How do you teach your kids—and yourself—responsibility? My successes and failures, resulting in house-elfness.

January 4, 2017trishmercer Leave a comment

Parents, I have a question: when do you show mercy and rescue a child, or when do you let them suffer with an unforgettable lesson?

How do you teach responsibility without potentially damaging your child?

That’s a quandary that plagues me nearly every day. I give you Exhibit A, my youngest daughter, age 9. Yesterday she asked blithely, “Where’s my coat?” as she was getting ready to walk to school in 17-degree weather.

That’s not what a mom wants to hear, that a coat’s missing. “Did you hang it up like you’re supposed to?” I asked, with an appropriate amount of nagging inflection.

“No,” she said, a bit indignant. “I brought it home, all wet, from playing in the snow at my friend’s house yesterday. It’s in that . . . bag . . . right . . . there.” Her voice became very quiet as she realized that house elves don’t work here, and that she hadn’t told me that her soaked coat had spent the night growing colder nowhere near the laundry room.

i-am-not-a-house-elf

Because I was on my way out the door to take my college-aged daughter to catch her bus back to school, I hastily threw the coat into the dryer, set the timer for 25 minutes for when my youngest had to leave, and hoped for the best.

I was torn between hoping her coat would be snuggly warm for her brisk walk to school three blocks away (I usually drive her on mornings like this), and hoping it’d still be a bit wet and cold to teach that girl a lesson in responsibility.

And then I spent the next few hours wondering, What would be the best outcome?

How do you know when to rescue a child from their irresponsibility, and when to let them flounder?

Somewhere along the lines I must have done something right with my oldest daughter, Exhibit B. She is so over-the-top responsible that she’s prepared for every contingency. As a freshman in college, she had an emergency food supply while other students were trying to scavenge pizzas from dumpsters at night, and under her bed she stored dozens of bottles of water, “just in case.” And the girl never ran out of toilet paper.

Growing older has only firmed that. On New Year’s Eve last week, she came up with her two little ones so we could go shopping while grandpa babysat. As she brought in a huge overnight bag, she began to apologize. “I know—we’re staying only a few hours, and the drive is only two hours, but what if the snowstorm comes in early? What if we’re stranded here, or in the car?” She had changes of clothes for all of them, extra bottles and formula for her baby, additional cuppies for her toddler, and snacks.

But I said, “This is what moms do: anticipate disasters. Prepare for the worst. Coming to the rescue for your babies is what you’re supposed to do.”

I was pondering this rescuing attitude as I drove with my middle daughter to her bus stop. At what age should the rescuing stop? Or at least be curtailed to allow the child to find solutions themselves?

My daughter mentioned that two of her roommates had gone back to school the night before and each had texted her with the same message: “I forgot my key. When are you coming back?”

I began to scoff sadly, thinking about those poor, freezing college girls assuming that naturally someone else would be responsible enough to unlock their apartment. Someone else would save them from the predicament they chose not to prepare for . . .

Until I spun around in my seat in the van and asked my daughter, “You have your key, right?”

She smiled smugly. “Of course I do.”

Whew. Thank you, Exhibit C. (By the way, her roommates were rescued by an aunt who lived in the area and brought them to her house for the night, since the apartment mangers were out of town.)

Before I could become too prideful that I’d taught this daughter right as well–at least to remember apartment keys–I remembered that she was the one I accidently left at a Target in Roanoke, Virginia when she was six, and has never let me forget it.

(All of her siblings said she was in the van! I swear it! I went right back again to get her! And I found her with a security guard eating popcorn as she sobbed! How often do I have to apologize for being irresponsible and trusting her four older siblings who swore she was in the vehicle?!)

(She’s also the child who nearly drowned in a high mountain lake when she was 7 without me noticing, and also walked into the deep end of a neighbor’s pool when she was 6, also without me noticing. It’s a miracle she’s made it to 18.)

I realized that this child has been conditioned to expect the worst outcome, to know her mother will be too distracted to realize when she’s in trouble, and that she best take care of herself because mom’s too big of a flake to do so.

So maybe that’s a good thing, letting them flounder in deep, cold water, literally and metaphorically? Look how responsible my middle daughter became because I wasn’t.

