Living Happily Ever After
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Blog Articles

The Glamor of Performing

Date: December 16, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I don’t enjoy public performances and being up on a stage. I don’t enjoy the glamour. Like tonight, I am up on stage and my feet hurt.” (Barbra Streisand)

Speaking of the public performances on a stage, tonight I had the opportunity to attend the Christmas program at my youngest child’s preschool. I had high expectations—it was the last such program of my last child, and last year’s program had been a bust. (I had been recently divorced, was new to the area, was completely reeling from the shock of so much life change in such a short amount of time, was REALLY feeling my aloneness and was, of course, all alone at my son’s Christmas program.

But I went and tried to make the best of it. He was dressed festively, I had the video camera ready, I was doing a pretty good job ignoring the fact that everyone in attendance seemed to be married and there with family…there was just one problem. My son wanted nothing to do with performing on stage. He left the stage before the first number was even over, cried, wandered around the room and eventually out of the room, during the performance. I was disappointed, mortified, stressed out and a host of other emotions.

As the sole and single parent of four children, there is never enough of me to go around. If I attend one child’s function, I miss another child’s activity. Every time. And last year, apparently for nothing, I missed one of my other children’s events to let the youngest have his experience. Too bad it was a bust.

I’d NEVER had a child pull something like that! But I cut my 4-year-old some slack and blamed it on all of the trauma he’d lived through in his little life and we carried on.

Cut to 2010.  I anticipated a VERY different experience at this year’s program. I wasn’t alone, Bachelor #5 went to great lengths to join us. My son was a year older and a year past the trauma. (The only thing the same as last year was that to support my youngest’s performance, I had to miss my daughter’s winter dance concert at her high school.)

We arrived early. My son marched up to the stage, found his seat and acted happy to be there. He tried on all of his costume props. He helped the teachers. And then, before the performance even began, he was already finished and ready to go home. In fact, he left the stage to tell me that. And I advised him to return to his seat because we were there for his performance.

He returned to his seat, and less than two minutes later was back. This time, with a medical excuse. “Mom, I just threw up in my mouth. We need to go home.”

I knew he wasn’t sick, so I instructed him to return to the stage. He moaned, cried, fussed, complained…and left the room right as the performance began. He wouldn’t come back, so after watching half of the program (without my son’s participation) we  finally left.

What a performance. A bust—two years in a row!

In all my years of child raising, I’ve never encountered a child like my youngest.

“Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories.” (John Wilmot)

The bright side? At least he was wearing underwear.

“Simper ubi sub ubi.” (“Always wear underwear,” Andrew Rdings)

But that’s a blogpost for another day.

Hold Your Breath And Hope

Date: December 14, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen.  When they’re finished, I climb out.” (Erma Bombeck)

I was running late for work yesterday, trying to hustle my youngest along in his morning routine, our departure delayed by the fact he couldn’t find any shoes. It’s a problem for him all too often–he leaves his shoes everywhere! (Just ask my patient neighbors who occasionally deliver grocery sacks full of shoes to our front door that my youngest has left around the neighborhood as he visits everyone.)

I dashed to his room and rummaged around in all the dark corners, treading delicately on a carpet of Legos that seem to be competing with the cut and twisted Berber carpeting as the flooring of choice in his bedroom, but no luck. No shoes.

I finally located a pair of orange flip flops, absolutely ideal for Utah’s winter weather, he put them on and off he headed to daycare.

December 13, in orange summer slippers!

Just my luck, it was a preschool day as well, so his school AND the daycare staff were going to witness my campaign for Mother of the Year. (Yeah, right. “Special” Mother of the Year, maybe!)

As I went to load him in the car, I realized he hadn’t eaten breakfast. So I ran back in to the house to make him a piece of toast. Unbeknownst to me, he unbuckled, followed me back in the house, and refused the piece of toast when it was ready. He was insistent on a hot breakfast. Nothing microwaved. Something prepared on the stove.

I was already late, so I took 5 minutes more and whipped up something hot, belted him in his car seat again, and told him to eat while I drove. I quickly dropped him at daycare and headed to work. After I arrived at work, 30 minutes later, in another city, I looked down and saw his jacket sitting on the seat beside me.

“How did that get there?” I wondered. I’d seen my son walk into his daycare wearing that very garment earlier. And then it hit me: in my haste I’d held on to his jacket when I took it off him at daycare, had carried it to the car and had driven it to work with me!

December 13. Orange flip flops. And (now) no coat.

After working all day I got in my car for the commute home and noticed, for the first time, my son’s school backpack sitting on the front seat of my car. “How did that get there?” I wondered. I remembered I had specifically carried it in to daycare that morning…and must have carried it right back out to the car with me and took it to work too!

December 13. Orange flip flops. No coat. No backpack for preschool.

Is there even a competition for mothers like me?

I doubt it.

At daycare, as I reached in my purse to get a pen to sign my son out, guess what I found? A pair of his shoes!

In my purse.

I hadn’t even known they were there.

“Like all parents, my husband and I just do the best we can, hold our breath and hope we’ve set aside enough money for our kid’s therapy.” (Michelle Pfeiffer)

Believe me, I’m holding my breath and hoping, too!