Travels with Mom

Family vacation season is fast approaching and I have a lengthening list of all the incidentals that I will need to pack that no one else in my family will think of - until it is a vital necessity.  Tweezers, nail clippers, band aids, sunscreen, insect bite cream, cotton swabs, safety pins, toothpaste, hair gel… etc.  The weirdest request. -  “Mom, do we have any rice?” became a classic after youngest son failed to remove his phone from shorts pocket, before cannon-balling into pool.  Realized his error the moment he hit the water of course.  Phone did survive the baptism after spending time in a bag of uncooked rice.

On our first trip with three generations - me, mom, grandma - traveling to South Dakota when I was 5.  First, the ONLY hijacking in SeaTac airport history delayed our flight for hours.  This was back in the mid-1970s, prior to heightened security measures.  My so articulate 5 year old level of “Stupid hijackers, go away. Who wants to go to Cuba anyway?” didn’t work.  Then when our baggage was changing planes one of the suitcases fell off the trolley and opened on the tarmac.  Nothing like seeing your mother’s unmentionables strewn from hell to breakfast.  A memorable trip on so many levels.

Traveling with mom is much like traveling with a 5 year old, turnabout is fair play.  A woman prone to sensible shoes, hers usually tie and and between managing jewelry that tripped the alarm, an unwieldy handbag and too much to carry – she now has a metal plate in her wrist. All kinds of circus acts are happening when she goes through the gate.  So there we are before and after the security check with me on the floor untying and retying her shoes, while she rearranges her baggage.

Mom also tends to get distracted by rude people, other people’s issues, most shiny objects and technology snafus.  On our last trip to see grandson #1 at college, we were managing an acoustic guitar case, 4 suitcases, 2 backpacks and 3 people.  I had to send grandson #2 to retrieve things more often than he was comfortable to keep all of our assorted accoutrements together. We only lost mom once in the process.  We determined next time we’re going to put a helium balloon on her coat zipper to use as a locating device.  Her diminutive stature makes it hard to see her in a crowd.

Once we left the airport, trying to navigate CA hwy system with mom reading road and street signs and son using phone GPS… which is more effective?  We arrived at our hotel – booked through AOL dial up on the internet only to realize it was on the flight path of the community airport for the rich and famous coming in and out of Monterey and Carmel.  Small private Cessna and Beechcraft jets started buzzing at 6am daily and lingered past 10pm.  We were treated to a front row seat, and had to cross a freeway off-ramp to turn into our hotel.  Mom takes me to only the best places.  

This reminds me of another trip with mom to a family reunion in South Dakota.  She was coordinating all the specifications for a family reunion.  We travel as a group of 8 people all day from Seattle to Utah to South Dakota and arrive at 10pm in a remote area to discover our reservation starts TOMORROW night.  Somewhere the arrival dates were changed on the flight but not on the resort.  I was about ready to start pounding on doors to rent someone’s bathtub for the night.  Exhausted and at the end of my tolerance level – I dissolved into hysterics and tears.  A room was found – not a tactic I recommend, but in the right application, useful.

Then there was the next family reunion five years later in Colorado - equally memorable.  I was flying separately meeting my parents in Colorado.  As our plane landed, alarms were sounding and we parked on the tarmac for an hour until we received weather clearance to proceed to the terminal due to “thunderstorms.”  The elderly farmer in the seat next to me peered out the window and proclaimed with experienced certainty, “Thunderstorms, hell.  Them’s tornado clouds!”  

Urge to bail activated and NO cocktail service!  When we finally deplaned, it was news on all the weather channels that THREE tornado funnels had touched down within a mile of the runway.   My folks were watching them touch down from the cell phone waiting lot and sweating bullets.  Our next stop upon leaving the airport was a bar for a well-deserved libation to calm our frazzled nerves.

Within the last month, we travelled to Puyallup with mom for our annual staycation for Mother’s Day weekend where we take time to connect, relax, regroup and rejuvenate away from the demands of home.  My sister booked a hotel, we picked mom up at home and each of us packed a corkscrew to open our one bottle of wine – something we’d overlooked in the past.  No harm, no foul, no tornadoes, no highjackers and just a few hungover hillbillies for entertainment purposes.  It has taken a few learning opportunities to convince us to take over the planning and reservation making roles and let mom choose the wine and restaurants.  We all travel much easier that way, but it makes for good anecdotal evidence to be turned into a whole nother story.

S'mothering Day

Early in life, my instincts were that I would be okay remaining childless and never being a mom.  Might have been my doubts in my ability to handle that level of responsibility for others well-being, manage my own frustrations when things don’t meet expectations, or the prospects offering to share their gene pool were a little shallow – in more ways than one.  It took a leap of faith, one hell of an epidural and the support of many good moms to bring me to the decision to co-mingle, wrangle and bribe my way into the motherhood tribe.

