In Which I Complain About An Ancient Greek

I’m a bit envious of Sisyphus. Who’s Sisyphus, you ask? He’s the Greek king who was doomed by Zeus to forever push a huge boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down again, over and over. Sisyphus has come to represent fruitless actions, monotonous, never-ending labor.

As a mom, I feel like I know a little something about monotony, work that is never done, and having my accomplishments undone. It's basically the job description. By the time the dishwasher is finished running there are dishes piling up in the sink. There's always a basket of laundry somewhere in the house (clean? dirty? clean but ruined?).  And I'm pretty sure there are more runny noses per capita than is normal. With luck, in another nine or ten years, I can start paying for college for people who are SURE they know way more than me.

I say, Sisyphus had a good thing going. Sure, working hard at something just to watch it come undone is annoying, but it’s not like Sisyphus was almost to the top when his daughter came up and repeatedly poked him in the leg, “Dad Dad Dad Dad Dad DAD DAD DADDADDAD!” and then when he was distracted the other child hit the boulder with a basketball and knocked it loose. “I told you kids not to bug me when I’m on the top third!!” Sisyphus would yell. “And how many times do I have to tell you, no basketballs near the boulder?!” Nobody actively interfered with his task, is what I’m saying. He pushed that boulder all day long with nobody to bother him.

After the third or the thirtieth or the three-hundredth time pushing that boulder up only to have it tumble back down, I figure Sisyphus must’ve given up and just enjoyed the process. The feeling of strength and power. The cleanness of pure physical exertion. There was probably plenty of time to think, to achieve a meditative state as he pushed and shoved. Lots of time to become one with himself. I mentioned the banging on the bathroom door, right?

And then, at the top-ish, when the boulder tumbles back down. . . Crashing through trees, bouncing off other rocks, getting airborne? That honestly sounds fun to watch. There’s a reason Angry Birds was so popular—it’s fun to wreck stuff, as long as you don’t have to clean up any of the destruction. If I’m in the middle of doing the dishes and suddenly the glasses tumble out of the cupboard, I’m going to have to clean it up. There are consequences. But the myth says nothing about Sisyphus having to replant sacred trees or pay for damaged Parthenons or appear in court to answer for his reckless boulder-pushing.

Maybe, you say, Sisyphus was far away from anyone who would care if the boulder smashed up a Parthenon or a Volvo. Nobody cared about his labors? Nobody cared that he was working super hard on getting that rock from the bottom to the top? Boo. Hoo. Every day I plan, shop for, and cook meals that are not only delicious but healthy, and what are the results? We sit down to the table and my kids inform me that,"Dinner is . . . not good. I want Ramen noodles." That right there is a boulder tumbling back down the hill.

Sisyphus didn’t have to convince the boulder to get itself up that hill. No, he just pushed it, no mind games, no reverse psychology, no making up silly games to fool it into thinking it was fun going up the hill.

"Uppsy-daisy! Let's jump SO high! Let's go see the zebra at the top of the hill! You LIKE zebras!"

Sisyphus only had one boulder. I’d like to see how he’d do with three! Then we’ll talk about insurmountable tasks. Just as he’s getting somewhere with one boulder, the other ones are banging into each other and making a ruckus. Deal with those two, and the first one is rolling into the Aegean. Turn around, and none of the three are where he left them. I doubt that boulder ever embarrassed Sisyphus at a playground or grocery store.

And another thing! The boulder didn’t talk back. “But I don’t WANNA go up the hill! You can’t make me! I hate you! You’re the worstest rock-pusher EVER!” I’ll bet it was really quiet on that hill, nothing but birds and wind and rustling leaves and the crunch of rock on gravel. Sigh. So quiet.

Yeah.

Sisyphus—More like Sissy-wuss. Mothers are the true mythic figures!

Lessons from Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins is my idol. 
She was confident and assertive, but knew fun and magic can be found anywhere. I would love to emulate her more in my life. Of course, Mary Poppins had a couple of advantages over me. I mean, she had supernatural abilities and a three-octave singing voice, for goodness sake. She slid UP the bannister, levitated tea-tables, and charmed children, bankers, and birds with her singing. My musical repertoire is pretty much limited to "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." My super powers are making food appear every night at dinner, and the ability to make my two-year-old disappear simply by holding a tissue in my hand. So I'm trying to focus on learning some of her more attainable skills.

On Self Esteem

Mary Poppins told people she was "kind but extremely firm" and "practically perfect in every way." Of course, since references are "a very old-fashioned idea, to my mind," we only have her word for it. So maybe she isn't quite as great as she says. I bring this up because it's important to have a positive attitude toward yourself, to say good things about yourself. I find myself talking to myself, about myself, in a way that would be totally unacceptable from another human being. When I make a mistake, in my head I sometimes call myself an idiot. I don't think I'm alone in this. But if more of us looked in the mirror every morning, sang a duet with our reflection, and then declared ourselves to be "practically perfect in every way," the world would be considerably closer to awesome. Persuading oneself to be great is an amazing skill.

