Monday - The Laundry Chute
Feb. 20th, 2006 02:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreOnce again, there was no drive into work for me, due to the President's Day holiday. Presidents Day is a day that practically no one in the US celebrates, but for some reason my company gives me the day off. I don't get the day after Thanksgiving off, a day I could actually use, but instead I get President's Day.
My little son is finally better; he is healthy enough that I took him to daycare so I could have a bit of a break. I'm not especially good at this Mom business, and people can see this. At 36 years old, every time people see me with my son someone asks me, "Is this your first?" Jeff tells me it's because I look younger than I am, but I suspect they are thinking, "Boy, she really has no idea what she is doing."
I wish I could ask my own mother how she managed it with four children, and then I remember that she seemed to spend a lot of time locked in the bathroom with a book, trying to hide from us all. She spent hours of her life barricaded in the master bathroom. My father built the house with a laundry chute so that clothes from the upstairs bathroom could be dropped to the first floor, and little hatch in the master bathroom that allowed clothes to be dropped into this same chute. A small door in the hallway allowed access to the dirty clothes. We kids would climb through this door and push open the little hatch into the master bath in search of our mother. She hated this.
Due to the layout of the bathroom, we could not see her when we opened this little hatch. It was big enough to drop soiled clothes into, but too small for a child to climb through and make it into the master bathroom comfortably. The toilet on which my mother hid was around a corner in a little nook. When we opened the hatch, we could see her feet and nothing else of her if we looked sideways.
"Damn your father for building that laundry chute," I heard her say on more than one occasion. Most of the conversations through the laundry chute where just like this one:
"Mom!"
"What?!"
"Are you in there?"
"Of course I'm in here, you're talking to me. What do you need?"
"Nothing, I just wanted to know where you were. When are you coming out?"
"I don't know; it could be awhile. If you don't need anything, why are you bothering me?"
"Because I wanted to know where you were."
"Now you know. Can I please have some privacy?"
"Okay."
This conversation would repeat every 15 minutes or so. She kept a stack of novels and magazine next to the toilet. She could have stayed in there forever, if only we would have let her. Eventually we would wear her down and she would come out and face us again.
These past four days of quality time with my sick child have made me appreciate my mother hiding out in the bathroom. I felt guilty because I wanted to hide a few times myself, but he's far too young to be out of my sight.
Yes, he's my first one. My only one. No, I don't know what I'm doing; thank you for noticing that. I'm just winging it. I had no idea this would be so much work. The memory of my mother hiding in the bathroom should have been a clue, I suppose.
My little son is finally better; he is healthy enough that I took him to daycare so I could have a bit of a break. I'm not especially good at this Mom business, and people can see this. At 36 years old, every time people see me with my son someone asks me, "Is this your first?" Jeff tells me it's because I look younger than I am, but I suspect they are thinking, "Boy, she really has no idea what she is doing."
I wish I could ask my own mother how she managed it with four children, and then I remember that she seemed to spend a lot of time locked in the bathroom with a book, trying to hide from us all. She spent hours of her life barricaded in the master bathroom. My father built the house with a laundry chute so that clothes from the upstairs bathroom could be dropped to the first floor, and little hatch in the master bathroom that allowed clothes to be dropped into this same chute. A small door in the hallway allowed access to the dirty clothes. We kids would climb through this door and push open the little hatch into the master bath in search of our mother. She hated this.
Due to the layout of the bathroom, we could not see her when we opened this little hatch. It was big enough to drop soiled clothes into, but too small for a child to climb through and make it into the master bathroom comfortably. The toilet on which my mother hid was around a corner in a little nook. When we opened the hatch, we could see her feet and nothing else of her if we looked sideways.
"Damn your father for building that laundry chute," I heard her say on more than one occasion. Most of the conversations through the laundry chute where just like this one:
"Mom!"
"What?!"
"Are you in there?"
"Of course I'm in here, you're talking to me. What do you need?"
"Nothing, I just wanted to know where you were. When are you coming out?"
"I don't know; it could be awhile. If you don't need anything, why are you bothering me?"
"Because I wanted to know where you were."
"Now you know. Can I please have some privacy?"
"Okay."
This conversation would repeat every 15 minutes or so. She kept a stack of novels and magazine next to the toilet. She could have stayed in there forever, if only we would have let her. Eventually we would wear her down and she would come out and face us again.
These past four days of quality time with my sick child have made me appreciate my mother hiding out in the bathroom. I felt guilty because I wanted to hide a few times myself, but he's far too young to be out of my sight.
Yes, he's my first one. My only one. No, I don't know what I'm doing; thank you for noticing that. I'm just winging it. I had no idea this would be so much work. The memory of my mother hiding in the bathroom should have been a clue, I suppose.
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-20 09:09 pm (UTC)Was it your mom who hid or did your dad need alone-time too?
don't know what I'm doing;
Date: 2006-02-20 09:24 pm (UTC)Re: don't know what I'm doing;
Date: 2006-02-20 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-20 09:55 pm (UTC)I'm not kidding. She spend an incredible amount of time alone in that bathroom.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 03:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 04:26 pm (UTC)I was lucky to have a good and loving, if quirky, mother. I just didn't get to keep her long enough. I was aware, even as a kid, that other people's parents could suck. The night my mother died I called a friend of mine who said, "I'm sorry, I wish it could have been my mother, instead." I knew she wasn't being overy generous; her mother sucked. It's lousy for any child to feel that way.
In my own defense, I may be inept, but I'm loving and I'm fun. My son could do a lot worse. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 09:45 pm (UTC)If we had more than one bathroom, I think Rich would spend more time in there. He's always clamoring for "cave time." Of course, if I did suggest it, then as soon as we get a house, he'll probably wire up the bathroom for DSL and never leave!