The Voices In My Head

I am a podcast junkie. A truth which is not borne out by the fact that I haven't listened to most of my favorite ones in months. Just listening to NPR in the mornings has become an exercise in futility, much of that due to a certain three year old who has rediscovered the word "why", and the fact that no matter how silent it might be in the car with each child happily engaged in their own activity, the minute I answer the phone (on bluetooth, of course!) or turn on the radio, I am beseiged by a barrage of questions or the sudden need for my immediatel inclusion in whatever game of pretend is the flavor of the day. So I try to connect with a more erudite outside world via podcast when I am folding laundry at 10 pm or weeding the garden at 7am. But all too often lately there's a lot of competition going on even inside my own head for the direct attention of whoever it is who's hand is on the steering wheel.

There's the mama voice that frets over whether that cough is worsening, whether we're doing too many activities or too few, whether there are enough playdates, too much car time, and especially whether or not particular behavioral issues stem directly from my own personal character flaws. 

There's the noise about money and work and employment and health insurance and IRA's and 529's and car repairs and kids shoes. 

Even the latent actress in me occasionally makes her presence known, stamping her foot and asking petulantly when it's going to be HER turn again. 

The blog writer and poet and story author provides a constant background monologue, replete with snarky and hilarious comments but rarely breaking surface at the right time to make contact with me when I'm in front of the keyboard with enough energy to write it all down.

There's the massage therapist, the raft company owner, the daughter, sister, friend - oh, and the wife, each with their issues, concerns, responsibilities and desires that need addressing. And I desperately want to give each my full and undivided attention, but generally I can't find it anywhere. It seems irrevocably fractured. 

Strangest of all for me is that fact that there is actually, really, another person living inside of me. Not just close to me or next to me but INSIDE. And it's the most silent one of all. This person is with me all day every day and I know the least about him than anyone else in my world. It really is an amazing act of faith.  We didn't do any of the testing available to check his chromosomes or terrify us with things that may or may not be wrong with him - we did an ultrasound that we felt would tell us adequately if he had anything drastically wrong enough so as to be visible.

 So there he is - inside of me - kicking the small hands of Jordan as she feels for his movements before falling asleep each night, receiving the kisses Sawyer bestows regularly on my belly. There is the voice inside my head that frets about what he might or might not be like, twinned with the delicious anticipation of his arrival and how lucky he will be to have Jordan and Sawyer as his siblings. Tom makes lists of potential names for him and his smile every time he looks at my belly is all the reassurance I need that whatever joys or challenges this person presents, we'll face them together.

My mind can seem so fractured sometimes as to make that little core of me feel crowded out by all the simultaneous conversations. But those few times on trips that I have had a longer stretch of time to myself, I find that it can be the silence itself that is deafening: it's the chorus of my family (and the voices) that lets me know where - and who - I am.

Into (and Quickly Out of) The Deep

You always hear the stories about how some kid sees a poop lying on the bottom of a pool (the Babe Ruth candybar in Caddyshack scene comes to mind) or finds one floating on the surface and quicker than the beach evac when the first shark is seen in JAWS, the pool is cleared, people screaming in horror as they flee.

But you never think it's going to be your child who does the deed. 

Jordan is starting her third year on the Dry Diggins Dolphins swim team. And in the second week of practice every year, there's a BBQ picnic/family swim welcome party. The city pool is opened to all Dolphins swimmers (4 yrs old to 18 yrs old so we are talking a hell of a lot of people) - and their families. 

Sawyer has fallen in love with swimming lately, and was so excited to swim in the pool Jordan gets to be in three days a week. So excited, in fact, that he didn't want to get out of the pool when he first felt the urge to poop. Tom and I were chatting as he "rested" on the submerged pool steps, and suddenly he was next to Tom, urgently pulling on his arm and saying "I have to poop bad" and nearly crying, and as our eyes met and Tom swooped him up, he emitted a little cry and a cloud of brown swooshed from under the too-big legs of his little shortie wetsuit, clouding the turquoise water. A first time for everything.

It was already a bit of a painful event for me - putting on my bikini (a regular suit sure as heck doesn't fit my 5 months pregnant belly) and walking past a hundred and fifty people and into the pool. Then I got to try and be discreet about heading to the nearest teenage lifeguard (about 6 feet away) and telling her my son had just created a vast toxic wasteland out of what was a moment earlier a major fun zone complete with twisting water slide and relay races and chock full of happy, jubilant children of all ages. Nothing discreet about how she immediately brought her whistle to her pouty teenage lips, blew for all she was worth and yelled something like "Poop in the pool! Everyone out!" Ten teenage lifegaurds effectively evac'd the pool in moments whereupon everyone cast their eyes about for the culprit who was, at that moment, showering in the men's room with his papa and crying about wanting to get back to swimming. 

It takes thirty minutes to effectively reach chlorine levels sufficient to kill all fecal borne microbes (and blind small children and bleach all swimsuits). And thirty minutes for us to pack up, peel a 6 yr old reluctantly from where she has plastered herself happily against the still-warm pool deck concrete on her belly next to another six year old girl and be more than halfway home on the windy foothill roads with two tired children in tow, tiny swimming pool in my body still occupied by the lone swimmer there. 

On the way out a couple friends jokingly asked us something like "Jeez, haven't you taught your kids the right place to go?" And Tom and I, lacking the ability to lie, sheepishly confessed that it was indeed one of our children who had cleared the pool. Mortified, the woman stuttered that she was trying to be funny. "Oh, sadly it is funny," I said. "Or it will be in a few years." We can only hope that Sawyer's ability to get people to move en masse in years to come will come from his motivating them in some social or political cause. He seems to have the necessary charisma. Just needs a little work on his impetus.