"McMama"
(c) 2004-2006 Christine Louise Hohlbaum
There is no doubt about it. I am McMama. It’s not that I’m Irish or anything, though legend has it 1/16th of my blood runs green. The title is determined by the wee voices I hear on a daily basis. Not the ones inside my head, but the ones that emerge from the mouths of my sweet angels whose growls and barked orders for various food items give me pause to wonder. Am I really the fast food restaurant they think I am? Do they see the Golden Arches when I draw near? Do they mistake me in my red-rimmed glasses for the head-set wearing twentysomething they see at the drive-thru window? I am not certain.
A typical day at the Hohlbaum residence goes like this. We are dragged from our slumber with the first food order of the day. “High Matz!” sounds the wake-up call. It is my two-year-old son’s word for hot chocolate. We lift our tired heads an inch off the pillow to see if his voice was real or imagined. It is just long enough to hear the repeated war cry before something very serious, very ugly is about to happen. We run for cover (or rather, my husband runs to the microwave to heat up the milk in record time). It is 5:03 a.m.
Another order is placed around 6:30 a.m. when Sophia tiptoes up the stairs to our bedroom. We hear her whisper what she imagines to be a dream breakfast: two pieces of toast with Nutella and some apple juice. My head, which feels as if it has barely been placed back down an inch into the cool contours of my pillow, rises once again. An eye opens, then another. She is not a mirage. She is my daughter, and she is hungry.
We manage their first breakfast in relative silence. I usually work for an hour on the computer while my husband struggles to remain awake. By 8 a.m. he leaves the house for work. I try not to call out “Lucky Duck!” as he scampers to the safety of his vehicle. The children and I wave to my husband: both regretfully, and all for different reasons. We get one-half hour into a craft activity, and the hunger alarm rings again. A second glass of juice and a toast are ordered. They appear, as if by magic, with the right jam, spread just so, and a touch of fruit to garnish the plate. Whatever is rejected usually lands on the floor.
By 10 a.m. I am out of ideas to entertain the children. We strive for intellectually stimulating activities until about mid-week. That’s when all resistance evaporates, and I flip on the TV. My husband and I have set a house rule: no TV before 10 a.m. But after that, it’s no holds barred.
With deadlines looming and book proposals lurking in the back of my mind, I am as guilty as they come. I arrange playdates when I can, but there are days when the TV is the best babysitter I know. One time a neighbor stopped by twice in one day. Both times the TV was on (and really only for a total of 90 minutes, but she didn’t know that!). There I was, standing in my slippers, caught red-handed with my children sitting directly in front of the tube with their mouths open. And you can bet your sweet potato in the span of those one-and-one-half hours that my children ordered the equivalent of a gourmet meal. Too bad my office is on the second floor, and the kitchen is right next to the TV room. I got up each time and fulfilled their wishes. Just call me McMama. And yes, I want fries with that!
Christine Louise Hohlbaum, American author of Diary of a Mother: Parenting Stories and Other Stuff and SAHM I Am: Tales of a Stay-at-Home Mom in Europe, has been published in hundreds of publications. When she isn't writing, leading seminars or wiping up messes, she prefers to frolic in the Bavarian countryside near Munich where she lives with her husband and two children. Visit her Web site: http://www.DiaryofaMother.com.