I loved washing out Chet's underpants today. I did. We'd just come from seeing Meet the Robinsons in 3D with two hot moms and three kids. At first the film was putting me to sleep, reminding me, unfavorably, of how many times I’ve been tortured to sit through crap like that remake of Flicka and Aquamarine. By the end of this new film, however, I was swallowing hard not to cry on myself while Ava snuggled into my bicep. When the lights came up Chet rushed over, his eyes huge, fighting not to cry himself.
"I wet myself."
"That's o.k." I said, and I felt his pants but they weren't wet in the front.
"I wet myself a lot. Poop."
Now Chet is five and three quarters and potty trained himself when he was just two, a full two years earlier than his big sister. This wasn't like him at all. I could smell him and instantly realized that my plan with the moms to go out for ice cream after the film was just horribly kaboshed. Waiting for the cab I asked him, gently, how this could have happened.
"I was just trying to fart. A really big humongous one and..."
"EEEEW!"
"Now Ava,” I told her. “It's no big deal.” Chet and I then reminded her of the time not so long ago that she didn't make it to the bathroom back in our apartment. As I fumbled with the key she peed on herself in the hallway howling and wailiung like blood-soaked Sissy Spacek in Carrie. Once inside I rinsed her off and calmed her down. This time at home I did the same with Chet, rinsing out his Superman underwear in the toilet and hosing him off in the shower. It wasn't all that messy and he didn't even cry.
I loved the moment not for itself but for what it reminded me of. The first thing I think of when I think of my own mother is not how she died young but the image of her hunched over a medieval stone public washroom, rinsing out my underwear in Florence, Italy, on one of the first days of our grand European vacation. I was maybe eight and had eaten something that had run right through me. Somehow I had gotten my pants off in public while she washed out my underwear in the ancient trough flanked by a half-dozen round Italian widows. She had studied Latin for years and as she and they washed she had tried, largely unsuccessfully, to communicate with them.
This Mother's Day the kids' mother is a thousand miles away, living with her own mother but promising to come up to New York soon. I'm forty-four and a half. This is my fifth Mother's Day without their mother, my thirty-sixth without my own. Every year since I've been single and with them it's been embarrassing for me. On Mother’s Day we eat out at any restaurant where we can find an open table and the other families look at the three of us like they want to write us a check instead of saving Sally Struthers’ children in Africa . I want to scream at them, "We're fine, damnit. Just finish your cheesecake and leave us alone."
To quote Rumsfeld, “You go out to dinner on Mother’s Day with the family you have…”
