Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting!

by Sandra Tsing Loh

  And then at the bottom:

  “Feliz Navidad!”

  What haunts me in the following days is that the items Hannah missed on the Gesell could have been coached. Easily.

  But I see the blowing of the test was due to a fatal combination of two blondes…

  Mike and Hannah. The happy-go-lucky’s. Father and daughter.

  I watch Mike and Hannah like a spy in my own house.

  I watch them play Strawberry Shortcake gin rummy with jelly-smeared cards. Thirty-seven and a half of them. The rules are arbitrary, Strawberry Shortcake–ish. They do this while sitting on the deck, on Homer Simpson towels, in dripping-wet swimsuits.

  I notice both Hannah and The Squid in the backyard, dropping trou and peeing on the bushes. STANDING UP. PROJECTILE PEEING. It’s their favorite thing to do. And I ask you, from whom did they learn this charming habit?

  I notice that there is quite a bit of pointless dancing around in underwear in this house, to wild keenings of jazz. There is much fussy making of messy blanket nests in discarded cardboard boxes. There is much random shampooing of bears.

  Breakfast may involve chocolate chips and peppermint-flavored spray-on whipped cream. Chants Mike: “Fluffy are my pancakes!”

  And did I mention that Mike, being from the Midwest, is not comfortable unless at least four televisions are on at once?

  I awake from a troubled nap to find something pulling, pulling at my head like bats. It’s Hannah and The Squid. They are brushing, brushing, brushing my hair with tiny doll hairbrushes as though I myself were a stuffed unicorn.

  “STOP IT!” I yell.

  I now see, tragically, that Jonathan and Aimee were right, with their Mozart in the womb, and their baby mobiles, and all that kinderjazzerbastics (which I suddenly recall had a lot of blockwork, and chanting, and letters, and was there even…a British flag?). How I used to mock them what with all the natural birthing, the Baby Einstein, the getting on to two-year waiting lists for super preschools, for starting piano lessons at two…

  I see now, in retrospect, that Jonathan and Aimee weren’t crazy, no, they were…sensible, prudent, sagacious. I had no idea then how easily children get tracked into the “slow” group, even at the third-tier schools! Any ONE of kinderjazzerbastics class would certainly have gotten us over the hump of 4.3s at 4.4 to probably more like 4.7s, 4.8s, maybe even a couple of 5.2s.

  If her mother had been paying any attention, I think, my daughter would not be sitting alone, come September, with no kindergarten to go to, One Child Left Behind.

  I suppose we could send Hannah to DK, but…$5,500 (the annual tuition has ticked up one last time) for DK? It’s preschool! We pay half that at Valley Co-Op.

  And bottom line, the whole Luther Hall PROMISE…The promise was that Lutheran school would be sort of like the Payless SHOES of schools…free of hassle!

  And Hannah is so set on going to KINDERGARTEN. She loves carefully laying out all of her crayons, at her little play desk, and writing festive if meaningless symbols on her little chalkboard. Going off to school!

  And frankly, I don’t understand that damned TEST!

  Oh, am I reaping the rewards of my forty-something idiocy.

  I have been asleep at the wheel. I have been living in a fog. What delusional trance was I in—trying not to “angst”?

  I should have remembered my own good advice. It was during our breast-feeding fiasco during that first Year of Hell, when baby Hannah was hungry and crying but wouldn’t feed because I was engorged. (Meaning the breasticle is stretched so tight with milk, it’s like an overinflated basketball, and the hungry baby can’t latch on—in case you ever need to know this!)

  Mike’s mom, Bernice, thought the baby was choosing not to feed because, she said, with her implacable farm wisdom, babies can sense “fear in the milk.” Fear in the milk! Oh, so it’s MY fault! Thanks a lot, Mom-in-Law!

  “In short, what she is saying is the number one thing you should do is NOT PANIC!” Mike screamed.

  And I screamed back: “Panic is efficient. Panic is effective. Panic is…the way I get things done! Panic attacks are my booster rockets!”

  It’s called ADRENALINE! The adrenaline fires, sweat pours, I make lists, I harangue people, like a rat pressing a lever to get a pellet, and I get a result!

  When I don’t PANIC, I stop being vigilant and I become an idiot!

