The Meat and Potatoes of Life

by Molinari, Lisa Smith;

  So I believed we could achieve total cooperation from our children simply by gathering them up and nicely telling them what we wanted them to do.

  Lilly and Anna arrived in a sock-sliding race for the best seat, the elder sister grabbing the prime spot.

  The last to arrive, thudding down the stairs, was Hayden, who would have preferred a week-long insurance seminar to a conversation with family during which feelings might be discussed.

  With everyone seated, I played upon their worst fears.

  “Okay, everyone, let’s hold hands and say what we love about each other.”

  I allowed a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, and just when I thought mutiny was imminent I blurted, “Gotcha!” My comedic genius softened them up a bit, exactly what I needed for my parental brainwashing plan to take hold. Clearing my throat, I began.

  “School starts tomorrow, and we want you to manage your time properly so everything runs smoothly. We’ll get up each morning promptly at six, and we expect … ” I went on and on about bedtimes, homework, chores, allowance, privileges, personal hygiene, and manners.

  About forty minutes into the lecture, I knew I was losing them, an eventuality for which I was prepared.

  “In conclusion, to help you manage your time, we got you each a little gift.”

  The girls squealed with delight when I revealed three supercool new sports watches, with digital displays, dual alarms with five-minute back up, ten-lap memory chrono, and water resistance to 100 meters—whatever all that means.

  I sat back, smug with satisfaction. Rules will be followed. Order is restored. No punishments necessary. And I look like Mother Teresa. My plan is complete.

  “Uh, just so you know, I’m not wearing this thing,” Hayden interjected.

  “Listen Honey, you’re almost a man now—you really should learn how to use a watch.”

  “I’m not putting this stupid hunk of plastic on my wrist when there are clocks everywhere.”

  I can’t be sure, but I believe smoke started emanating from my ears.

  It may have been Hayden’s utter lack of appreciation, his complete disregard for authority, my unrealistic desire for total obedience, or that my underwear was riding up that afternoon, but I was seeing red.

  “Listen to me, young man,” I said through gritted teeth, “you WILL wear that watch, you understand me?”

  “NO.”

  The next twenty minutes were a bit foggy, but I clearly recall Francis storming off down the street and Hayden throwing the watch at the wall while screaming a particular expletive he’d previously not uttered in our presence. Then I vaguely remember flying upstairs without touching the ground and lifting Hayden’s door off the hinges with superhuman strength.

  Cooling off in our garage, I felt an immediate sense of regret. The boy IS seventeen—he probably sees that watch as a shackle, keeping him under our control. I need to let him make his own choice.

  I walked into the house, just as Hayden was coming out to find me. Our eyes met, communicating our mutual regret without words.

  “Where’d that watch go, Mom? If you want, I’ll give it a try.”

  “I’ll help you find it, Honey. … But I was thinking, you could just carry it in your pocket if you don’t want to wear it around your wrist. Or, you don’t have to wear it at all.” We smiled at each other, realizing how silly we’d been.

  Just as I found the watch in the corner, Francis arrived home, refreshed from a nice afternoon walk, and asked, “So … what’s for dinner?”

  SEASON 3 EPISODE 16

  365 DAYS AND COUNTING

  “You think you got it bad now,” other moms cautioned me one afternoon when Hayden, Anna, and Lilly were small, “just wait till they’re teenagers.”

  Like the weird sisters of Macbeth, they gave each other knowing glances and chuckled as they watched me nearly amputate a foot trying get my screaming toddler’s stroller onto the escalator at the mall.

  I walked away thinking those moms were just old and bitter. I summarily dismissed their annoying prophecies. I firmly believed whatever stage of parenting I was experiencing was the worst one, and no one was going to convince me otherwise.

  Then when Hayden turned seventeen, it occurred to me that only one year of his childhood remained. I wasn’t sure if I should celebrate or burst into tears.

  The first time I held my son in my arms, I felt an awesome sense of love and purpose. In an instant, my own needs shifted from my top priority to a distant second, and I couldn’t have been happier about it. Like any mama bear, squirrel, or flamingo, focus on my own survival automatically switched to the endurance of my offspring.

