The Pants Of Shame

Matthew came home from kindergarten on Tuesday with FOUR pairs of wet clothes in the "bag of shame."

This is a term freely stolen from my friend Holly, whose daughter came out of our kindergarten one day two years ago wearing this horrible, 1970s, very German, pair of rainbow colored striped jeans, a pair that Ryan and Andrew had worn home often enough in their potty training days. She laughingly called them the "pants of shame" because it was just so obvious that whoever came out wearing them had NOT made it through the morning dry.

I have since discovered - mostly through Matthew - that there are a variety of pants of shame - and that they come with socks, T-shirts - and even pink flowered girls underwear if you wet yourself often enough to start deleting the stock. You should have seen the look on Damon's face when he saw Matthew in pink underwear.

Funny thing is, shame only works if you let it. (For the record, Holly's term is a joke, and the kindergarten isn't intentionally shaming the kids either. They just have a rather horrid selection of second-hand clothes.)

Matthew certainly doesn't care about the pink underwear. And now that I've decided to give up things like guilt (I swear, I shook it off in yoga class the other day!), and anger and shame - well, the clothes my kids come home in don't bother me either. Honestly, if I am going to let a pair of soiled pants ruin my day, I might as well give up now.

I'm learning that it's not about being perfect, it's about dealing with it as it comes.

Other signs that I am learning not to care about what other people think:

1. I let the kids go home from the pool with wet hair (within reason; in the winter we use the hairdryers a bit and then make sure everyone is wearing a hat or hood - or in some cases, a towel over her head - on the icy way to the car.) They also run around in wet bathing suits - a big German no-no. No signs of the bladder infections or kidney disease this is supposed to cause and they have fewer colds than most kids I know whose mother's dry their hair. I suspect a strengthened immune system. See #4 below!

2. My kids are the ones running around without jackets on when everyone else's are wrapped up in hat, scarf and mittens. Or wearing mittens in April.

3. I'll wip out a bag of cookies at the playground when everyone else is feeding their children peppers and cucumbers.

4. Damon and I used the "5 second" rule in Legoland the other day when Matthew spilled the 3 Euro bag of lego-shaped french fries on the ground while in line for the train ride. I briefly thought of the dirt, and of what the others in line would say, and then I thought of the 3 Euros for 15 fries - and we scooped them right up and handed them back to Matthew. Gross. I wasn't going to eat them, but....noone in line said a word, whether out of shock, understanding or because they attributed it to the fact that we were American.

HAVE YOU NO SHAME? No, I'm glad to say I gave it up this summer.

Four at the Pool (Part Three - Swimming Lessons)

The two hours at the pool were exhausting. I was constantly holding, feeding or caring for at least one, and often two babies. Plus trying to keep my eye on the other two. It got worse when the babies started walking. I still used the baby carrier strategy to get them in there - one in the baby seat and one walking holding onto my hand - or ran with the one in the baby seat while the other toddled next to his sister. I swear, I was fast. And the child left alone poolside was always the one STRAPPED into the baby carrier! God, it sounds awful now.

Once they were moving though I had to carry them both most of the time. Ryan and Andrew got relegated to carrying the bags while I carried one toddler on each hip. It’s doable. If not sightly. It was easier in the water, because I didn’t need to support their entire weight there. I tried the floating rings but they never stayed in them for long. Switched to swim fins at 18 months and haven’t looked back since.

The next milestone was the kiddie slide and learning to walk on the slick surface poolside. I was all over the place keeping up with them - and still they hit their heads way more than they would have if I could have been directly behind them both. One time I fell in the parking lot - bringing down the entire stroller and both babies with me - and I burst into tears just from the sheer frustration of it all. I tried taking a fifteen year old neighbor along to help out, but she told me it was too exhausting after two weeks.

I’ll be honest. I used to dread our swim days.

Two and a half years into it though the work has paid off. The older kids swim well enough that I don’t need to be directly next to them the entire time. The packing process takes minutes instead of hours. No more baby seats or baby cushion. In fact, we don’t even use the stroller. All four kids get out of the car, hold hands crossing the parking lot, and change themselves in the locker room. Of course the twins still need some help, but you’d be amazed. They can walk and slide without knocking their heads on the floor quite as often and they swim almost independently in their swim fins. It is actually a joy to go with them.

Is there a lesson to be learned from the whole pool thing? (Swimming lessons, if you will!) Besides the fact that I am nuts? I think so. It can be done, if you want it badly enough. Whatever “it” is. It won’t always be fun. But it will get easier. And it will be worth the work. It’s easy to say that now that I am past the worst of it. (And I realize that I am sounding just like those perfect “how to” moms I promised not to be.) Reading this through, I can’t believe I did it either.

You do it because you have to. Whatever it is. But if you’re still in the middle of those first two or three years - know that others share the pain, know that others survived just one step at a time too. IT IS SO HARD. People will keep telling you that it gets better - and you’ll be thinking, yeah but WHEN? And then someday you too will be looking back and thinking, I can’t believe I did all that. And you’ll be there.

Until puberty hits and you wish you COULD strap them back into the baby carriers.

Four at the Pool (Two of Three)

First, the two older kids had to be primed. Honestly, if they didn’t listen, if they didn’t cooperate, it wasn’t going to work. If I had had to hold Andrew’s hand while we were in the parking lot because he was out of control, then we weren’t going to make it out of the parking lot. This wasn’t a threat; it was reality. I told them this. To this day, I still can’t believe that worked (remember, he was FOUR), but they really liked the swimming.