  My first 911 cry goes out to Kaitlin, but…childless in the north, she knows less than I about the Byzantine world of L.A. schools.

  The second 911 is to Brenda, who—small comfort at least—is horrified. “DK? What? That’s not fair! I’m going to try to talk to someone.”

  But I wait, and wait, and wait…for a phone call back.

  Brenda finally does call back, very apologetic, her older son has had some kind of diarrhea flu thing, she promises she’ll try back again at Luther Hall on Monday. But in the meantime, at least to be safe, I should reserve the DK spot with a subsequent deposit, apparently a waiting list is already forming…

  I think for a second of calling Celeste, but…this—Hannah’s flunking her kindergarten test at Mr. Collins U—I’m not ready to try Celeste on this. I’m just not.

  Aimee?

  I have never in fifteen years placed a call to Aimee. The woman is always traveling, always away, always on her BlackBerry…

  I punt. I creep out in front of the house, shove myself into the backseat of my white Toyota mini-barge of failure. Hidden from the gaze of my family, the Clampetts, I covertly dial an old number I have for Aimee’s office at Glaxa.

  “And what may I say this is about?” her bland male assistant asks.

  I make him write down every word.

  “School. Luther Hall. Gesell Kindergarten Readiness Assessment. SOS.”

  Even though there is no way the ever-busy, ever-BlackBerrying Aimee is going to call me back, I feel powerless to get up off the backseat. I’m sort of half curled up, in the fetal position. This is what it’s come to.

  My cell phone jumps to life.

  “Tell me exactly what happened,” Aimee says, flat, like a paramedic.

  “Aimee!”

  Tears spring to my eyes. I cannot conceive of this kindness. I actually start crying again, sobbing.

  Aimee registers no surprise. She says, flatly again, “Deep breaths.”

  “I called you on a whim—I wasn’t even sure you were in town—”

  “I’m not. I’m in Dallas.”

  “In Dallas?” Now I’m even more touched to have penetrated the inside of Aimee’s world. Somewhere in Dallas, a group of people are looking at Aimee, who, earpiece in her ear, is slightly turned away from them in private conversation, private conversation…with ME!!!!!!!!

  I tell her the whole baleful story, punctuated with 4.4s and 6.0s and 3.5s and British flags and wailing. Aimee listens without judgment, then speaks.

  “The Gesell is a standard test—the block formations, the pencil figures to replicate, the animals, very typical. If you want, schedule a reevaluation for two months from now. I’ll have my office FedEx you a copy of Connell’s.”

  “What’s Connell’s?”

  “Everyone knows Connell’s. It’s the private school testing cheat book.”

  “But the admissions director said the test can’t be coached.”

  Aimee emits a flat, dry, papery sound that is almost like a laugh.

  “That’s ridiculous. ALL the placement tests can be coached. That’s why we’ve had the boys tutored since two. All this testing is a bad system ESPECIALLY for gifted children—gifted children who are enviro-sensitive. That British flag thing? If Hannah replicated that, she may well be EXTREMELY gifted. Which may actually show up as what we used to call retarded!”

  All the times I mocked Aimee for her obsession with IQ testing and early education and child psychology…Suddenly I understand.

  Feeling as though I can breathe again, I hang up, wipe my face off, re-enter the house.

  “When can I have
another playdate with Cal?” Hannah wonders, with the cry of the lovelorn.

  “Cal you can see at preschool,” I reply evenly, even cheerfully. Yes, I think, you can see Cal at Valley Co-Op, that empty shell, to where I make Mike drive now, because I don’t want to see any of those mothers anymore, not any of them.

  And after school, instead of bathing her stuffed animals, and Uni the Unicorn, Hannah sits with me now, in my office. We practice flashcards I have copied out of the Connell’s guide, which arrived the very next day from Aimee. Fast. It flopped on my doormat before ten A.M. The woman is good. I see why she gets paid the big bucks.

  I read Hannah the questions, in a relaxing, upbeat voice:

  What is ice when it melts?

  What is a key for?

  Where does meat come from?

  If today is Monday, what day will tomorrow be?

  Mother is a woman; father is a _______?

  An airplane goes fast; a turtle goes ________?

