Being a Mom is No Time to Be Human

Like I mentioned, we have this crazy dog that we adopted five years ago that I look for every opportunity to socialize. So I took him with us to the Dam, we were going to walk across the Dam - it was a windy weekend day, the kids wanted to do something interesting, we took the crazy dog and then we had to take every dog, all three, because they all looked pathetic staring at us at the door. I knew I'd end up walking all three dogs while the kids wandered off and sure enough.

We get to the Dam (I like saying Dam) and it's so windy that we get about forty feet out on the cement walkway and Hank the huge dog who celebrates the fact that he can take a crap anywhere, at any moment, has already found a great spot for soiling, and the kids have decided that the Dam is too windy. Let's take a walk someplace else, let's go to the park. I clean up Hank's treasure and walk all three dogs back to the van, where some gypsy family has set up a table full of snacks for sale out of the back of their truck. This is now the greatest part of the trip, buying the chips from the immigrant family.

We pack back in the van and go to a little hidden park I know that is right next to the Dam and right next to a wildernessy area called the Tujunga Wash. It's basically a whole lot of rocks that is a dry river bed, and every few years or so, has water in it for a month or so in this usually dry California climate.

We decide to go exploring in the Wash, and luckily the baby is at home with Barry taking a nap, so it's possible to keep track of three dogs and two kids, even though I know we have to get back pretty soon in case she wakes up.

We follow the dogs through the vegetation and over the rocks. Then we see ahead that there is an actual river. Not just a creek, even. A nice river. It's maybe eight feet wide. We've stumbled onto what looks like a piece of a Robert Redford movie. Gently rushing water, hidden by some tall thin trees, maybe four feet deep and no one around. I take that back, there is actually a family bathing in the river (in March) a little ways upstream, but in my movie they would be mermaids. I watch the crazy dog and he actually does not bark at them which annoys me because I had decided if he acted nuts I was going to really give him away and now he's acting normal and I had prepared myself for nuts. I really have to get another hobby other than trying to give the dogs away. I think I focus on the dogs so I can avoid focusing on the kids and seeing how fast they are growing up and away from me.

Nathan and Emma are thrilled with the river, Nathan's excited that he wore his boots and that he can go right in, and somehow he gets out of my grasp as he sees a rock dam across the river that "a beaver made" he says, and he goes to try to balance across it. I get Emma to take her shoes off and roll up her pants, even though I should realize by now that complete removal of the pants is the only way to keep clothes dry when taking kids to water.

I keep Maisie, our 13 year old yellow lab, on the leash because I'm afraid to let her go since her hearing seems to be on the permanent fritz and if she went she might not know to come back. She's also been looking around like she doesn't know who we are anymore, and if I let her go, this doesn't look like a good place to spend the next eight hours calling the deaf senile dog.

Then suddenly one of the rocks Nathan is on tips and dumps him into what he apparently thinks are roaring rapids. He starts screaming. "I DIDN'T WANT TO GET WET!!!" He's really screaming, and crying. It's like he's in Niagra Falls. I look about two arms' lengths downstream from Nathan where huge Hank the Great Pyrenees stands in mild water, tongue hanging out, watching Nathan calmly.

"Nathan, it's okay," I say. My feet are already wet. I'm on the stone bridge with Emma, who has frozen, balancing, watching Nathan's plight.

There is a tiny thin leafy branch that Nathan reaches for to try and pull himself up. It's like reaching out using a Pixy Stick to save a drowning man. "AHHHHGGGGG!" Nathan is howling with anguish. "Get back up on the rocks," I say, trying to maintain calm. "I CAN'T!!" The water is up to his thighs, and the noise of it and the rushing has made him insane. "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!" I tell him to walk toward me. He feels heavy in his wet pants. The water is freezing. He can't climb back up. He didn't want to be wet!! He keeps yelling, and crying. It's like the water has taken him by total surprise. I'm vexed because I don't really want to wade into the freezing water either, and I'm holding the leash of the very old Maisie. I thought we could just LOOK at the water. Did we have to get in?

