What I Learned from the Crackers

Hands
Originally uploaded by jbenito's

I’ve always wanted to be ambidextrous. Wanted the creativity of being a lefty and the advantages of living in a world made for rightys. It always felt to me like the essence of not having to choose. Of having it all. Plus, I think the word “ambidextrous” is cool.

Yes, I always wanted to be ambidextrous, but never more so than now, that I am a working mother.

On the left brain: Working time, all the satisfaction of tasking, of focusing, of compressing as much production and creative spark into as little time as possible.

On the right brain: Mothering, the gift of looking into the eyes of a love that I never knew was possible and, when I can, just letting our time together drift.

And as long as I keep the two separate, I’m fine.

But I want to be ambidextrous.

I realized this today as I looked over my terrain. I’m working more, slowly building up this dream of a writer’s life where I get to make things out of words and make a difference at the same time. Right now, it feels like I am building it out of little bitty pieces. Two hours of work, two hours of mothering. Repeat. And it’s the transitioning back and forth that is the hardest. Stop tasking and start feeling. Vice versa. It’s like moving from land to water and back again, and of course, the hardest part is always the transition. Jumping in, drying off. I keep coming off of the high of working and transitioning to mama-ing and wanting to teach something. I keep telling myself: “Just lay down and enjoy watching the Fox play with the legos, Ella. You don’t have to show him how build the Vatican just now.” 

I actually caught myself sneaking one of the flat red ones off of his firetruck to make my ladybug.  I stopped myself, though. The second time.

I’d like to think this is creating some kind of crossover skill set, an internal ambidexterity. (Now there’s a cool word, eh?) To know when to use the left side of my brain, which is all logic and outcome. To know when to use the right side of my brain, which is all creation and feeling. I’ve been meaning to get my hands on Shari Storm’s book Motherhood is the New MBA. She says that “Rip the band-aid off fast!” applies at work as well as at home. And it’s true, I have way more skills at keeping my cool in the presence of unreasonable behavior than ever before. His and mine. Not perfect, but better. This morning, he upended a box of crackers. Fancy ones. I knew better than to let him hold the box, but he was hungry and I was cooking and I hoped he’d just eat them. I saw it happen in slow motion and I just couldn’t get there. Whoosh!  Toasted gorgonzola crackers all over our dog hair floor.

I freaked.

“We don’t. Dump. Crackers!” I picked up the box and threw it in frustration. (this is not only bad mothering, it is bad grammar. Obviously, we do dump crackers.)

The Fox was startled, then upset, of course. It was a stupid, sucky moment on my part. In fact, it was not unlike some other moments I can recall, where I was managing someone, and too busy to really pay attention, and gave them a task that was important, but not enough information or training or oversight. And then got pissed off  when they dumped the crackers and acted like it was their fault.

(Tell me this isn’t a teensy bit familiar.)

But then, this morning I did something I didn’t used to know how to do. I let it go and I owned up. I was so shocked at my behavior that it kind of woke me up, because – no offense to my former coworkers, but I never loved them like this. The Fox is crying, tears streaming. I knelt down and said, “I’m sorry. That was my fault. Mama lost her temper. I should have calmed down but I didn’t and I’m sorry. This kind of thing happens and it’s not the end of the world and I’m sorry.” And boy, was he taking it in. He listened and nestled into my lap and looked at me and it just… well, I don’t want to overstate things, but it felt like it fixed it. Then he got up and got the big broom and the dustbin, and I found his little broom and we practiced pushing the crackers into the dustbin together and it felt like we were sweeping up the little pieces of the broken moment as well as the broken crackers and like I could use either hand, or both at once. That I could both accomplish this task and also love my son as he deserves to be loved.

But I still think I’m gonna need full-time preschool one of these days.