There are many parenting styles that have been lampooned and promoted over the decades  - we saw the rise and fall of the tiger mom, the helicopter parent, the squabble over nature vs. nurture, logical consequences, rationalizing with toddlers (also known as sabotaging your sanity) as well as any number of theories and philosophies in between.  My personal favorite hovered somewhere between the hands off approach, shameless bribery and what my boys call s’mothering.  On the plus side – everyone was weaned and potty-trained by the time they went to kindergarten, but there were some ongoing issues with unreal expectations of myself and others.  Once I was able to let go of those, the issues completely changed focus.  My new mantra became, “As long as the kids still want a hug at bedtime, it’s been a good day.”

With the adjusted expectations for parenting, the expectations for Mother’s Day also evolved.  A lifetime supply of macaroni jewelry, construction paper flowers and popsicle stick photo frames in exchange for expelling a watermelon sized human from a space designed to house MUCH smaller objects 90% of the time.  The luxurious spa, jewelry and floral ads suffice to provide amusement. I have no expectation of ever receiving those options and am fine awarding those to myself for personal achievements - such as permitting stupid people to continue usurping air.  The first 30 minutes of Mother’s Day, you usually feel particularly appreciated until the laundry needs changing, dishwasher needs emptying and people demand to be fed… then it’s just another Sunday.  

About a decade ago, the gals in my family proposed that we take a day off instead of expecting to be revered and go see a movie, get mani/pedis, have lunch or whatever appealed to us.  As we all grew weary of the caregiving roles we each fulfill on a weekly basis, we grew to look forward to uninterrupted chick time.  This last month, we took a staycation in a nearby small town and wandered a farmer’s market, antique stores, chillaxed in our hotel room with wine, snacks and ice cream and chatted about matters big and small.  The guys like that they have little to do with our preparation and get to have their own time together.  We get to sleep in, not cut anyone else’s food and spent time in the bathroom alone.  Moms of toddlers will testify, this is a rare and beautiful thing.

As our sons grow older, I plan to hold them to the same ideal that I raised them with – spend more time WITH me than money ON me, and I will be well blessed.  Since both of them have more time than money at this point in their lives, that should be an appealing notion all around.  Not that I wouldn’t be thrilled with a bauble in a jewelry box; my gems walk the earth and make me proud of the way they sparkle in the face of adversity, care for others and convey their ideas.   We head out next week to assist our oldest in launching the next chapter of his life – learning to survive on his own in Southern CA.  Aside from obtaining a job and balancing life skills with the responsibilities and rewards of successful adulting, he’ll be relearning how to interact with new roommates, drive again and maintain his equilibrium in the everyday world outside of academia.  

In sorting through all of the shrapnel in the room he inhabited since age 10, I’m realizing one suitcase cannot encompass it all.  There are things I want to send with him going forward and things that just aren’t practical in his new life.  He does want all 20 lbs. of Steven King and Harry Potter hardback books, but the cub scout awards, dramatic production posters and outgrown clothes will get trashed or recycled into someone else’s formative years.  Like a snake, he has outgrown this skin and needs to slough it off to make room for the growth he’s achieved in three years away at college. 

We’ve all grown and changed in countless ways with his distance – mom returned to full-time work in some strange and interesting industries, he learned to live meagerly and conserve his budget, dad learned that it feels good to be able to contribute to opportunities we didn’t have at his age.  He learned to tell a complex story in 6-10 minutes of film.  He still can’t tell a story orally in less than 15-20 minutes, but that’s a whole nother story in and of itself.

Son #2 is preparing to attend prom with a pal he has known since sixth grade.  He developed an elaborate prom proposal "promposal", enlisted the help of a squad and they will go as a group to a simple restaurant all decked out in their duds and hopefully have a safe and memorable event.  He likes to explore nature and took the opportunity to drive to Mt. Rainier this week at a good weather break.  

All of these experiences, attending school out of state, going to prom, taking a 140 mile drive on a whim, required the calming of my smothering response and lengthening of the proverbial umbilical cord to trust their roots to ground them and their wings to carry them.  All the while, hoping that their common sense had strategic weight and would win out when challenged.  The challenge to sit back and see how things play out has been the most challenging part of parenting, but also the most rewarding  to see the way that trajectories are gently corrected to even out the course.

This Mother’s Day, I wish all who nurture in maternal ways whether to humans or animals, ideas or ideals, biological or adopted - peace and blessings in a job well suited to your individual gifts.  Many nurture people and projects around them without even realizing the impact that caring for each other has in the world.  It makes a difference to spread that blanket of care wider for the greater good.