Next, I had to prepare the supplies. This took hours at first. Towels. Swimsuits. Shampoo. Flotation devices - first still for Andrew and later for BOTH twins. Pool toys. Snacks and drinks for the big kids. Bottles with water and formula, later baby food in plastic containers. Diapers. Baby swimsuits. Wipes. Cushioned changing pad - this plays into the logistics later.

Arriving in the parking lot, I would get the twin stroller out of the back, unfold and prepare it - this was a three step process that I don’t even think about anymore . First twin in. Strapped. Second twin in. Strapped. Older kids gripping the stroller to assure there was no temptation to run across the parking lot. Three bags out of the car. Baby seat out of the car and on top of the stroller. (Again, wait for the logistics.) Car doors locked. Into the pool. At first, when they were younger, I balanced TWO baby seats on top of the stroller, but gradually graduated to one and a changing pad.

Once in the changing room, the twins stayed strapped into the stroller while I helped the older two change into their bathing suits and changed myself. (I rolled the stroller right into the changing room.) I used the common locker area - the luxury of privacy has ceased to be mine. I then got out the first twin, changed him and placed him on the cushioned changing pad. (Ah hah, there’s the changing pad!) Again, at first this was a baby seat. Then came the second twin, changed, and placed into the baby seat. Strapped in.

Older child number one then had to wait with baby on changing pad or in babyseat while I walked with baby in babyseat and all our stuff and older child number two into the pool area. The first baby into the pool area was ALWAYS in a babyseat - strapped in - because child number one (usually the six year old, Ryan) then waited with the baby while I ran back for the second set. Swear to God. I can’t believe they allowed it! Although, after a few weeks, when people knew us, there was generally someone willing to help me keep an eye on two of them while I ran back for the other two.

I did the same thing in reverse at the end of two hours. Baby in carseat with older child waiting in pool area while I run with baby two in carseat or with cushion and older child number two (usually Andrew this time) into the locker room, leave baby on floor with Andrew (and a few appalled mothers) watching, while I return to the pool area for the second two. For the first year we skipped showers. The second year only Ryan and Andrew showered. We are up to three of us showering AND washing our hair.

In the pool I kept the twins strapped in unless they were awake and demanding attention and tried to play with Ryan and Andrew. Most of the time one or both of them would want to be fed, and I’d do it poolside. Then one would sleep while I held the other one in the pool - until someone came to tell me that the second had woken up too. People were really very helpful. I think they were in shock. Often someone would offer to hold one while I had the other. We made lots of friends. There was also a baby swim class taking place at the same time we were there and - although I was not allowed to join with two babies and only one parent - I did meet a lot of the mothers and still keep in touch with them regularly. Most of them were first time moms with one child so they pretty much told me how fantastic I was to be managing with four. I needed that.

Four at the Pool (Part One of Three)

Before I had kids, I had a perfect plan for spacing them - never have too many kids so close together that you cannot take them to the pool. This meant I would have time to devote to them when they needed me and also would keep me from having to give up the active outdoor lifestyle I enjoyed. Nothing pissed me off more than women, or couples, who used their children as an excuse for not being able to do something - like hiking, or canoeing, or overnight camping. What the heck were we having kids for anyway, if not to show them the world?

And then the twins were born. I believe they were meant to teach me humility.

I opted out of the overnight canoeing trip our playgroup took last summer, when the twins were 18 months old. I mean, one COULD do it with four kids, including the two toddlers, but who would really WANT to? The thought of chasing the two of them around a firesite and then trying to keep them both in canoes just wasn’t a fun one. We DO go hiking though - if that’s what you call two kids in and out of a stroller and two older ones riding up ahead on their bicycles and then coming back to complain that they would have rather stayed home and played on the computer.

But that’s why I’m allowed to brag about the pool thing. I am not the perfect mom, with the clean home, dinner in the oven, a business on the side and…oh yeah, I can also get four kids to the pool for swim lessons once a week. (Doesn’t everyone?) In fact, the reason I did and still do get four kids to the pool is that I am a crazy mom, with a less-than-clean home and no dinner in the oven. That and swimming is important to me.

This is by no means a “how to” article. It’s more of an “anything is possible if you want it badly enough” article. And I wanted to be able to enjoy the brief German summers we have at the outdoor pool with my kids. So, when I was pregnant with the twins, I enrolled my 6 year old daughter, Ryan, in swim classes at the indoor pool. Andrew, aged 4, and I splashed in the kiddie pool alongside. The lifeguard, unaware that I was pregnant, let alone with twins, told me Andrew was one of the most active kids he’d ever had to keep an eye on. And I thought, you ain’t seen NOTHING yet! We continued with lessons regularly, right up ’til the birth of the twins in July. By then the pool staff was well aware that two more were on the way.

But noone could believe it when I enrolled Andrew in classes and started showing up with the babies. To swim. I did wait until they were six months old - primarily because I couldn’t find the time to reach the phone and sign up for classes. But they were still in baby carriers the first time we showed up. To be honest, I don’t remember that first time, but I do remember the phenomenal amount of planning, coordination and sheer physical work that went into the weekly operation.

It was like a military maneuver.