I looked in the rearview mirror and felt a surge of excitement over the sight peeking back at me. My toddler sat in her car seat staring out the large side window of the van. She was slack-jawed and her eyes had a glaze. You know the one, the magical vacant gaze that precedes their eventual closing.
Marvelous, she’s going to nap, I thought to myself. My eyes shifted to the left and I felt my heart skip a beat. There in the second car seat my three year old’s head was hanging heavy. She was sighing over and over as she lay her head to the side.
I looked back at the road, but I couldn’t stop stealing glances in the mirror. It offered beautiful glimpses of a much anticipated rest. For me.
I had a moment then where I realized I was probably far too excited about this development, but I didn’t care. I stole another glance in the mirror and saw my three year old fighting valiantly. She rose from the head rest, looking around, grasping mentally for anything to keep her attention and prevent slumber. I silently patted myself congratulatory-like on the back for turning off the DVD player back there. Her head fell back against her seat and I drove right past our turn. Additional lulling via blacktop was necessary.
My small victory that filled me with such hope came on the tails of a grocery store trip, a sad affair to any mom of young children. I could almost still see the tears drying on my preschooler’s face where an emotional breakdown had left her in shambles.
Kids don’t understand a change in plans, or the reasons why promises are broken. In her little world no explanation I tried in vain to give could comfort her in the fact that her little friend wouldn’t be coming over to play. After fruitless explanations and apologies too, I tried to close my ears to her tantrum of tears. I buckled in a thrashing body and bellowed, “what do you want me to do?!”
The toddler watched with interest and a toothy grin. She intermittently chewed on her toe, bare feet where shoes used to be. One shoe in the floorboard, the other forever gone. Minutes earlier I had stood near the check-out, groceries sacked and paid for, and had asked two little blank-faced girls, “where did her shoe go?”
One looked at me amused, a constant, huge grin spread across her face. The other stared at me vacantly like I had spoken my request in Greek. No one had known the location of the pink and green slip-on, and as I sifted through plastic bags of food, trying to be mindful of eggs and ripe tomatoes, I kept repeating, “great, just great.”
I could feel my frustration growing and my voice escalating with each guttural cry of “great.” I wanted to stop myself, and whispered internally, you sound crazy, but still I sifted through boxes of pasta and rolls of paper towels, begging them to clue me in to the location of the discarded footwear.
In retrospect this was not a big deal, but you couldn’t have convinced me of that at the time. My meltdown over a shoe came unexpected after a mostly benign trip through the store, a rarity indeed. I had smiled often during the foray for edibles, as my accomplices played the part of adorable children.
I had been content to pat their little heads, chuckle at their antics, and beam proudly when strangers grinned and complimented as they passed. Yes, these are mine, my proud smile proclaimed, I made them myself.
I had only had to open one unpaid grocery package to feed their ravenous hunger, a hunger that only showed itself in the store, and certainly not at the dinner table just prior to coming there. But a motorcycle jacket-wearing passerby even found their assault on a Lunchable endearing, so naturally so did I.
As I glanced back in the rearview mirror, twenty minutes past their ingestion of processed meat and crackers while I gathered more healthy fruits and vegetables, I felt a tug at my heart strings over that sleeping face. Even those bare toes beckoned me and I almost wanted to pull over and kiss them. I didn’t. While I’m undeniably kooky, I restrained myself from waking a napping baby.
As we drove along to the hum of tires on pavement I felt a little crazy. A moment of peace amidst a season of anarchy. The ups and downs of my daily adventures I felt even more at that moment in the slow ride over a series of hills and curves.
The night before I had laid on the floor beside my husband. Silence reigned at 1 am and I whispered to him about my day. I detailed the pride in teaching our daughter to cook. She had mutilated the squash with her butter knife, and recounting the tale of spilled spaghetti sauce made me laugh.
I knew each day was like that, filled with moments where I look at my children and feel as if my heart will burst wide open, so unable to contain the extravagant love I possess. Those moments lay nestled like a treasure between meltdowns, tears, and even a harsh word.
It’s enough to make anyone question their sanity, their ability to maintain control. But when you look in the rearview at small, sleeping faces, and catch the rise and fall of little chests, none of that seems to matter. You just feel peace, as if somehow infected by the dreams currently playing in their tiny heads.
Unstable? Perhaps. I’m probably certifiable. But as I looked behind, glimpses of me in the rearview, I knew it. I knew that I was indeed crazy. I was crazy in love.