(Ok, yeah, that’s a pretty lame argument.)

Now I have to admit that my oldest is so responsible likely not because of anything I taught her, but because we moved around so much when she was growing up, and because I leaned upon her and her sister, only two years younger, so much for assistance. My oldest daughters have become responsible out of necessity.

Survival of the most self-reliant.

So back to my youngest; when I picked up her from school in the afternoon (worried that maybe her coat had been wet, was still wet, and it was only 22 degrees outside and walking home would make her deathly ill, even though I “know” cold weather doesn’t cause a cold because my second daughter who’s a very responsible nursing student will remind me of that fact, every mother knows deep down that yes, cold weather causes colds!), she cheerfully said, “Oh, my coat was toasty warm all the way to school. You should put it in the dryer every morning.”

I didn’t know what to do with that.

Instead of being seen as the kind and thoughtful mother who came up with a solution to make sure she wasn’t cold (rescuing), or my daughter thinking that she should be more accountable and at least tell me when something needs drying and hanging up (teaching responsibility), somehow I’ve been assigned a new task in the mornings of making sure Her Highness’s coat has been adequately warmed in the dryer for half an hour (house-elving).

After being a mom for 26 years, I realize I still don’t know what I’m doing.

How irresponsible of me.

I’m open to your suggestions.

On apricots, bathrooms, and legacies

August 17, 2016trishmercer 2 Comments

[Today my friend texted me, “Have you had your fill of apricots yet?” That reminded me of something I wrote four years ago on another blog, and I before I rush off to pick some, then later rush off to the bathroom, I wanted to republish it here.]

This is no ordinary bag of apricots.

It’s a legacy, a reminder of those who are no longer here, or leaving soon.

Apricots are the perfect fruit. In my mind, Eve hands Adam an apricot. She has a whole fig leaf apron full of them. And raspberries jammed in a pocket. (But that’s another story. And no, I’m not sure where Eve would have a pocket.)

I didn’t like apricots until I was about 11 or 12 years old. My oldest sister Judy, married with her own family, came to our house to pick apricots off of our tree during one of the rare years it produced. She taught me how their texture is firmer than peaches, less messy, and more subtle in flavor. And that flavor, when snatched from a tree on a hot August afternoon, was fantastic. She was right—I discovered I loved apricots as I picked them with her. Suddenly, she stopped.

“How many have you eaten?” she asked me.

“About 5 or 6,” I told her.

“Well, stop,” she said as she popped another in her mouth.

Hypocrite, I thought. “Why?”

“Because these will make you the best of friends with the toilet around this time tomorrow.” She swallowed down another one.

“How many have you had?”

“Probably 20,” she said nonchalantly. “I’ve already cleared my calendar for tomorrow afternoon. I’ll hate myself then, but for now? Heavenly!”

She later confessed that on the drive home, she had to put the bucket of apricots in the back of her van, out of her reach. The next day she lived in the bathroom while her husband laughed at her.

“But it was worth it!” Judy insisted when I next saw her. “Fresh and free apricots come only a few weeks of the year, and some years, not at all. Eat them while you can.”

Each year my mother and I watched our apricot tree, cheering at the popcorn-like blossoms and hoping for a good crop. Then, two years out of three, a frost killed the blossoms.

But when we had mild springs? One year we had a huge crop, and came home one day to see little orange bits all over the road in front of our house. Perplexed, we looked up on the hill where our apricot tree stood and saw that half of it was lying on the ground, the weight of so much fruit breaking it. Little apricots had rolled down the hill and became a mushy mess all over the road. Neighbors came to help clean up the mess, my mother made jam for two straight days. At the end, she cursed the little things for being so darned plentiful that year—and Judy and I ate far too many again.

My sister and mom, in 2007, clearly wishing they were eating apricots.

Yesterday, a neighbor wrote on Facebook how sick she was of making apricot jam, and I thought about my mom. She’s now 85 and fading slowly away. In hospice care, she doesn’t open her eyes, she doesn’t speak, and now she no longer eats. [UPDATE: My mother passed away in January of 2014.] She won’t taste apricots or make jam this year.

I moved away to the east coast some years ago, saw apricots for sale occasionally at the grocery stores for exorbitant prices, and remembered free Utah apricots. Then we moved back to Utah in 2007 and occasionally got an apricot or two, and loved them.