On Cleaning Up

The most memorable scene in the movie is probably when they tidy up the nursery. Mary Poppins tells Jane and Michael that "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down," and "In every job that must be done there is an element of fun."
Turning chores into games totally works on my kids, as long as I make the effort to make it a compelling game. This doesn't mean complicated, or that I've developed super snapping abilities. (sigh. I wish. Is there a YouTube video tutorial out there?) Let's talk about the dress-up clothes that spend so much time on the floor that I'm pretty sure that hundreds of years from now future archaeologists will study the strata of tiaras and dresses and magician costumes in the remains of our house and write scholarly papers about The Use of Synthetic Fibers in Children's Ceremonial Garb in the Early Twenty-First Century.

There's a PhD in there somewhere

On occasion I decide that it is time to check the floor of April's room, to make sure the carpet is still the color I remember and that the squirrels aren't hiding under a pile of capes, and I gather my brood.  This is crucial: if I tell them to clean this mess, without a game or instructions, not only will the mess not get picked up, but it will immediately spread throughout the house because the girls will stop cleaning and start playing after approximately 37 seconds. So this is where the "element of fun" comes in.

"Okay guys, I'm setting the stopwatch! Let's see if we can beat our best time of one minute, fifty-six seconds! Remember, pick up a whole armful, not one little thing at a time. Ready-Set-GO!!"

And it works, which blows my mind. I mean, basically I'm getting them to clean up by telling them, in a super chipper voice, to do it super fast. This wouldn't work on me if I was, say, doing the dishes or mopping the kitchen or working on our taxes. If you told me I could get these things done by just going faster, I would roll my eyes at you. So. Hard. "What a revelation," I would say. And then I would gather my wits about me, turn off the instinctive sarcasm, and ask you to demonstrate for me on the dishes. I would pull a stool up to the kitchen island and make interested and admiring noises while you showed me how to put dishes in the dishwasher really quickly without breaking them. I would eat a cookie while telling you how amazing you are, and that I could never be as fast as you. Maybe you should do the dishes again tomorrow so I can watch and maybe figure out your technique, which seems super sophisticated.

On Bedtime

Bedtime seems like a simple task: put on pajamas, brush teeth, get in bed, turn off the light. But the reality is that there are days I would rather try to train a herd of cats than try to put my children to bed, because CPS wouldn't come calling if I gave up and put the cats in cages and walked out for an hour. The simplest things take an hour to accomplish. The kids suddenly remember things that absolutely have to be done right now. "I need to go through this stack of Scholastic book order forms and circle the ones I want!" (spoiler: they want the books that come with toys and gizmos.) They forget that they were putting on pajamas and play legos with their trousers around their knees and then get angry when I remind them to get dressed. ("I AM!" they insist indignantly, then go back to building a spaceship that fires flowers.) They dawdle, brushing each tooth individually. They remember how much they love us and have to come back downstairs three or four times to give hugs and kisses. (It would be more adorable if it didn't happen a full hour after we tucked them in.) They develop ailments and itches that torture them into wakefulness.

This is where the best Mary Poppins bit comes in. In the movie, after taking Jane and Michael on a outing to the park, the children are so wound up they can't calm down to sleep. She finally tells them, "Now, not another word or I shall be forced to summon a policeman." This is seriously my favorite line in the whole movie. It isn't so much applicable as it is hilariously reassuring. It gives me a great deal of comfort to know that even Mary Poppins got frustrated at bedtime, and resorted to outlandish empty threats in order to get peace and quiet. She was practically perfect, not totally perfect.

This makes me feel a lot better.

Spring Break is Hard on Everyone, Especially Their Butts

I was down in the basement sorting laundry when suddenly my mommy-senses tingled. Somewhere my children were fighting. I raced up to the TV room, where the girls were yelling and crying and hitting each other with their Wii remotes.

"Kimmy bited my butt!!" sobbed April, clutching the wounded cheek.

"What the?! KIMMY!" I yelled. "You BIT her BUTT??"

Flustered, Kimmy reverted to her standard defense. "It was a accident!" she insisted.

"No, it wasn't!!" cried April, falling to the floor in devastation. I pried her hand away long enough to check her butt--a little red, no blood. No need for medical intervention. I turned my full attention on Kimmy.

Like a desperate cornered animal, Kimmy went on the offensive. "She made me do it!!"

"What?!" I was incredulous. "Unless she sat on your mouth and mashed your jaws together with her hands, there is NO WAY she made you bite her butt!!"

"She just made me mad," she finished lamely.

"That's it!! You are GROUNDED from all electronics for two days!" Furious, I delivered the verdict and separated the girls.

The next day, Kimmy was subdued by the knowledge that she was still in the electronics-free doghouse, and spent quite a bit of time up in her room, quietly playing legos. Late in the afternoon, I needed to run out for a quick errand and left the girls home. They hate shopping, especially when there's so much nothing to be done. If you're going to judge me, don't let it be for that. Please.

When I came back about twenty minutes later, I was met at the kitchen door by both girls eagerly clutching Wii remotes.

"I forgived Kimmy and Kimmy forgived me and we really wanted to play together on the Wii so we are playing together on the Wii," explained April in her usual thorough fashion. Kimmy and April looked up at me hopefully.

I wanted to be upset, to insist that Kimmy was still grounded, I really did.  But if they've found a way to forgive each other and play together, who am I to get in the way? Isn't that what I was trying to foster in the first place? Isn't it my job as a parent to raise two children who don't let a little butt-biting get in the way of their friendship? And so I let them keep playing.