Growing Pains

Our conversation paused just long enough to be sure the screech from the basement was a happy squeal, and not a painful wail. No tears. Score one for the moms.

"How did you do it?" my friend asks. "I only have two daughters, and I'm overwhelmed. You had four kids, and you seemed to have it all under control."

"I had help," I wink. "A great baby sitter who made it all possible." The young mom in my kitchen had been that great baby sitter some 15 years ago.

Missy says, "I learned so much from you; you'll never know."

By way of example, she recalls a time we chatted in the kitchen while my daughter Betsy shouted for me from the backyard. "You looked out the window, but we kept talking, until finally she yelled and cried so much you walked outside."

It's been a week of rough rides in the minivan. Midwest potholes being what they are, I wish I had a Lunar Roving Vehicle in my garage. Our roads resemble pictures of craters on Mars, or worse, the new federal budget - big, dark and dangerous.

I don't take my responsibilities in the driver's seat lightly, so I've learned to avoid the unforgiving cavities that have formed beneath the snow all winter, awaiting my aluminum wheels. The potholes I can't avoid - the ones causing all the rocky rides in my van these days - are the parenting variety.

Being the mother of three teenagers, you might assume that I'm up to my steering wheel in teen angst, anger and rebellion, but I'm not.

No, the one at the heart of all the consternation (hers, not mine) is the 11-year-old - my "tween" - and the issue that has us haggling back and forth in a familiar dance of pleading and denial:

One of these days someone is finally going to trip and fall off the landing in front of the back door. There will be blood. Perhaps a concussion. But then at least one of my children will understand why I've nagged all these years about putting the shoes where they belong.

They belong in the baskets, clearly marked with the names of my four children - the baskets that sit conveniently on the shelves next to the door. Depositing a pair of shoes into a basket can be done in one fluid motion, taking no more effort than it would to bend over and pick up any object, say a pencil or a dollar bill.

I've tried everything I can think of to get my children to develop this habit short of actually tossing money out the door. I'm certain if I did this, my kids would snatch the cash and leave the shoes on the steps.

I guess I'm just unrealistic, but such is the curse of a parent.

Last night for dinner, I served butternut squash. Despite the fact that I drizzled it with olive oil and seasoned it with salt and pepper and then roasted it until the flesh caramelized slightly and got all tender and yummy, I subsequently had to force-feed my four children to consume this delicious, nutritious vegetable.

Later in the evening, I chased two of my teenagers off to bed. I have to chase people to bed because if I don't, they would stay up until Conan O'Brien waves goodnight. Despite the fact that bed is a warm and comfy place where, once ensconced, these same teens would remain for upward of 14 hours at a stretch, I must still nag them to go there.

This morning, on the chance she didn't hear her alarm clock, I tiptoed through the dark into my daughter's bedroom to be sure she was up in time to finish her extra-credit trigonometry assignment.

Parenting is ever thus. We nag about food and rest and responsibilities because, even though nagging is unpleasant and even frustrating, it's the right thing to do. It's how we moms and dads implement our evil strategies to bring unhappiness upon our offspring - unhappiness disguised as good nutrition, ample sleep and academic achievement.

Every parent knows that doing what's good for our children doesn't always feel good to us. If you doubt this, think back to when your pediatrician first told you about rectal thermometers and why they were best for accuracy in diagnosing fevers in tiny babies.

I don't make New Year's resolutions. First, when it comes to resolutions, I'm a pathetic cliche. I start out with determination and commitment and end, roughly a week later, in a pool of chocolate.

My problem is that making resolutions for the New Year feels like entering a perpetual state of Lent, which is sometimes doable for 40 days, but for a lifetime is the definition of hell. Or failure. Or both.

Second, I don't make resolutions because doing so strikes me as shallow and self-serving. Most resolutions tend to have at their core a benefit only for the one who is resolved. As such, these promises are easily broken, and thus, the probable cause of a spike in chip consumption only a month after the annual rise in sales of exercise apparel.

If the problem with New Year's resolutions is that they are punishing promises meant to serve only the one who is resolved, then it might follow that resolutions could be more successfully maintained and more useful to society if they were the opposite. They should be easy to do and meant to improve the lot in life of others, not just ourselves.