But there are still apricots, brought to me by a dear friend, in a bag [the same friend who texted me today–Allison doesn’t forget].

I don’t have Judy, either. She won her first round with cancer, but it came back more angry for a second bout, and nearly three years ago [seven, now], Judy passed away.

We don’t have that tree anymore, either. We sold the house, and the tree, a few years ago.

My mom, four years ago, briefly holding her youngest grandchild. She passed away in 2014.

Yesterday, I taught my 4-year-old [now 9-year-old] how to love apricots. After her fifth one I said, “We shouldn’t have any more. Too many will make you need to go to the bathroom a lot tomorrow.”

She nodded in agreement, but about ten minutes later came to me with another apricot for me to open and pit. “Just one more,” she promised. “The last one.”

I smiled and took one more as well.

Then ate about twenty-five more.

Today I’ve spent a lot of time in the bathroom.

Judy and me, in 2007. No apricots in sight, but I’ll eat extra for her today, in 2016. And likely regret it again.

And I swear I’ve heard Judy laughing at me and saying, But they’re worth it, aren’t they?

[Today, I told my nine-year-old that the apricots were ready again, and she eagerly asked, “When can we go get them?” If you’ll need me tomorrow, I’ll be in the bathroom. I have to eat enough for not only myself, but my mom and Judy as well. Someone has to do it.]

“I don’t believe this!” Peto threw his arms in the air and clomped around the garden. “For moons I’ve been trying to understand the meaning of the peach pits, and here you tell me they’re only for growing more peaches? For crying out loud!” he exclaimed as he started for the road. “The pits are only for getting more peaches—”

“Unless,” and once again Yung’s quiet calm voice cut through Peto’s complaining and pierced his heart, “unless the Creator wanted you to get something more out of them.” ~Book 4, The Falcon in the Barn

One good reason for having kids

August 3, 2016trishmercer Leave a comment

I have little time to write a full post today, with SLC Comic Con rapidly coming up. I’m making 200 signs and 300 clocks to sell in just one month (with products from my Etsy shop), and I’m slightly hyperventilating because I’m only half done, I have no packaging or booth advertising ordered, and as a newbie I’m terrified to my core. (Panic attack will commence in 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . )

Still, I took a moment the other day to spend some important time with my 8-year-old. A couple of weeks ago, her beloved scooter betrayed her, dumping her over the handlebars onto the sidewalk, breaking both bones in her arm just above her wrist. It’s been rough as I’ve had to help bathe and dress each day, and she hasn’t been able to play in pools or splashpads as she wants to. Knowing she needs some tenderness and concern as she heals, I smiled as she came up to me the other day with a Sharpie marker and displayed her cast. I knew what was coming.

sign your name on my cast

Because if you can’t mess with your own kids, what’s the point of having them?

(It’s a joke, folks. Relax. She didn’t cry about it that long.)

How to cancel your Mother’s Day Guilt Trip with “Moments of Perfection”

May 6, 2016May 6, 2016trishmercer 1 Comment

The following was written by my mother, Yvonne Neufeldt Strebel, in 1984. She delivered this talk in church on Mother’s Day. I found this speech in my dad’s journal, and reproduced it here, to show that fear of not measuring up as a mom has been around for at least 32 years.

“Mother’s Day”—the very word awakens feeling of appreciation, gratitude, and love, and rightfully so. I am grateful to be a wife and a mother and to have a good family.

Yet Mother’s Day in our home is known as “Guilt Sunday,” the date for my annual guilt trip.

Beautifully rendered Mother’s Day speeches have left me with a depressing feeling of inadequacy. I have often asked myself, “Could it be possible that my family is succeeding in spite of me?”

I do not measure up to the ideal motherhood, the Supermom. I know that, because I have tried to be Supermom and failed. I am not alone in my plight. Actually, I am in very good company. There are other mothers who have expressed the same sentiments concerning Mother’s Day and Supermom.

Supermom—you know the type. She gets up very early, every single morning. Go, call on her between 5 and 6 a.m. She will greet you with a radiant smile and will be beautifully dressed, perfectly groomed, unhurried—yet lively—although she has been up for hours.