  Although it is initially a joy to put our children’s needs ahead of our own, over time the task of parenting gets bothersome, frustrating, and frankly, downright terrifying. Nowhere would this fact of life become clearer than when Hayden became a teenager.

  I hated to admit it, but those cackling witches at the mall were right as rain.

  When Hayden turned thirteen, his head didn’t spin, his eyes didn’t roll, and foul expletives didn’t burst forth from his mouth. No, he was the same kid he’d always been. When he turned fourteen we saw subtle changes—his first shave, a deepening voice, reluctance to accept affection.

  How cute, we thought.

  We drifted contentedly into our son’s teen years, comfortably secure that our teenager would never be a problem, because we were good parents and had raised him right.

  But soon after the candles on our son’s Rubik’s Cube-shaped fifteenth birthday cake were extinguished, a new period of parenting ensued, which might best be described as “Armageddon.”

  Suddenly, the bathroom door was permanently locked. Hayden stopped making eye contact. A foul smell hung like a green fog in his bedroom. He snickered secretly into the phone behind his barricaded bedroom door. When we managed to catch sight of him in the flesh, he was always asleep.

  In what seemed like an instant, the sweet boy we had known all those years turned into a smelly, undisciplined stranger who, apparently, hated our guts.

  At night we lay in bed, our minds racing with anger, frustration, guilt, and panicked thoughts of our son’s future. Desperate, we listened to other parents of teens, and found out the hell we were experiencing was actually quite common.

  Apparently, just as new hairs sprout from a teen’s body, a budding new attitude develops in the teen brain. The once dependent, reverent child suddenly thinks:

  There’s nothing I don’t already know. I will now run my own life. I find you, my parents, totally embarrassing and reserve the right to roll my eyes in pure disgust whenever I see fit. I will, however, continue to associate with you so you can buy me a car, electronics, clothing of my choice, pizza for me and my friends, and a place to sleep until two in the afternoon. Oh, and don’t forget to save upwards of one hundred thousand dollars to send me off to college so I can reenact Animal House at your expense.

  When I realized there was only one year left before Hayden would be off to college, you’d think I would have chilled champagne and made plans to fumigate his room. But ironically, I was melancholy and knew I was at risk of becoming one of the witches, warning young moms to appreciate the days when their biggest problem was getting the stroller onto the escalator at the mall.

  SEASON FOUR

  IN IT TO WIN IT

  SEASON 4 EPISODE 1

  THE OLD MAN AND THE DEGREE

  About an hour into the trip, I blew a royal gasket.

  “If you think for one cotton-picking minute that I’m just here to play chauffeur while you visit these colleges, you’d better think again!” I blared at Hayden from the driver’s seat as our car chugged down the Massachusetts Turnpike.

  I knew our weekend trip to visit two colleges in Upstate New York was one of those ephemeral opportunities for me to bond with Hayden, and I had planned to make the best of it.

  Ever well intentioned, I peppered Hayden with friendly questions about his interest
s, friends, and school, in hopes that one of my probes would ignite an in-depth mother-son conversation to pass the time. However, my inquiries were met with typical resistance, eliciting only grunts, one-word answers, and the dreaded eye roll.

  I just couldn’t take it anymore, and I snapped.

  During my cathartic rant, I explained to Hayden that the college trip was an important step in his becoming an independent person, a responsible adult, a man. I told him refusing to converse with his mother who was facilitating and financing the trip was not only rude, it was immature.

  He hated that word, so I strategically ended with it, and then fell silent.

  A few miles later, Hayden asked me a question. Not “Are we there yet?” or “When are you going to buy me dinner?” but a well-planned dialogue starter. We conversed for a few fleeting minutes before he fell sound asleep.

  Three hours later, he awoke to our GPS announcing, “You have arrived at your destination.”

