embrace the chaos

There's an old Ozomatli album called, "Embrace the Chaos."  I'm thinking that needs to be my mantra right now.  Because everywhere I look, there's chaos.  Chaos at different levels and varying decibels, but until those babies go to bed, it's mildly wild.  This is not novel to my life.  I think having children equals a healthy dose of the big, "C".  But teaching children all day -- teaching children when the wild fires burn like spite through the rest of the state, when the air is too smokey for sweet children to play outside so, the chaos rages through lunch, through recess, all of us trapped indoors, books and pattern blocks strewn about, we bounce from one activity to the next, a bustle of engagement and volume -- well, my days seem wild incarnate.

When the actual work day is finally done, it seems somehow easier to go out to pizza for dinner.  I cook like a mad woman every night, why not take a break?  It's simple logic.

Then we get there, and I remember.  As fine as a family establishment as Biga is, it's still a public space.  It's still loud and take the four of us, plus Nana, and the volume rises exponentially.  The children suck the pizza off their plates, my glass of wine vanishes before I can really take it in, Jeff's damn cell dings like an angry bandit, Sol plays trucks under the table, I feel the glances of the folks around us fill my oily pores, they think, what loud, annoying people.  Why can't they manage their children.  My back is turned to most of the restaurant.  I feel thankful.

We disband.  Jeff and his mama head to a fundraiser at a local brewery.  It's a fundraiser, so it's all cool.  Besides, that means just the chaos of two beyond myself to manage.  But then we take Ruby.  We're not sure if she'll be able to sit between the kids without biting them.  Plus she has weird little blue bows behind her ears because she was just groomed.  Every time I check on them from the front seat I feel a bit freaked out by her girlish presence.  I'm quite certain I'm starring in the latest, strangest, Indy flick.

So we drive on.  Eliana is way into an Idina Menzel power ballad played really, really loud right now. She yells at me if it's not loud enough.  If you know me, you'll know I love my loud music.  You'll also know I'm deaf as a doorknob.  What you may not know is that I have newish hearing aids that we're recently zapped of all funkadelic, noise clogging wax and everything's really freaking loud right now.  So even for me, Idina's grating.  And Elie's singing at the top of her raspy lungs.  Mama!  What does it mean when she says, 'I hope for a hero to save me!'  Mama!  So I turn it down to try and explain.  Then she yells at me for turning it down.  From the ear splitting front seat I contemplate the feminist ramifications of the hero lyrics.  I think the song has a strong message on the whole.  But how the hell do I explain the hero.  I don't want her waiting on any hero.  I turn it up again and accelerate.

When we get home, Lucy is waiting for us outside.  Her piercing barks greet me from inside the car, even over the pounding high notes.  Homegirl is extra needy these days.  We're gone all the time, she's getting old and neurotic, and she prides herself on her exceedingly loud bark.  So she barks the heck out of our re-entry into the home.  I am carrying enough luggage to get us to Shanghai.  Lunch boxes and sweatshirts, backpacks and water bottles, a bag of new hand-me-downs, a bag of mail from our, "little house."  When we get inside, the children ask to watch a short show.  They recently picked up some sweet new titles from the public library.  One of them is a, "Wiggle Christmas."  I think I've mentioned that Sol is thoroughly obsessed with the Wiggles.  Els tries to act all cool, like she doesn't really like them, but girlfriend's in pretty deep too.  So I explain that this is "it" before bed (whatever that means), and put on this ultra annoying piece of musical fare from down under.  I finally find my way to the bathroom for, embracing the chaos often negates embracing your bladder.  It's there, while I'm blissfully enjoying my first quiet, still moments of the day, that I hear the scream from the other room:

Jesus!  Jesus, mama!  I wanna hear about Baby Jesus!

Good god.  I forgot that the Wiggles might be pulling the God card with their show.  That's all fine and dandy, but I haven't prepared to go there.  Not just yet.  Not tonight.

I wipe fast, hustle back out and tell Eliana that I'll tell her all about baby Jesus real soon.  Just not now.  I open the computer and pour out this post.  The Wiggles shake their collective yuletide thang in the background.  Sol looks like a crack addict.  Eliana's still full of piss and vinegar and interjects all sorts of insightful comments such as, "You sang this one to me when I was a baby, mama!  Remember!" and, "Oh, Mama!   Look, there's baby Jesus again!  Remember God's house, mama?  I went there with Nana once.  And when we went to the wedding in New Jersey.  Do you remember God's house, mama, do you?  I do...."

After lots of strategic remote control work on my part, we are at the end of the video.  We'll now stumble upstairs to soap the stench from our feet, clean the crusties from beneath our little noses.  Then we'll yell about tooth brushing and argue about what to wear for bed.  We'll beg for one more book and call me out when I skip words.  I'll sing one more song and give one more kiss.

Embrace the chaos, baby.  Loud, full, real, and now.