She has exercised, written in her journal, perhaps even composed music or written poetry.

She in now preparing not only a nutritious, but also an appetizing breakfast, which she will serve on an elegantly set table. No lumpy oatmeal or cold cereal for her family.

Supermom never ever loses her temper, and if she is in pain, she hides it. She always sings while doing chores. She loves and supports her family 100%, does her church and community work exceptionally well—better than anybody else—and never tires. Evening meals, always served punctually, are gourmet delights.

At night, when the day is done, Supermom lovingly turns to her husband and with a brilliant smile, accompanied by a demure sigh, says, “Darling, I love all my challenges. I only wish I could have more.”

I identify with Supermom in only three categories:

I am, by my Prussian nature, punctual: dinner is always served on time, or else we eat out.
Church and community work are very important to me. I love both. But I, unlike Supermom, do get exhausted.
Most importantly, I love my husband, children, in-laws, and grandchildren with all my heart and I support them to the very best of my ability. Although my very best could not ever match that of Supermom.

Other than that, I do not qualify. And I had to come to terms with that. (I also had to prepare this talk.)

Does Supermom really exist, or is she the sum total of imaginations of many kind Mother’s Day speakers?

If she exists, could she perhaps step forward and tell me how she does it?

I suspect Supermom is a myth. I am no longer willing to compare myself to a myth.

supermom myth

In the 1984 April General Conference, Elder Marvin J. Ashton pointed out that,

“comparison is another tool of Satan. Many [mothers] seem to put too much pressure on themselves to be a Supermom or Superwoman . . . A good woman is any woman who moves in the right direction.”

The foundation of motherhood is nurturing love. If we keep this in mind, we need not compete in the motherhood Olympics in order to find the perfect mother.

We are all on the road to perfection. Along the way, we gather what I would like to call “moments of perfection.” These are occasions when we do well and achieve, usually in quiet ways. There are no headlines, no fanfares, but Heavenly Father approves.

When my own children were small, they would bring me the most beautiful bouquets of dandelions. It was better than their previous practice of beheading our neighbor’s prized tulips. When I treated these dandelions as a bouquet of roses, then this, in a small way, was a “moment of perfection.”

Yvonne’s youngest granddaughter, with decapitated tulips from our yard.

Yvonne’s youngest granddaughter and grandson, picking flowers from our yard.

Yvonne’s youngest granddaughter and grandson, helping to ensure more pretty yellow flowers grow in our grass.

I made myself a questionnaire befitting my own situation:

Do the women I come in contact with know that I am not their critic? That I will not give unsolicited advice?
Do they know that I accept them and their uniqueness as I hope they accept mine?
In admiring another woman’s accomplishments, can I do so generously and from the heart, without making it awkward by adding, “You’re so gifted! I could never do that. You have all the talent, and I don’t.” If I can be positive, then I can gather another “moment of perfection.”
When receiving a compliment, can I thank graciously without belittling myself? “Oh, it’s really nothing, just something I shipped up quickly,” although in reality I have slaved over it for hours by the sweat of my brow.
In serving others, do I do so out of a good desire and because it is needed?

These could all be “moments of perfection.”

If I am not motivated by guilt or fear of what others might think or say, then I have created another “moment of perfection.”

When reporting back to my Heavenly Father at night, I may have had a disastrous day, in part caused by my own weaknesses. But when I repent and ask forgiveness, and I can feel the comfort of the spirit, I know that my repentance has been acceptable to the Lord and I express my gratitude to Him. This then is a very good “moment of perfection.”

“Moments of perfection” can be gather by us all, regardless of whether we are parents or not.

In the final analysis, as I understand it, that which is really crucial to my being a good mother can be summarize in three points:

My obedient to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. I need to keep my covenants faithfully. This makes a closeness to Heavenly Father possible, a closeness I desire.
My nurturing love for my family. I need to learn and practice unconditional love.
My integrity toward myself and others, which I must learn to perfect.

With this in mind, I can learn to eliminate fruitless comparison and cancel my guilt trips.

True personal liberation can only be achieved through genuine gospel living. Heavenly Father lives and loves us all, and recognizes our honest efforts.

My mother and me, 1969 (I’m the small one.)

