Nice Walls and Dirty Floors
Photo Courtesy: Kailyn Rhinehart
BY KAILYN RHINEHART
“Scarlett, stop moving the magnets on the refrigerator,” I half-holler into the next room. I switch the magnets from one side of the fridge to the other and run my fingers over the dented wall. “It’s marking the walls every time the door opens! They need to be down further so that doesn’t happen.”
I resume eating my pancakes smothered in syrup in the kitchen while she and my husband work on a tedious puzzle at the dining table. Saturdays are a mixed bag; some days we’re chasing feral children and exhausted by 8:15 a.m., and others we’re calmly doing puzzles and eating breakfast. Today was a little of both. I look at the clock above me on the microwave: 9 a.m. I briefly recall when I used to sleep until 9 a.m. Those were the days.
“One day we’ll have nice walls . . . .” I mumble almost wistfully from where they can’t hear me.
And no children, I think immediately after with a slight twinge of guilt .
***
Before motherhood, I was unaware of this paradox – the tug-of-war of two separate emotions. I went about life not knowing two things could exist so closely together. Then I had children.
Joy and pain.
Relief and sorrow.
Guilt and excitement.
Overwhelming bliss and utter disappointment.
How could emotions like these sit so closely next to one another?
***
“I can’t wait for the day we all sit and eat together at the table and no one throws a fork on the floor,” my husband remarks after picking up a plastic orange fork off the hardwood floor. I roll my eyes before huffing out a “same.”
We’re eating dinner – spaghetti. And to the dog’s delight, the two-year-old is scattering it like tinsel on a pine tree all over the floor. He flings strand after strand of noodles until we finally snatch his plate – but it’s too late. I lift him out of his chair as if trying to defuse a bomb. I remove his clothes and carry him at arm’s length into the bathroom. I turn on the shower, peel off his shirt, and sigh as I shake the hoarded noodles from his lap into the trash can. I add additional clean-up time to my already full post-bedtime checklist, and my insides sigh.
One day, he will sit at a table with other adults. He will be capable of feeding himself. Gone will be the days of pasta everywhere – the walls, my pants, the highchair. One day, the hardwood will be free of starchy, flattened noodles. And so will my bare feet.
I simmer in the thoughts drizzled with freedom, alongside the complicated emotions that the wispy blond curls along his baby face will be gone, too.
***
My husband takes both kids to the grocery store and I practically do an end zone dance. The toddler has been tiptoeing on my last strand of patience all afternoon and the big kid came home from school with more cooped-up energy than I can match. I nod and smile, half-listening as I clean. She tells me how this friend was absent and that friend was the line leader. I try to listen with enthusiasm, nodding and “mhmm-ing,” encouraging her to continue.
I don’t let myself think about the day she will be a sullen teenager, refusing to tell me about the boy she likes or the grade she got. Instead, I practically shove all three out the door for some welcome alone time. The garage door slams and I feel conflicted.
One voice tells me I deserve some time to feel human – time to breathe, for goodness sake.
But a second overshadows my relief with quiet guilt.
***
“Do you want to be a fireman?” I ask my two-year-old in a sing-songy voice one night after bath. He giggles and fishes his arm through one sleeve of his pajamas. I slide the red top made to look like a fireman’s uniform over his blond hair before shimmying his legs through the matching pants. The beloved set is inching closer to the too-small bin in the corner of his closet. Soon, we will pass them on to another vehicle-loving little boy who also squeals at the sight of every truck on the highway.
I squeeze him into them anyway for the sake of both our hearts, silently praying it’s not the last time.
***
My oldest tells me she wants to be a veterinarian. Or a farmer. Someone who rescues animals. She’s got dreams, that one. And I can’t wait to see where they take her. The once-daily battles with an opinionated toddler feel further away now. In those times, I would’ve given anything to be done with those struggles. And now?
There’s a video I watch almost every year on her birthday. “And how old are you going to be?” my voice asks from behind the camera.
“I’m . . . two!” she squeals proudly from her highchair, struggling to hold up her fingers in a peace sign to show her age. She turned six a few months ago.
The other day she lost another tooth. It feels as if she is, quite literally, shedding her childhood before our eyes. Oh, the nights those teeth once kept us both awake. We celebrate when they finally come out and perform our respective duties: her leaving the tooth under her pillow, the tooth fairy leaving a little something in return. But each time tiptoeing into her room feels harder, heavier somehow. It feels as if we’re leaving more than just a few coins. Instead, she’s taking a piece of me.
Are we handing her permission to grow up more each time?
As if we could stop the inevitable.
***
The truth is, they will grow up. They will move on, away from us. The dreams that fill their heads now, will one day fill their lives. Our house will be replaced with their homes, their own floors and walls.
One day I won’t trip over yellow Tonka trucks. I won’t step over scattered Magna-Tiles or Playmobils. I won’t pick up a wooden spoon off the bathroom sink (that is definitely supposed to be in the kitchen drawer). I won’t peel smeared purple kinetic sand from the bottom of my sock.
One day I won’t frantically boil pasta between school pickup and gymnastics, while someone shouts they can’t find their socks and someone else tells me he doesn’t like carrots (even though he did last week).
One day I won’t wake up four times during the night to rock a sick toddler back to sleep. I won’t glide back and forth in the overstuffed chair, while the twin bed that used to be a crib stares back at me. My shirt will simply be a shirt, not a midnight Kleenex. And he will no longer fit in my lap; legs dangling to my side, head bobbing in and out of sleeplessness.
One day my house will be free of plastic toys. My fridge door will be devoid of alphabet magnets. I will vacuum floors with no abrupt suction noises from rogue hair ties or stickers. Our dinners will be quiet, with no traces of boxed mac and cheese.
One day, I’ll have nice walls – but I think a part of me might miss the dirty floors.
KAILYN RHINEHART is a wife and mama to two wild blond babes, currently living in Missouri. She is an avid list-maker, freelance writer, and consumer of coffee in any form. With a degree in Early Childhood Education and Psychology, she is a kindergarten teacher turned mama-writer. A New Englander at heart, she and her family live wherever the military sends them.