A good mom would probably have waded right over to her terrified son, helped him out of the water, hugged him and made it all better. Pulled warm cookies out of her pants. I just stood there not sure if he was faking his terror, trying to see if there was any way to convince him to walk over himself, then knowing I'd have to calm him down when and if he ever did get back over to this side of the river. He doesn't usually cry like this, though. He was crying and reaching for me like he was, I don't know, only seven years old. He hardly ever looked this young anymore, his actual age. He always seemed so huge, looming over me, and here he was, the freezing water shrunk him down to his actual vulnerable, tiny age, a little tiny boy. And he's mine. I managed to convince him that the water wouldn't wash him away if he walked to me. He did slowly walk to me through the (actually barely, but to him) rushing water.

On shore he was still crying so much that I had to just stand there with my arm on his shoulders. "I can't WALK!! It's COLD!! My pants are itching! My pants are WET!!" I'm racking my brains, thinking how the hell are we going to get out of here if he can't walk? Helicopter? Why is he yelling and crying? Why can't I feel generous and loving instead of irritated and angry? I try to tell him we'll have to go if he's too upset, and he wants to go, but he can't walk, his boots have probably a hundred gallons of water in them, and look like Frankenstein boots. He's really hysterical. After trying to be rational I finally can't handle it anymore and when he says "I DIDN'T WANT TO BE WET!" I start yelling "YOU'RE IN A RIVER!! What did you think was going to happen?? That's like if you walk outside and say 'I don't want to be in the sun' and then you are in the sun!!" My hysteria doesn't help his hysteria. The horrible surprise of wet cold pants and the rushing river wins. I'm defeated. I hug him even though I feel angry, and then I feel angry that I feel angry and not loving. He's just little Nathan. He's so rarely needy, why can't I celebrate and love him instead of being mad? I try to squeeze him and comfort him. I can't get past my own anger at being who I am -- having to be in charge and keep everyone safe and on an even keel -- and be fun, too -- and then have to deal with hysteria and not get hysterical myself...? Being a mom is no time to be human.

Emma just stands with us. I finally say we have to walk even though Nathan says he can't, and I say we have to get back home. We didn't come prepared for a river because we didn't know there was going to BE a river. We start to walk back along the ocean of dry rocks. Nathan is still crying, and I start feeling less crazed, and like maybe this is not tragedy but comedy. I tell him that it is scary to fall into water when you're not expecting it, and that he did all the right things. I try and make him feel better and tell him that the wet pants will dry as we walk in the sun. I tell him we'll go home and get Daddy, and maybe we'll come back. Maybe today, maybe another time. We just weren't prepared today. We're almost across the huge area of white rocks, a long way from the river, and he looks up at me with tears still on his face, but he's much recovered. He looks a little chargrined. "It's kind of fun. Can we go back?" I stare at him, and Emma stares at me. Right on.

We turn around and go back. The dogs are thrilled, running right back into the water. This time we know to avoid the rushing river and go downstream a little ways where there is sand and the perfect opportunity to wade into quiet water like Laura Ingalls Wilder. Nathan and Emma are laughing now. There are bamboo sticks they use to walk through the water. They pick up rocks and throw them, they feel the sand. Nathan says he's gotten used to his wet pants. Now we're all wet. Shoes, pants and all. We have a great time.

A few days later, Nathan brings me home a letter he wrote in school. He hands it to me, looking up. "I wrote you this at school." It says:" Dear Mom, I had a great time at the river. I liked the part when I was crying and I wanted to go back. that was funny! Also I learned times. Love Nathan."

I can learn to take a breath and be human, exasperated and conflicted and loving and angry all at once, there isn't going to be a time where everything is separated neatly like different sections in an airplane. I have to roll it all up and smoke it and celebrate that this is my boy, this is my life, and I better stop trying to figure it out. Next time just wade right in. He doesn't care if I'm level all the time, he just wants his mom to be there for him, as best as I can.