Our Santa act peaked in 1997.

That year, with four children ages 8, 6, 3 and newborn, we pulled out all the stops to convince our young brood that a bearded man in a red, fur suit had, in fact, magically popped down our chimney to reward their good behavior with toys and treats.

Santa used his own special gift-wrap - hidden away from the rest of the wrapping paper to foil any deductive reasoning (not that the children employed any, but we took no chances).

He filled out the gift tags in his characteristic penmanship - very different from mom's handwriting, to be sure, with a pen that could not be traced to the top drawer of her desk.

He left crumbs near the fireplace from the cookies he dutifully ate, but just to be coy, he didn't finish his milk. He took the carrots the children left out for his reindeer, and wrote a note saying, "Thanks for the snack! Be good this year! Love, S.C."

Best - and most convincing of all - he and his reindeer left pieces of carrot on the roof above our front porch - evidence that the jolly elf had taken them up the chimney and fed them to his hungry team.

"So, how's your girlfriend?" I ask my son out of the blue. "Which one?" he says with a devious smile.

"The new one," I say.

"Oh, her." He shrugs. We both smile.

And that's the end of our update on Jimmy's dating life.

It's all a joke, of course. Jimmy doesn't have a dating life. The "girlfriend thing" remains awkward (his word) and unnecessary (my word).

Instead, we encourage our 14-year-old son to have a host of friends - girls as well as guys - and to forget about dating until the time is right. (That would be a time when he has his own money and a driver's license.)

The fact that we discourage exclusive, romantic relationships for our tween and young teenage children - and that we monitor their behavior to assure they aren't dating behind our backs - puts my husband and me outside the parenting norm. (What else is new?)

We believe in the concept of "late blooming" as far as dating goes, based on the theory that childhood is too short to spend your time worrying, for example, about whether your 13-year-old girlfriend has seen you talking at your locker to another person who just happens to be - gasp! - a female.

So while some 14-year-old boys must attend to the emotional whims of their romantic partners, my son must concern himself only with important things, such as how the Yankees are doing and how long he must wait until I feed him again.

"Mom, those people are staring at us," my daughter says as we prepare to leave the campground in our rented RV. "They're starting to totally creep me out."

When you're a teenager, you're easily creeped out. It happens when you open a Tupperware container of leftovers or when someone in your group (your mother) orders anchovies on a pizza or whenever you walk across a parking ramp.

This is why merely announcing that she was creeped out didn't get my attention right away. It was a bit like telling me she was breathing.

Still, I look across the street at the older couple camped on the site opposite ours, and sure enough, they are staring. And not just staring. They are laughing.

Not guffawing or shoulder shaking. But clearly they're amused by us, and not in a good way.

No matter how many times I attempt it, I still haven't figured out how to be in two places at one time. My problem isn't that I feel the need to be with every child at every event. I'm long past the guilt and fear that I'll send a message of favoritism to one child while another feels neglected. No, the issue that still plagues me after all this time is something much simpler, much more basic than the instinct to offer maternal love and support.

This issue is transportation.

Never mind cloning myself so I can demonstrate my devotion to each of my offspring by sitting on multiple sets of bleachers, yelling "Go!" or "Way to go!" or "Go faster!" There are plenty of folks who will stand in for me to cheer on my children at any given sporting event.

No, if I could clone myself, it would be for the purpose of creating a fleet of minivans, each containing extra gym clothes, a replacement trombone and a box of cereal and fruit bars.

Do you have any idea how far a mother's voice can carry in a designer shoe warehouse with 28-foot ceilings? Far. Really far. All the way from the dress shoes on the back wall of the store, off the vaulted tin ceilings and up to the sandal display near the front doors.

I discovered this as I walked into the store. That's when I heard Prom Mom and her snarky daughter duking it out over a pair of 4-inch platform heels. It was a match worthy of HBO on a Saturday night.

"You called me all the way over to this store to ask my opinion. I'm telling you right now you are not wearing 4-inch heels. Now, if you're going to ignore me and wear what you want to wear anyway, why did you drag me here in the first place?"