Damp!

This morning I read a truly sad story about an old lady who died when a six-foot pile of clutter fell on her while she was looking for the telephone. I have no six-foot stacks of old newspapers and I always know where the telephone is, but I do have a Closet Of Shame and several cupboards full of collected crap, so I get the whole packrat thing. Several years ago I encountered a "system" that claimed to help folks like me who allowed the crap to pile up while they were spending their time in all-encompassing pursuits like teaching a kid to use the potty or bringing home the bacon. The Flylady, as she is known because she once taught fly fishing, sends little helpful e-mails to you practically every fifteen minutes, telling you to do dishes or throw away old dishwasher manuals or hunt down your laundry. Sounds great, right? Well, I have been steadily deleting these e-mails every single day for a couple of years now and it's not because they aren't useful, it's because the useful reminders are accompanied by a number of extraordinarially damp essays about Finally Loving Yourself and "testimonials" from successful Flybabies all over the world, pontificating about how scrubbing the sink makes them so freaking happy all of a sudden! These "testimonials" read as though they were written by the obsessive-compulsive sister of the horny old goat who pens the Penthouse Letters; they all sound vaguely alike and boast the same "now that I love myself everything is bliss" attitude that the essays do. Thank goodness I never became an alcoholic because as valuable as Alcoholics Anonymous is, it's just as damp as The Flylady e-mails and has even more bumper-sticker catchphrases to drive me screaming from the room! I would be much more satisfied with the boot-camp approach taken by several of my former violin teachers. They either made quiet sarcastic comments or screamed their heads off, depending on which Old Country they happened to be from, and basically broke my spirit to build it up again on a weekly basis and I was incredibly motivated by that, more motivated than daily missives telling me to love myself could ever accomplish, apparently. My sister-in-law has a touch of the OCD, but what she has over every soppy, ego-stroking, self-esteem boosting whack-job out there is that she can outline a task and motivate me to get on with it NOW without ever appealing to my sense of self-worth OR calling me vile names AND she doesn't have to even be here for her to do it. I have had telephone conversations with her that resulted in clean toilets in this house! Her attitude is "If folks do it every day, why not you?" She's right!

The Dance Recital

Being a "progressive mother" I enrolled my four-year-old son in a dance class last year, thinking that it would be a fun experience that would also be social and would serve as part of the essential mother-mission of Wearing The Kid Out By Sundown. Today, the dance school held The End-Of-Year Recital so that all the kids could show off everything they've learned for the parents who have been shelling out the dosh all year so that they can get a nice snapshot of their kid on stage in a wacky costume. I also took a class at the dance studio this year; a nice calm stretching and Yoga class that I was the only person to sign up for and so I was informed a couple of weeks ago that I was to be IN this recital as well as serving as an on-stage Baby Wrangler. I was also asked to include my 19-month-old daughter MaryJane in my "performance" because she is absolutely adorable, especially when kitted out in full baby ballet gear. My son Nigel is the only boy in his class, so he was slated to play Prince Charming for seven little Cinderellas. Doting Grandma even provided him with a top-notch white-and-gold Prince Charming costume complete with shoulder pads and brass buttons, so you can imagine that he basically looked like a little Michael Flately Lord Of The Dance, including an elaborately spiky hairdo that he insisted on crafting all by himself. The shocker was that he looked great--how did he do that? I was totally unprepared for the complete chaos involved in getting forty little amped-up girls into their tights and properly coated with glitter. This took two hours and fourteen mothers. I had Prince Nigel and MaryJane already dressed when we arrived so I got to stuff a number of small legs into tights while braiding lots of hair and figuring out whose butt went into which tutu and preventing anyone from smacking MaryJane around with the glitter stick, although someone did manage to put blush and lipstick on her. I just want to know how that person got her to hold still for that because every time I turned around she was legging it down the hallway or trying to kill herself in as many interesting and effective ways as a high-school cafetorium can provide. Prince Nigel spent this hurry-up-and-wait time by sitting on the floor with his dance pal Saige, who was suffering from a high fever and horrible ear infection, explaining patiently that the goop coming out of her ear was "dead blood cells and bacteria from the war going on in your head". It took several mothers and some Lifesavers to calm Saige down from that one. Meanwhile, MaryJane had found something to do in torturing one of the many Little Brothers at this gig by chasing him around and trying to kiss him because it made him freak out. She cornered him behind the soda machine while I was getting little Abby back into her costume again (she goes nudist as a form of social protest) and the squealing got everyone's attention while I peeled MaryJane off the poor kid, wiped the lipstick off his little tearstained face and explained to him that if he just ignored her advances, she would probably go away. Down the hallway, a couple of other mothers were dissuading their tiny daughters from playing Million Dollar Baby with each other (Fists of Glitter!). I was supposed to lead the kids onto the stage at the appropriate time so we were all lined up in the wings when Gracie suddenly decided to quiz me on The Meaning Of Life. It was really too bad that I had to quash her enthusiasm because at any other time I would have really enjoyed hearing a five-year-old's perspective on that particular subject. We managed to get everyone on the stage, the curtains opened and the music rose and Saige finally reached the end of her feverish rope and burst into tears, prompting Prince Nigel to rush from his mark and comfort her. Very cute, very touching, very distracting. Saige was allowed to leave the stage and collapse into her mother's arms where she sat, glassy-eyed and glitter-covered, for the remainder of the performance. Prince Nigel proved himself to be a completely fearless performer, as did Gracie and Rosie, but the other little Cinderellas stood stock-still and picked various body parts while the three little dance mavens whirled it up. Eventually it was my turn to go out there and do a few creative stretches and Yoga moves while MaryJane skipped around me, yelling her favorite word "Happy happy happy" and twirling her little skirt so we ended up looking like some avant-garde performance art piece on toddler joy. My brave, brave husband sat and clapped his heart out for our son, but had to take a powder once I started writhing around on the stage because he could not stop laughing. Now that's entertainment!