  Repeat: 3725 ____ 4531 ____ 8694 ____

  Mike watches me as I slice tomatoes for a healthy snack, full of vitamin C and riboflavin, as well as carrots, for good concentration.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “I’m great!” I say lightly.

  “I know the whole Luther Hall thing was…squirrely, but no worries. Kindergarten is nine months away! We’ve got irons in the fire. It’s going to work out.”

  I’m married to an idiot.

  With the same light voice, I say, “I’m just concerned that the magnet thing may not work out right away, as I know the odds are kind of tough. And that if we don’t GET that magic letter—IN MAY—in September, Hannah will be attending kindergarten—ha-ha—in Mexico.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Guavatorina? I don’t know if you’ve driven by recently, but the signs are all in Spanish.”

  Mike is unperturbed. “I’d love Hannah to be bilingual.”

  My voice remains light, even slightly whimsical: “Maybe two languages is not a good idea for someone whose favorite ice cream is…MANGO.”

  Watching Mike smoke fish in the backyard, with his beloved new Popular Mechanics smoker…

  I realize now that I am the idiot. Because I married an idiot. And had children with him. Yeah, as a foolish twenty-six-year-old, I made the mistake of falling in love—like I did—with an affable, funny, creative fellow with a bread-making machine—!

  The marrying was understandable, when you are young and foolish.

  But clearly the problem is, I forgot to divorce him. Was too lazy. Never got around to it. Couldn’t find a pen to sign the papers, in this wreck of a house!

  I could have married Jonathan, or someone like him…I could have married, instead of a warm, funny musician, a conveniently traveling, absent, distant periodontal surgeon—perhaps one having an affair, a string of affairs…My wealthy, cheating husband could be traveling and sending home fabulous guilt-induced tropical gift baskets while I could be rattling around alone in a spacious mansion in La Cañada Flintridge, getting massages, drinking Napa Viognier, eating cheese!

  And look at this house we bought. What were we thinking? It seemed so charming, this thirteen-hundred-square-foot 1926 Spanish-style bungalow. We were the sort of wide-eyed, barefoot, idealistic, Joni Mitchell–style bohemians who were so amazed we could buy a structure that we bought it without FIRST VETTING THE NEIGHBORHOOD. Our method of buying a house? Look at that sunshine! Look at that cactus! So pretty! Pretty cactus! Pretty, pretty cactus! Idiots! (Where would Joni Mitchell have sent her daughter to school? I mean the one she gave away? Well, even if Joni Mitchell had kept that daughter, she would clearly never have such pathetic kindergarten problems. Joni Mitchell’s daughter would immediately be wafted into a magical elementary charter progressive Waldorf kingdom!)

  No, us, we failed to vet our neighborhood. We paid little attention as to whether we were doing the smart thing—moving to a good school district, next to lawyers or bankers or periodontal surgeons. Idiots, we would have insisted on NOT living next to such bourgeois sellouts! Oh, how we laughed and partied on this sagging deck, with its Chinese paper lanterns and Miles Davis records and Two Buck Chuck from Trader Joe’s.

  We were completely unaware that we were living in a public-school MINEFIELD, our Van Nuys neighborhood a mishmash of apartment-dwelling immigrants and a few unemployed actors who, as soon as they have babies, are now, I am suddenly noticing…

  Moving to Dallas. Moving to North Carolina. Moving to…

  Portland.

  All around us, Los Angeles bohemian families are suddenly moving to Portland. I get the notices daily. They are throwing kid car seats into their aging Volvo station wagons with the peeling Kerry/Edwards stickers and heading north.

  I get a note from Leah…Portland! Topanga had become too “heavy” for them.

  I get a note from Kim, Celeste’s old neighbor, in Echo Park. Now that she has a three-year-old…Portland? Why? The air! The culture! The much more liberal politics! And—what else—juicy blueberries!

  I imagine, in Portland, if you threw down $700,000 you could get a house in a decent neighborhood, as opposed to ours, which I’d thought was gentrifying…

  But it’s starting to dawn on me. I can’t deny it anymore. Our Van Nuys block has really NOT gentrified. I’d thought we were middle class but our middle-class house seems, increasingly, to be no longer in the middle of—how shall I put this?—a middle-class neighborhood. Rather, ours seemed to have become the sort of block nice middle-class people…Oh, what’s the word? Flee. Now look, I have nothing against six-foot-tall neon Virgins of Guadalupe, or old couches with the stuffing coming out being used as furniture on that plein air front parlor known as the lawn. After all, it gets hot here in The Nuys, and not all of us have central air, window units, electric fans, or even (to judge from the astonishingly leathery Third World denizens I find rooting around in my recycling), quite frankly, teeth.

