Wet Oatmeal Kisses

When I was little, the oldest of four children, my mother's grandmother sent a newspaper clipping from Forsythe, Montana to encourage my mom through what I imagine was a rough time for her, on a big farm far away from her family, raising four wild kids.  I remember my mom reading it with a quivering chin, tears brimming on her lashes and rolling over the soft mounds of her cheeks.  Then she tucked that bit of gray-inked paper in the front of the huge antique desk that sat in our entry on the farm.  I thought someone had died.  My mom wasn't a crier.  


When I was old enough to read, and the clipping was yellowing around the tape that held it to the desk cabinet, I couldn't understand why it had made her cry.  My mom was a yeller.  And she yelled at us the very things mentioned in the clipping.  It made sense that she'd long for the day that life would be orderly, and we wouldn't be around causing her all that anguish.  Why cry about it? 
But when I became a mom, the message became clear to me, a kind of cautionary note to my future self.  I struggle--constantly struggle!-- not to yell at my boys.  I hunted the poem up online, and once found, I too wept at the words.  
This morning, a Friday, I made oatmeal.  It's never been my favorite breakfast, or food, for that matter.  But recently I introduced it to the boys, who love it.  And R with his curls loaded with sticky oats, reached out to hug me, his little arms and fingers sticky with oat starch and brown sugar.  He smelled like a memory, a toasty, maple syrup memory from my own childhood.  He's not one for affection, our R.  He's completely unlike his brother who still snuggles and sits on my lap and holds my hand.  So he reaches out for me with this glorious mess, and I know that this is the moment.  I can't close my eyes, because when I open them again he'll be a big stinky teenager, or a clean shaven man with kids of his own sitting there, and me clinging to this fraction in time as distance memory when he was but an oatmeal covered toddler.  I open my arms and embrace his soft little baby body that is slowly growing lean with his busy-ness, his sparkling brown eyes shadowed with long brushy lashes.  The smile on his face, as he holds out his hands for me reveal the trademark gap between his front teeth that just add to the comedic character he is. And for just a moment, we hug, and I absorb it, holding tight, feeling his soft hair against my cheek, and smelling his wonderful oatmeal smell.  Then he's off.  He's running down the hall, and I stand there watching him, marveling at the sight of this little man, and relishing the miracle we shared.  
Wet Oatmeal Kisses
The baby is teething;
The children are crying.
Your husband just called and said "Eat dinner without me."

One of these days you'll explode and shout to the kids,
"Why don't you grow up and act your age?"
And they will.
Or "You guys get outside and find yourself something to do,"
and "don't slam the door!"
And they don't.

You'll straighten their bedrooms all neat and tidy;
toys displayed on the shelf;
Hangers in the closet; animals caged.
You'll yell, "Now I want it to stay this way."
And it will.

You'll yell, "I want complete privacy on the phone -- no screaming!
Do you hear me?"
And no one will answer.

No more plastic tablecloths with stains of spaghetti.
No more dandelion bouquets.
No more iron-on patches.
No more wet knotted shoelaces,
muddy boots, or rubberbands for ponytails.Imagine a lipstick with a point!

No babysitter for New Year's Eve.
Washing clothes only once a week.
No PTA meetings or silly school plays where your child is a tree.
No car pools, blaring stereos, or forgotten lunch money.
No more Christmas presents made of library paste and toothpicks.
No wet oatmeal kisses.
No more tooth fairy.
No more giggles in the dark, scraped knees to kiss
or sticky fingers to wash.

Only a voice asking - "Why don't you grow up?"
And a silent echo -- "I did."

Author Unknown