Deliverables of the Heart

Two years of homemaking

Brother, Sister, Mama

Get Ready with Me

A calm morning doesn’t happen by itself.

The first move is coffee for Holly. Double espresso in a Gibraltar glass with a splash of milk. I bring it to her, set it on the bathroom counter. Like many doctors, she enters, when working, a mental space lined with surgical steel. She has been trained to go for 24 hours at a time, to answer complicated questions immediately upon waking. The coffee is not really necessary. But it keeps her here.

Next, I step onto the squat couch in the kids’ room and move the pink blackout curtains, which are heavy and don’t bunch unless you grip them at the rod. I’m the only one tall enough to do it. I step down and open the window. There is the full palm, the warming sky still blanketed in mist. Natural light and fresh air. Those are my materials.

If Holly washed her face, the water will be warm, and I will, too. If she didn’t, oh well.

The kids have already eaten. Usually pop tarts and half a banana. Sometimes Florence eats cereal, and Hilton fries himself an egg. In any case, they’re self sufficient. Achieving this took many months, many post-it notes with directions left on the table. For a long time they ate the pop tarts raw. They still don’t drink anything. It’s ok.

Their independence means I get to make myself a coffee, too. I discard the hot puck and wipe down the machine, then take a moment, standing at the sink.

When I greet them, they are sprawled in the bright living room. Hilton is reading National Geographic for Kids. Florence is either lying on the ground, humming to herself, or making voices for her stuffed animals. I kiss the tops of their heads. Sleep well? They have never said no.

It’s shower time. Hilton manages this entire process himself. His preferred method for getting out the conditioner is to press the bottle against the wall. It is a core aspect of his personality to come up with new methods and techniques.

When he is done, he crows loudly to let us know. It is a grating sound, like a rooster throwing up. The neighbors surely hate it. I will miss it when he stops.

Florence is not as independent. Hilton taught her the wall-press method, but sometimes she needs help getting enough of the coconut-scented goo. Her hair is thinner, and it tangles easily. Recently, I taught her to comb the snags out herself. That way she owns her own pain. When she’s done, she will need me to reach her pink bathrobe, which hangs on a high hook. In any case, she does not want to be alone. I sit on the edge of the bathtub and read news on my phone.

While she’s getting dressed, I prep the backpacks. If it’s Monday, Hilton’s homework needs to be initialed. Sloppy work ruins my morning, but that’s rare. The main thing is to prepare fresh water and snacks. At first, we used freezable zippered lunch packs. I abandoned those for little boxes made of stainless steel, made in Germany, which are much smaller and easier to clean. I drop in fruit, cheese, vitamins.

Holly doesn’t need breakfast or even lunch. She’s a machine; she’ll eat crackers. A few months into working with a new practice, and a longer commute, I noticed hunger was catching her on the drive home. She came through the door feeling wild, out of balance. I bought her a little steel box. I fill it now with chicken and leftovers, place it near her bag or her keys. She makes a clip clopping sound walking to the door. “Kids, say ‘bye’ to mom!” They shout from the living room. We kiss.

I relax at the table for another moment, finishing my coffee. At eight, we walk to school. Hilton pelts me the entire way with questions and thoughts. His neurons will fire like this all day. Florence is similarly alive, but less talkative. She notices a dandelion. A tiny star on the ground. A shoe on the filthy RV. We smell jasmine, the Georgian bakery, jacaranda. We walk without hurry. We get to school. I kiss their heads.

They have never been late.

Staying at Home

Two years ago, I left my career as an educator to manage the kids and the house. At first, I called myself a stay-at-home dad. I didn’t love this title. The hyphens are terrible, and the abbreviation, SAHD, is even worse. But it seemed like the best way to communicate what I was doing.

Since then, I’ve shifted to homemaker. This essay, by fellow homemaker Ivana Greco, is what sold me. In her description, a homemaker’s work is “to provide a safe and nurturing place for children to grow, to establish the rhythms and routines key to family life, and to knit communities together.” That felt more accurate. I wasn’t just staying home, watching the kids. I was building something. Tinkering out new life.