  Who are our neighbors of The Nuys?

  I get an e-mail from Aimee…

  SENT BY MY BLACKBERRY WIRELESS.

  It contains a link to the indispensable school search Web site, www.greatschools.net.

  Two clicks of the mouse and there you are, at our LAUSD elementary, Guavatorina.

  Greatschools.net rates schools from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest). The ratings are based on API (Academic Performance Index) scores. In California, API’s range from 0 to 1000, 800+ being the ideal.

  Guavatorina’s greatschools.net rating is a 3 out of 10.

  Its API is 682.

  It is 96 percent Hispanic; 93 percent poor (aka free and reduced lunch—I take it that means food stamps); 89 percent English learners.

  That’s like weight = 191 and Consumer Reports’ rating is a D.

  How can these families even AFFORD Los Angeles? is my question.

  It’s 2:07 A.M. My eyes pop open.

  I don’t even pretend to sleep anymore. What is the point?

  Everything I assumed about running my life is wrong.

  I pad over to Mike’s computer pile—the one I swore I would never disturb. Without emotion, I locate the folder marked “SCHOOL,” open it…

  It is a snarl, a jumble, a chaos! Look at this. It looks like ants! A sweater!

  The actual LAUSD magnet application looks like a thirty-two-page booklet from the DMV, in Tom Ridge panic alert colors of red and yellow.

  I study the magnet booklet. The school we are apparently trying for, we are HOPING for, our supposed savior, is Valley Alternative Magnet. Valley Alternative Magnet—which I recall parents at the “Into Kindergarten” meeting dubbing sad and “grubby.” One dad I talked to, an actor, Dennis, was so horrified, they are now moving to West Virginia. Why? “It’s so green!”

  Valley Alternative Magnet. It says last year there were 2,400 applications for 100 spots. What are those odds, 1 in 24,000? 10 in 240? 100 in 24? 1000 in 240,000? I suddenly can’t do the math! I can’t do the math! Throat closing! Crows descending! P
anic attack coming! Panic attack coming!

  And the other musicians assured Mike it would work out fine. Right! Just like those clams in Ensenada! Eat them off a streetcart! No refrigeration! What can go wrong?

  School will be no problem? A tale told by an idiot!

  Clearly, we’re never going to get into that magnet school. Not unless I personally start literally KILLING OFF school-aged LAUSD children.

  Rummaging around in the pantry at 2:30 A.M., I find my own late-night friends.

  Rum. Diet Coke. Microwave popcorn. To which I add—here they are—Parmesan cheese and cayenne. It’s my traditional late-night recipe. The cayenne lends a pleasing burning sensation, which the rum and Coke cuts through.

  I pad to my office and do what my therapist, Ruth, has expressly forbidden: I turn on the computer. Her actual quote: “Sandra: Trolling on the computer late at night is the absolutely worst possible thing you can do.”

  Tough luck. Get to know me.

  And if I stay up past four? Past the Hour of the Wolf? FUCK IT.

  In my late twenties I had the habit of staying up by myself past midnight in a ratty old leotard, ingesting rum and Diet Cokes and popcorn, and obsessively playing Solitaire. (“It could be worse!” I’d protest to Mike. “What with my half-Asian background, at least I’m not in some casino out somewhere in San Dimas…gambling!”)

  In my thirties, I would stay up late and obsessively Google myself. I would throw my back out with the self-harming self-Google.

  But now…

  I pull all the shades in my office. I lock the door against any intruders or, more likely, against my family, possible nocturnally wandering children, a judgmentally tapping-on-glass husband. I flick my fingers reflexively, sit at the controls.

  It feels inevitable, that I have finally arrived back here, in my Panic Room. Which, in a way, I knew I would all along. Frankly, it feels good to be BACK IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT, WHERE I BELONG, EXPERTLY TWIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS.

  I delve into the information Snorl I have been avoiding.