Yvonne Neufeldt Strebel was born in 1927 in Neisse, Prussia, Germany (now Poland). She endured WWII as a child, losing many of her family to the war, then escaped alone as a refugee fleeing from the Soviet army when she was 17 years old in 1944. She eventually met Rudolf Strebel in Munich, and in 1954 they immigrated to America and married, settling in Utah until their deaths. Yvonne passed away in 2014, at the age of 86. She had four children, 23 grandchildren, and many more great-grandchildren.

Why aren’t mothers the main protagonists of books or movies?

March 23, 2016trishmercer 2 Comments

Have you ever noticed mothers are not the main character . . . in anything?

Try this: name every Disney movie where the mother is absent and/or dead.

Are you done yet? There’s a lot, isn’t there?

And when a mother is present in a book/movie, what’s her role?

Supporting.

Try this: name a book or movie where a mom is the principle protagonist.

Yeah, none sprang to my mind, either.

Recently I ran into a series of articles about “Strong Female Characters,” and how they tend to collapse into a few categories:

they’re heartless witches, manipulative and demeaning; or,
they’re remarkably tough—like a female male—until the male shows up to aid/rescue/eclipse her; or,
the females vanish from the story because they really didn’t play much of a role anyway, only to show up at the end as an afterthought.

When analyzing the stories I love, I realized to my dismay that most of the females fall into one of those three categories.

For example, “How to Train Your Dragon 2.” I liked that movie, until my husband pointed out that not only is the mom rather useless after we meet her, but Hiccup disobeys his father, gets him killed, then still gets to become the chief. Dave thought all of that was pretty unfair. Then again, he’s the father of five sons. Image result for valka how to train your dragon

But dang it, he was right, especially about Valka. She’s powerful, but useless, and never really mothered her son, aside from giving him some pat advice when he needed it.

At least she fares better than most female/mother figures in literature and movies. Consider “The Emperor’s New Groove,” “Cinderella,” or any other Disney movie—

Except for “Mulan.” Mulan is brilliant, in every way. She not only has BOTH parents (rare in Disney), but even a grandmother, and Mulan does the rescuing, several times. (And, thankfully, Disney allowed Merida to “Brave”ly keep both of her parents, although the mother needs saving later.)

Still, even in “Mulan” the mother is in the background, only as a supporting role.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the supporting role; it’s vital, in everything. Where would any of us be without those who support us?

By why not make mother The Hero?

That thought was part of my unconscious when I created Mahrree for my series “Forest at the Edge.” When we first meet her in The Forest at the Edge of the World, she’s a single woman, albeit motherly in that she teaches school and worries immensely for her students. Then we have the obligatory romance (because hey, I’ve got some Strong Male Characters, too) and then she becomes a mother.

Sometime around there, while drafting the series, I realized that I was writing a main character that I hadn’t encountered before: a mother actively trying to improve the world for her children. (Aside from sappy made-for-cable movies or disease-of-the-week tales.)

Everything she says and does is in effort to reform her government, allow her children options in their future, and make sure school isn’t ridiculously boring.

“Mom Wants to Make the World a Better Place for Her Children”. It’s a universal theme, so why isn’t it more prevalent in what we read and watch?

Why have young mothers, middle-aged women, and even grandmothers not been the movers and drivers of a plot? They are when they’re in a family, and everyone knows it. And I don’t mean in a snarky, antagonistic way; enough of evil step-mothers.

I have friends who see themselves as primarily mothers, but are also involved in politics, providing aid for abused women and children, volunteering to preserve the environment, fighting pornography, promoting families, helping their schools, and improving the health and finances of those in need.

Maybe writers and Hollywood don’t see that as exciting as clichéd “Save the World” themes, but these women really are saving the world, more than any fictional superhero will.

I’d love to see more thoughtful mothers, experienced grandmothers, and confident women playing bigger roles in the narratives of the world, because they do that everywhere else.

Terry Pratchett gets close at times, with his witches who aren’t evil but keep the balance in the world, and in their villages. Nanny Ogg, who has more than a dozen children and oodles of grandchildren, is occasionally a major player in the witches books, but even then, Granny Weatherwax, who was never a mother, prevails as the main protagonist.