It wasn’t easy to let go. While a teacher, I rose early and stayed late. I worked myself hard, so exhausted at dusk that sometimes I wanted to cry. A burrito or chicken and rice from the halal cart tasted incredible after such days. I slept utterly. When Hilton came along, I took less demanding roles, but I still felt part of the education of America’s children, something great and difficult. I taught children of all ages how to read. I was a professional, and I had a career.

Now two of these children are old enough to be in school from 8:00 to 3:00, and I have a new role. Each day consists largely of maintenance–dishes, laundry, cleaning, shopping–tasks which I bunch around a larger, central task. Things that can be done at home, or close to it. Things like planning a trip to Minnesota, attaching a new side mirror on the Saturn (because some asshole kicked it off), or choosing a high-yield savings account.

But the main work is metaphysical. I feel an obligation to manage not just our cars and finances but our relationships, our mental wellbeing, and, pardon my language, the development of good habits and virtues in our children. I have a teacher’s trust in small alterations to routine as a lever for changing such things. So I made a project out of the morning, setting goals, reflecting on our performance, and, pardon me again, iterating. I wanted a morning that was calm, nutritious, and unhurried. Not so hard to do once. Something else entirely to do every day.

One of the big mistakes new teachers make is to expend great energy on overly elaborate classroom routines. These tend to break down around November, when the teacher is sufficiently exhausted, and when certain students’ inability or refusal to follow these silly directions finally sparks conflict, and the teacher backs down.

Knowing this, I abandoned a more ambitious vision for our morning routine, in which I and the children, and possibly mama, sit happily at the table, discussing the day to come. For this to work, I would need to provide vocabulary, conversation starters, pointed questions deriving from my knowledge of their schedule. I would need to rise at least an hour earlier, at a set time each day, in order to care for myself, waste some time, prepare my tongue and bowel. They would not always want to engage in this kind of thing, being children, so I would need to be flexible and sharp in the moment. Maybe I’ll do all this in the future. For now, it’s too much.

My goal, instead, is that our children develop independence with regard to cooking, washing, and schoolwork, and that we leave the house unencumbered by any stress, open to the world. Even this requires a degree of subtle management each day. Challenges come in the form of school spirit days, sibling drama, and cognitive leaps that unlock new opinions (“Dad, that shirt makes me feel like a little kid.”) That’s why I have designed a morning vehicle that can run on fumes.

As I got a handle on the core child-centric projects–the morning, the afternoon, bed time–I began to focus more on my wife and our relationship. That, too, will thrive or wither depending on how we manage the day. And, to an even greater extent, on my own well-being. That’s one of the reasons I started writing. I mourned, and resented, the subsuming of my career. This project, How Was School?, was a way for me to feel connected to my old life, when I was a more relevant person, and integrate it with this new life, which is lovely, but can be lonely.

Writing may have been a poor choice, though. Mining your own life means searching out every weakness, every pocket of ignorance. I feel a sense of accomplishment after posting something, but only briefly. More often, I am sitting in a room, dwelling on things I would rather not think about. War. Students I have lost. Memories of failure. Unresolvable tensions.

I’m relieved when it’s time to pick up the kids.

Dinner Shift

The sun lowers down, and the light softens to gold. Our children are tired, their homework is done, and they’re relaxing. I fill two wooden bowls with red grapes, popcorn, slices of cheddar, and deliver them. “Thanks dad,” they say, and I kiss the top of their heads.

Garlic glistens, black pepper falls on chicken. A plum tomato wants to be in four pieces. With a chop and a turn I remove the avocado pit, suck Dijon mustard off a tiny spoon. The salad is ready.

A key at the door, and my wife enters. She’s still in her scrubs. I pour the Manhattans and set them on the table. There are white lilies in a glass vase. The patio is swept; pink and purple bougainvillea engulf the wall. “I’m happy to be home,” she sighs, sinking into a chair. That sigh is my deliverable.

I pick up her bag, which she has left in the middle of the kitchen floor, and put it where it goes. She will know where her things are in the morning. Check on the chicken–it still has 15 minutes. I join her at the table. We look at each other. In that short while, a moment, a lifetime, only one thing needs to be done.