  I quelled the awkwardness of sharing a hotel room with then eighteen-year-old Hayden by ordering pizza and resisting the urge to remind him to brush his teeth. Soon after his three-hour car nap, he sprawled on his bed in sweatpants and headphones and dropped off to sleep for the night.

  Knowing the days of seeing my children sleep would soon be over, I lingered a minute or two before turning out the light, watching his chest heave and his eyelids twitch.

  In the morning, we found ourselves following a bubbly backward-walking female tour guide along angled walkways, between ivy-covered academic buildings and through student unions. The campus looked beautiful in the autumnal morning light, but I was watching Hayden for hints of reaction. I knew if I asked him what he thought of the school, he’d give me the same half-grunted response every time: “M’good.”

  Despite my warning, Hayden wolfed down a meatball sub for lunch in the car on our way to the next college. Once in the lobby of the admissions building, without saying, “I told you so,” I showed him to the restroom where he could blot the red sauce stains off his tie.

  After the tour, we had a scheduled meeting with a professor, to discuss the requirements of the computer science degree. The professor’s bio indicated that he had done cutting-edge research on the science behind modern social media networks, so we were surprised to be met by a sweet old gentleman with a Russian accent, white hair, and a mild palsy in his left hand.

  The professor spoke softly across his cluttered desk, whispering sage advice to Hayden about his college years.

  “You must use this time in your life,” he paused to emit an almost imperceptible gasp, before continuing, “… to become a man.”

  Still splotched with signs of lunch, Hayden listened intently, unable to hide his utter admiration for this master of computer science. With eager eyes, he asked questions about programming languages, algorithms, and data structures. I sat, dumbfounded, while the old professor and my son built a delightful rapport. Forty-five minutes later, they exchanged wide grins and sincere handshakes, promising to keep in touch.

  On the ride home, while Hayden slept soundly in the seat beside me, I thought about the old professor’s “you’re a man now” advice. Francis and I had told him the same thing so many times. Why doesn’t he listen to us?

  An exit or two later, I recollected that during the meeting with the old professor, I saw Hayden successfully communicate his intentions, ask mature questions, and show genuine respect like an intelligent adult.

  I glanced over at my splotched, grunting, stubborn young man and realized he had been listening all along.

  SEASON 4 EPISODE 2

  MY HIPS DON’T SWING THAT WAY, BUT MY BELLY DOES

  It wasn’t easy showing up at the base gym the week after Christmas, after such a long and unexplained hiatus. I knew my presence would be perceived as a half-hearted attempt at a New Year’s resolution, most likely to fizzle before the first week of February. I gave myself a little pep talk in the parking lot.

  Just parade in there like you own the place. For all they know, you’ve been running marathons and playing rugby for the past year.

  Yeah, what do they know? I responded to my own pep talk.

  Approaching the front desk, I flashed my military ID, hoping no one would see me before I darted off to Zumba class.

  “Is that you, Mrs. Molinari?” Nick, one of the gym staff called from behind the desk. His intonation and use of “Mrs.” notified everyone within earshot that some old lady who hasn’t been to the gym in a long time finally showed up. I waved sheepishly and slunk off to class.

  Expecting to see the room packed with twenty-something hard bodies that would send me into a tailspin of self-loathing, I was relieved to find a comforting mix of people, all with their share of bodily imperfections and jiggly bits. After placing my keys and water bottle in the corner of the cramped exercise room, I found a spot where I could remain anonymous.

  Our instructor resembled a middle-aged mom like me, and she did not have a figure that screamed, “I’m obsessed with fitness.” She hit a button on the sound system and gave us a short introduction. I didn’t bother listening. It’s just dancing … how difficult could it be?

  Then I remembered that Francis and I have been botching the Electric Slide at every military ball, holiday party, and wedding reception since our own in 1993. Same goes for the Cha Cha Slide, the Macarena, and the Cupid Shuffle. Call us choreographically challenged, we couldn’t Whip, Nae Nae, or Stanky Leg if our lives depended on it.

  Our instructor put on some catchy Latin music, and I was kick-ball-changing, single-single-doubling, and body rolling my way around the room as if I had been doing it all my life.