Mahrree Peto Shin isn’t a character I created, as I erroneous stated earlier; she manifested herself to me through one shocking, powerful image that I won’t reveal entirely here, because it happens in book 8 which will come out in probably another 3-4 years. (Book 5 will be out before this summer.)

But that image—of a woman facing an enormous threat, alone—riveted me. I wondered for months how she came to that position, and she slowly revealed her story to me, until I had enough to begin writing it.

(As an aside, I’m not psychotic; lots of writers have had this experience of characters demanding that they write their story. I can see how the ancient Greeks believed they had muses speaking to them, and my daughter gave me a mug which reads, “Writer’s Block: when your imaginary friends refuse to talk to you.” It’s true, you know.)

The “Forest at the Edge” series isn’t wholly about Mahrree, but about her family. She plays a major role in that family, and all the trouble she causes is primarily because she’s a worried mother.

The mother-perspective is powerful, more so than the perspective of a president, or a general, or a king, or any other hero. Those characters may lead countries or armies, but I doubt they could ever genuinely love them as much as a mother loves her children. References comparing mothers to bears and their cubs aren’t accidental.

Imagine Harry Potter being told from the perspective of Molly Weasley, who had seven children in peril, along with Harry who she tried to mother.

Image result for molly weasley

Or Hunger Games, from the perspective of President Coin, who lost her child.

Or even “Brave,” from the perspective Queen Elinor, who tries to help her daughter find a husband, then has to be saved from her unintentionally turning her into a bear.

How engrossing, heart-breaking, and hopeful would these perspectives be?

Maybe . . . maybe they’d be too much.

Too close to reality. Too gut-wrenching.

Maybe that’s why it’s rare to find a mother-perspective in literature, because all of us have mothers, most of us appreciate them, and deep down we’re worried about what they’re really thinking.

Maybe many of us are still suffering from Bambi’s Mother Syndrome, the idea of losing mother, or seeing things from her perspective, which may be too intense. (Although Disney loves to make children miserable with mother-loss. No adult movie franchise kills off mothers as much as Disney.)

As moms, I think we frequently have a hard time facing our greatest fears for our families and their future.

But I think it’s time we tried. I submit there isn’t a stronger force in nature or in humanity than that of a mother trying to protect and provide for her children.

What fantastic stories that premise could ignite! Let’s see them!

Book 5 Teaser–Mahrree’s big mouth

Parenthood, summed up in one horrible bathroom incident

March 15, 2016trishmercer 5 Comments

My four-year-old is my youngest of nine children. You’d think that after 25 years of being a mom, I’d be an expert, but you’re never an expert, I’ve decided.

Especially when it comes to potty-training.

With our first child, I took the excellent advice to “not rush it.” This was the early 90s when having your barely-know-how-to-walk one-year-old potty trained was the rage.

It was actually the mom who was trained, to rush her tiny charge to the bathroom every two hours and plop the toddler on the toilet with great hope. Never being that disciplined, I instead encouraged and suggested, and finally had a trained daughter when she was three.

I followed that same laissez faire approach with my other kids, too, but my sons took a bit longer.

Ohhh . . . my sons and potty training.

Boys are the worst, and I have five of them.

I won’t name names, but one son had a propensity for “forgetting,” and he was well into preschool age before accidents weren’t a weekly—or daily—affair.

Another son would, in a half-asleep stupor, mistake his closet for the bathroom every night. It took us weeks to figure out where the smell was coming from, and why. Once we did, we had to replace the carpet and pad in there, along with a few toys.

Another son simply refused to use the toilet, afraid of it. One of his first public potty encounters was with a toilet which automatically, and noisily, flushed itself. He was sure that all toilets were ready to swallow him whole.

Another child was perfectly easy to potty train, leaving me to believe I’d finally figured things out and was a fantastic mother.

Nope. He was just an easy kid.

And we’re not going to talk about the years of bed wetting. Which were years. (I wept with joy when Febreeze was invented.)

So when it came to potty training Boy #5, I didn’t have any illusions that I knew how to do it within 48 hours, or tear-free, or bribery-free. We just went for it.

(We’ll allow #5 to retain his dignity and remain anonymous.)

