Iris and Micah have been at it all morning. At one point, while holding Max on my hip I mentioned that there were about an hour and a half of chores to do and then I would love to take lunch to the pool…but I felt like I had been standing around most of the morning refereeing a fight. I told them I was charging by the hour that I had to stand there and keep things civil. I’m trying to look at these occasions as more of a monetary transaction and less of an emotionally charged event. There are tears. People have told one another that they would prefer if the other “never existed”. It is hard to watch. It is hard to witness one of your children actually putting themselves out there to apologize…and to watch it not be received. And its hard to know what it feels like to be the person, so offended, that you are requiring MORE than an apology…because “Sorry” isn’t erasing what you did!…Its a hard row to hoe. There is a lot of keeping track that has to go on, and it can become consuming and depressing…life inside unforgiveness.
So I’m happy to stand for 5, 6, 7 minutes…I say very little. I just let Iris cry and stomp around the kitchen and I watch Micah sit in the far corner, on the floor beside the shoe bench…his back to her…remarkably non-responsive. He offers nothing in the department of a soft heart in the moment of anger. Frankly, he’s a bit “cut throat” at times. Mostly he’s a bad guy to cross cause he’s not only occasionally a little bit wildly angry, he’s also very intelligent and not too bad with recalling finite details of an offense. Its a nasty combo. So Iris is ALL emotion and Micah’s heart becomes harder with every exasperated word Iris cries.
Iris has finally fled to her room. Micah remains only a little longer sitting in a relaxed, slouched position on the floor and he then moves on with his day. I’m left calling out after them that they can pay me in chores…but I would be collecting my referee fees by the week’s end.
I’ve witnessed worse arguments between the kids. This was not exceptionally gory, but it did spark a realization in me. There I was, making myself fully available to let these kids act out all this pent up emotion…and at the end of it I didn’t feel great. I felt like, “Wow, they have inherited quite a few of Chris and I’s worst character flaws. What a relief.”
I attempt to get on with my day, hence removing the sleeping baby from my back and into his crib. A smooth transition. I walk down the hallway to find Iris at the bottom of her bedroom steps. She seems emotionally recovered…she has a national geographic in hand and asks, “Mom, whats the difference between magma and lava?…because I had a teacher that would always say magma when he was talking about lava…?”
“I don’t actually know…we should look it up…”
I was presently in the midst of a business transaction with Flynn, wherein he worked around the house for me for 20 minutes to earn time on the computer, browsing eBay for go-pros and night vision goggles… He was nearly done with his task and approached me to ask if there was anything else he should do.
“Will you run downstairs and grab my phone? And then you’re done…”
He is fast and efficient. I thought this moment would serve as a great opportunity to prompt everyone past the mornings dark cloud and on with the day. I call for Micah who is one door over in his room…he appears.
“Hey, would you ask Iris to come down here?” (She had since gotten distracted and ran back up to her bedroom…)
“Can you do it…?’ He is looking down and away. The mention of his sister turns him cold.
“Please Micah, don’t make this a big deal.”
He obliges his mother. Flynn is asking if he can be excused to go shop for go-pros…I disappoint him by informing him that we were actually all about to find out what the difference between magma and lava was…
“Come on mom. Cant I just go?”
“Sure, if you can tell me what the difference between magma and lava is…?”
“Ugh.”
I ask him to hand the phone to Iris. He is immediately hesitant…he knows that it would be quicker if he does it.
I specify, “No, we’re letting Iris use the phone and look it up herself.” Flynn has always had a habit of over helping his twin sister. It is kind of like there is an unspoken understanding between them at times…like they both know that Flynn is more likely to succeed, faster than Iris at certain things. At times I have to stop them…like in this moment.
Iris holds the phone in her hand and types…with mistakes…as Flynn is pointing out…”diference btween magma and lava”…Micah has now withdrawn a little further back into his room…keeping that wall up. Flynn is sitting next to Iris on the attic steps and I am standing to the side looking at Iris’ face as her eyes search the lit up screen, with the heat of her brother breathing down her neck, who had already said “Do you just want me to do it?”to her once. Iris finds the information. She begins to read. We are discovering that lava and magma are the same but one is the name for it when it is below the earth’s crust and the other is the name for it when above the crust. Flynn and I are looking at Iris while she reads, when suddenly an object comes flying past me and the phone in Iris’ hand and smacks her right in the face. A soft thud. We look in Iris’ lap, it is a pair of boys character brief underwear. She looks up, an instant scowl has taken residence on her face. I look over my should and there stands Micah, mischievous grin in place. He has taken a huge piece of elastic… (from my sewing box that someone has opened and used for their own selfish needs and left discarded on a table somewhere for people like Micah to pillage like a yard sailing pirate. He doesn’t need a spool of thread for anything, but he’s gonna take it. You just never know.) I saw him earlier with the elastic, wrapping it tightly around his thumb and pulling, to give himself a long pointy thumb. He has taken the elastic and tied it to the doorknob and a coat hook beside the door and has created a giant slingshot, wherefrom he launched the briefs at Iris, who was captivated with magma and lava. Flynn and I had an extremely hard time keeping a straight face. I sputtered a small laugh as I told Micah he needed to sit in his bed. Flynn is now fully laughing and I am trying to keep it in. Iris’ scowl has turned to the kind of laugh that is refusing to come out but WILL NOT be denied. She is laughing while trying to cry…but the laugh takes over.
Through and between laughter, I say, “I’m sorry Iris. He is doing some time out…but that was really too funny…I mean you were doing a good job reading that…and we were paying attention …and them fwomp…underwear in your face.”
Everyone is laughing. Iris and Micah’s wall is laying all around us and it’s not as jagged and dusty as you always think its going to be. It’s what I wanted since their whole feud began hours ago. I just wanted to see them get thru it and for it to be over and to be at the pool…eating french fries and applying sunblock. At one point while Iris and Micah were going at it in the kitchen, I looked at Max, who was stationed on my hip as this fresh gig as the fun house referee was delaying me putting him down for his nap. His face had a look of concern as Iris cried and Micah shouted. I felt bad that he was there and I didn’t enjoy one minute of it and now I understand what my parents felt when they would see their children at odds and unforgiving towards one another. Its something that only someone on the outside can decipher. From within we are blinded by our hurt and our offense. Unfortunately, parents end up being that outsider for their kids constantly.
There we four sat, enjoying a hearty and long awaited laugh. I reflected after the event. It caused me to feel overcome with thankfulness. In a world that can feel so heavy at times…alligators snatching babies, hateful people mowing others down, depressing political situations…on all fronts…it feels so good to hide away in the sanctity and rarity that are those unexpected moments of pure joy. They happen more often the larger our family becomes. The more variables we add, the more variations of that bliss we get to experience. Some days I wonder what the hell we’re doing, bringing all these kids into a world that can feel so dark. Those sacred moments cause me to remember that we are here for just that. We are here to launch underwear at each other’s faces and get lost in laughter and push past grudges and relational crud that thicken life up till it feels like heavy, sludge…we try to wade thru it…but our unforgotten wounds and resentments and hurts keep us bound to the sludge, the familiar, that can even feel safe at times. Letting your guard down, and having a full, hearty, belly laugh with someone when it is the last thing that you want to do…it catapults us into the unknown…in the best kind of way.