  After thirty minutes, the mild-mannered instructor announced that our “warm up” was finished. The real Zumba class was about to begin, and the real instructor was on her way.

  What?

  I had only a moment to glug some water from my bottle, when in walked a woman garbed in skin-tight black spandex with Tina Turner’s spiky hair, Beyoncé’s muscular thighs, Pamela Anderson’s generous bust, and Charo’s rolling rrrrrr’s.

  Suddenly, driving African beats blared from the sound system and, using only facial expressions and minimal hand motions, she ordered us to rhythmically gyrate and flail our arms while in a semi-squat position.

  A few minutes later we moved on to reggaetón, whatever that is, and were commanded to stick out our rear ends and rotate our hips in complete circles from right to left while pumping our hands out in front of us. For some unknown reason, I was able to rotate my hips counter clockwise, but as soon as we were asked to go in the opposite direction, I was unable to maintain the fluidity of my hips and could only jerk from side to side.

  I thought perhaps this was due to the magnetism of the earth’s poles. And perhaps, like the water in toilet bowls, I can only swirl one way in the Northern Hemisphere and would have to go south of the equator to rotate my hips in the other direction.

  Halfway through the class, my thighs were shaking, so I was relieved that we were moving on to salsa, something I’d at least heard of before and had enjoyed with chips.

  Though everyone else seemed to have the basic salsa steps down pat, I was so confused I just started marching in place. I tried to mimic our limber instructor as she swiveled back and forth across the room, but all I could muster were a few awkward hops, several misplaced kick-ball-changes, inappropriate pelvic thrusts, and my own freestyle version of the pony.

  We moved on to merengue, which for me, was more of a lesson in how to sprain one’s ankle. I prayed it would all be over soon.

  Somewhere between the Brazilian samba and the Columbian cumbia, our instructor started jumping three feet into the air. Like lemmings, we followed. Happy to have a dance move I could finally understand, I leapt like a gazelle. But then I remembered—I’m almost fifty years old and have given birth to three large babies. My innards are not where they used to be and might drop out onto the floor at any moment.

  Thankfully, the ju
mping routine ended before my uterus broke loose, and we moved on to our final dance—a Bollywood belly dance. At first, it seemed our leader was merely putting us through a cruel endurance test when she demanded that we get into a deep plié squat while holding our arms out in ninety-degree angles like King Tut. Just as my quads were about to snap, she began to twist and turn her torso back and forth, rising like a cobra from a basket.

  Despite my alarming heart rate, I only sported a small sweat mustache when the forty-five-minute class ended. Rather than exercise more, I hopped in the locker room sauna to wake my hibernating glands. Then I made the fatal mistake of following up the sauna with a scalding hot shower, opening veritable flood gates of profuse sweat that didn’t ease up until mid-afternoon.

  I left the gym feeling exhausted and humiliated but determined to keep my fitness goals. While it was obvious my northern European genes had rendered me unable to perform the sexy writhing Zumba moves correctly, at least I could be proud that, somehow, my belly kept perfect time to the beat.

  SEASON 4 EPISODE 3

  LADY SURGERY

  It was Super Bowl Sunday, and while our friends were getting ready to gorge on hot chicken wings, icy cold beers, creamy dips, and spicy chili slathered in onions and cheese, I was guzzling sixty-four ounces of a pharmaceutical concoction to prepare for surgery.

  Surgery. The day after the Super Bowl. Lucky me.

  Preoperative bowel cleansing put quite a damper on my game day festivities, but I had to face facts. I had given birth to three large babies. Internal organs and tissues were not quite where they used to be, and my doctor said it was time to put them back where they belong.

  When I tried to inform Francis about the procedure, he cringed, shook his head, and finally waved me off, saying, “I don’t need to know the details!” Rather than seeking knowledge of the nitty gritty, he preferred to sugar-coat the facts by saying, “Yeah, my wife’s going to the hospital to get her plumbing all buttoned up.”