(If you’re a bit squeamish, perhaps you don’t want to continue reading. But if you’re a parent, none of this will be new to you.)

Fortunately #5 had no problem with #1. Watching his older brothers (who were happy to show off their skills) encouraged him that he wanted to be as big as the teenagers he adored.

It’s #2 that’s been the horror.

He won’t do it on a toilet. We don’t know why. It’s not as if toddlers are good at articulating their reticence about certain activities.

We started trying waaaay back before his third birthday, and while he’s been an expert at shooting the water for over a year (we won’t discuss aim, which even my bigger boys seem to struggle with until they leave high school), the idea of sitting and plopping was a no-go.

Instead, he grabs a pull-up, puts it on himself, hides in the privacy of his bedroom, then comes out ten minutes later with a coy smile and says to me sweetly, “Mommy? Can you please change me? I love you.” Batting his lashes is the crowning touch.

“But I don’t love doing this,” I tell him each time he assumes the position and I pull out the baby wipes.

“Yes, you do. Because you love me. But don’t tell Daddy I do this.”

It always makes me feel dirty when he says that. But Daddy knows.

Daddy frowns at Pull-up Boy, and promises greater things, like setting off smoke bombs or exploding fireworks tanks, if #5 puts #2 in the potty.

We had success after Christmas, when we promised him a shiny new fire engine that makes noise if he went. (Go ahead, judge me for bribing my child. I don’t care what anyone thinks anymore.)

He did it once, and we immediately took him to Walmart, and he loved his fire engine . . . and he never went #2 again because he got his reward.

I hate it when the kids are cleverer than me.

But yesterday, something changed.

I was in the kitchen making dinner when suddenly my 4-year-old stood there, beaming. The fact that he wore only a t-shirt, and nothing below, gave me a hint as to what he was going to exclaim.

“Mom! Mom! I did it! I put stinkies in the potty!”

“Really?!” I don’t know who was happier.

“Come see!” and he took off running to the bathroom.

That’s when I realized that not all of the stinky got into the toilet. A lot of it was smeared down the back of his legs.

As a parent, there are times that you brace yourself for what you’re about to find, and you recite in your head, No matter what, I’ll be cheerful. No matter what, I’ll be cheerful . . .

When I arrived at the bathroom, the story was waiting for me.

First were his pants and underwear, tossed on my bedroom floor as if he were in a hurry.

Then, the pull-ups, left sadly next to the door, because there wasn’t enough time.

Then . . .

The bathroom.

I steeled myself, because sometimes, no matter how often you tackle a mess, it’s shocking when you first encounter it.

But #5 stood next to the toilet, beaming in joy. “Look! Some of it got in!”

It did, along with half a roll of toilet paper.

The rest was on the seat, the floor, and the bath mat.

Boys struggle with having two outlets, and sometimes they don’t have full control of either. My son stood in a yellow puddle, grinning madly.

There was only one option for me as his mother.

“I’m so proud of you!” I cheered and clapped.

Full of praise and happiness, I suggested we finish wiping him up, waist to toe, and I sent him to tell his siblings the good news so I could tidy up the bathroom.

That’s where my 15-year-old found me a few minutes later. “He actually went stinky in the toilet? Whoa . . .” and he backed up when he saw how I straddled one mess to wipe up another. “I was about to say, Bet you’re glad he didn’t give you a mess in a pull-up, but—”

“But say nothing to him,” I warned Big Brother. “This is a huge step for him—”

“You’ll have to take a few huge steps just to get out of there—”

I pointed at him. “The mess isn’t important,” I said. “Nor is it important that I had to use five baby wipes on him, and that I’ll use about a dozen Clorox wipes in here. What’s important is that he finally did something hard for him. We cheer and praise, and clean up the mess quietly later, without making him feel anything but joy for his accomplishment, which has been years in the making.”

And that, I realized, summed up parenthood.

Along with this request to Big Brother, “And bring me another trash bag, please.”

Oh yes, being their mother was by far the most difficult work she’d ever undertaken. And it also was, by far, the most satisfying. At the end of the day she knew she’d accomplished an enormous amount of work, even if the house looked as messy as it had in the morning. But at this point of her life, messy meant success. Things happened.

~Book 2, Soldier at the Door