Practical Magic

My kids read my blog daily; thus, I am risking the relinquishment all my powers as a maternal deity for the sake of a blog topic.  With 278 days left in the year, you will have to pardon me as I make use of everything I have at my disposal. 

I have been a mother for nearly 23 years.  If this does not make me an expert at mothering, I am at least experienced enough to assert the following opinion.  The key to motherhood is to keep your children guessing.  True, there is all that other stuff in the fine print about loving and caring and nurturing and protecting, but in the final analysis what they remember most is the ‘magic’ that only mothers wield.   After a few years, our kids test their independence; they try to prove that they do not need us.  But they always return, and it is always at their most vulnerable moments. That is when the magic occurs:  those golden kernels that become the stuff of legends, the shock and awe of ‘mommy magic’.

When my son was very young, he was diagnosed with a condition that required daily medication, which in turn required monthly blood tests to monitor the effects of the drugs on his liver.  He was not atypical among four-year-olds in the way he bounced off the walls like a flying squirrel at the sight of a needle.  The first time, the phlebotomist asked me to leave the room while she extracted his blood, saying it was better this way.  I hated that my son might believe I would turn my back while someone tortured him.  I approached a nurse friend who trains diabetics in search of a method that would allow him to accept his fate bravely and with dignity.  She said that the human brain cannot feel pain in two places at once.  I suggested to my son that he pinch his cheek with his other hand really, really hard, explaining that this would keep the needle from hurting.  At breakfast that morning he grabbed his cheek and would not let go.  We drove the half hour to the hospital, and still he did not let go.  We sat in the waiting room; he did not play with the toys because he was so occupied with squeezing his cheek.  When they called his name he was ready.  At the sight of the needle, he tightened up on his fleshy face with all his might.  The needle slipped in and out without incident.  He looked at me confident, reassuring me that it did not hurt at all.  He went to school that day with a huge hickey on his face, but he was immensely proud that he could endure a blood test “like a man.”  I can only imagine how much pain he inflicted upon himself in the process!

Occasionally, when my husband is out of town, I will take one of my kids to a symphony concert with me.  Both of my kids had music lessons growing up, but they are not well versed in the symphonic literature.  It is a favorite trick of mine that just before the conductor brings down the baton, I will hum the opening line of the symphony we are about to hear, audible only to them.  When the piece starts with the same phrase in the same key, this will normally jar them out of their seat, as if I had just predicted the future.  Well, I had, hadn’t I?

My kids always had a variety of snacks that they were capable of preparing for themselves, including microwave nachos (a plate of corn chips and grated cheese zapped for a few seconds) and quesadillas (toasted on a griddle pan).  We also keep a constant supply of special salsa that we import from Texas.  One day I was upstairs working in my office and I could hear my son agonizing over something.  “Mom,” he yelled, “I can’t open this jar!”  I instructed him to turn the jar upside down and bang it squarely on the counter exactly three times.  (This slowly breaks the airtight seal.  Two hits is not enough.)  He followed these instructions and the next time he tried, the lid turned easily.  “Mom!” he cried, really in disbelief.  “Are you some kind of a wizard?”  “Yes,” I replied, “The ‘mom’ kind.”

Another day my daughter was struggling to put away the food after dinner.  She could not get the plastic wrap to stay securely in the box, creating instead some sort of plastic mess.  I walked over and took the box out of her hands, pushing my fingers through the ends of the box (there are perforated areas on the ends of all plastic and foil wrap boxes).  I handed it back to her and suggested she try again.  It worked like a charm.  She looked at me and shook her head, humbled.

Of course, not to be outdone, my daughter turned the tables on me.  A particularly large stain appeared on a favorite comfy chair in our basement.  My daughter said it was wax, that one of her friends had spilled a candle all over the chair one night.  The stain was particularly unsightly, and could not be easily covered with a pillow or a throw.  Frustrated and somewhat doubtful that it was, in fact, wax, I began shopping for fabric to have it reupholstered.   One day, my daughter said, “Mom, wait here.”  She disappeared into the basement with an iron and a paper bag.  A few minutes later she returned saying, “Before you send that chair out, go look at it first.”   The chair appeared as if brand new.  “How did you do it?” I asked.  “Google,” she smiled, smugly.

I realized at that moment that Google could dispel the mystiques of mothers everywhere, that the moms of the next generation could be powerless to their own children.  Well, as they say in corporate life, “Next guy’s problem.”

In the meantime, I always have a few tricks up my sleeve.  At a recent holiday gathering, I detected some friction between my son and my daughter’s boyfriend of three years.  My children are very close, and my son is exceedingly protective of his sister; Prince Charming would not be good enough for her in his eyes.  There was a need to restore conviviality to the scene.  From the pantry I produced a can of individually wrapped amaretto cookies, a small bowl, and a Bic lighter (one of those long ones with a trigger).  Without saying a word, I set to work while they gazed in quiet speculation.  I unwrapped several of the cookies, placing them in the small bowl.  I took the wrappers and stretched them flat before me, trying to restore their untwisted square shape.  I then took one of the wrappers and rolled it loosely, forming a hollow tube about the size of a small spring roll.  Carefully, I set it upright, like a chimney, in the center of the table, directly atop my best holiday linen.  Slowly, I circled the table with my eyes, making sure I had captured everyone’s undivided attention.  “Does anyone want a cookie?” I asked, holding up the bowl of cookies.  Not a word was spoken as their attention was riveted to the unexplained paper structure.  Then, I picked up the lighter, cocked the trigger and set the upright wrapper on fire in the middle of the table.  Sounds of “wh” “huh” “m” were expelled, but no words formed.  The waxy paper burned quickly, but when the flame had consumed its way about halfway down, the fiery wrapper suddenly took flight, floating into the air and hovering about two feet above the table.  There it transformed into the barest hint of black ash and then suddenly disappeared into thin air.

Everyone was mesmerized, my status as the undisputed “mom of all things” restored.  Suddenly, everyone was working together to explain what had just occurred.  There were cries of “let me try” and “please pass the cookies.”  I got up to clear the table.  My work here was done.

Tomorrow's blog:  The Golf War