this. It makes me feel better about how quickly my little baby has become a big huge toddler.