“I don’t appreciate you two having sex in my house.”

– Barbara Evans, mother of teen mom Jenelle Evans, Sixteen and Pregnant.

I should have known it was an ill-fated plan when the Taj Mahal of guinea pig cages showed up on my doorstep.  I had decided to have Santa bring my kids two guinea pigs for Christmas.  I think that having pets is so important to teaching kids how to have empathy, and also a sense of responsibility.  “I never had a pet growing up, and look at me,” my husband said dispassionately as he stood in the kitchen watching me load the dishwasher. “I have lots of empathy and I am very self-sufficient.  Can you help me when you’re done?  I moved my clothes into the dryer like you showed me, but then I couldn’t figure out how to turn it on.  Also where do we keep forks?”

“I’m glad we had this talk” I responded, patting him on the head, “I’ll start researching cages tonight.”   Since one of our kids is allergic to cats and we work too much and have too many activities to get a dog at this point, guinea pigs seemed like a nice, easily contained compromise.  The poop is tiny and they don’t look too much like rats.  I did a lot of research on-line, and delighted in reading the on-line reviews to my husband.

“Both our pigs have vision issues (one missing an eye, the other nearly blind),” a typical review read, “and we were not sure how they would negotiate the new cage.  We shouldn’t have worried!   With careful monitoring, even our nearly-blind pig maneuvered through it within hours. Their cage is now so orderly! The hay and poos are not strewn everywhere.”

My husband gagged as I read, and pleaded with me to stop reading and stop this madness. It’s going to be a disaster and I refuse to touch those pigs, he told me.  But I was resolute and finally settled on what the website advised as the optimally sized cage for two pigs.  Plenty of room would allow them to live an active happy lifestyle.  Active pigs are more fun to watch and interact with, it said.

I seriously underestimated the footprint a 3 foot by 6 foot cage with upstairs condominium would have in my house…. Until the two six foot boxes arrived at my house.  Exhausted on Christmas Eve around 10 pm “Santa” began assembling the cage.  One hundred zip ties and gallons of aspen shavings bedding later, the two baby black and white guinea pigs Santa had picked up from Petco earlier that evening were deployed to their luxury  penthouse.  Movin’ on up to the East Side, just like the Jefferson’s.  Pooping commenced.

The kids were so excited to meet and name Henry and Snickerdoodle Christmas morning. They cuddled them in their laps and I knew I made the right decision.  Even my husband was touched. Santa had only brought the bare necessities for the guinea pigs, but I took the kids out shopping for supplies the next day.  More pellet food, hay, vitamin C drops, play tunnels, jumbo bags of guinea pig bedding, salt licks, toys, and a large plastic Snuggle Hut.  $80 later, we walked out, as I called in a purchase order to my broker for Petco stock.  But the kids were happy and responsible and empathetic.  Everything seemed to be going fine.

Then the humping began.

If  I have one wish for you, dear readers, may you never have to google “guinea pig gestation period.”  Poor Henry.  Snickerdoodle was relentless.  Petco had assured Santa that these guys were brothers.  I decided to go back and ask some questions myself.  I approached a young male sales associate in the small pet area.  He didn’t seem enthusiastic when I brought up the subject, but then again, he probably didn’t wake up that morning itching to get to work and discuss guinea pig sex with a lady who probably runs in the same Scentsy party circles as his mom.

“So you kind of flip them over and squeeze their stomach,” he pantomimed in a demonstration of how to identify a male guinea pig, “and something is supposed to pop out.  But when they are real young sometimes it’s hard to tell, so……” his voice trailed off and he looked down awkwardly. “And it can be normal behavior for two males in a cage to do that too.  Like a sign of dominance.”

“Well I thought that too, at first,” I whispered conspiratorially, leaning in like I was telling a juicy story to a girlfriend across the table at Chili’s with a big blue drink in front of me, “but this looked authentic.   I have to tell you that Henry appears to be doing some sort of sexy dance shuffle towards Snickerdoodle.  Sort of like this….”  I stuck my left hip out and sauntered down the Petco aisle in a walk that someone might have actually appreciated six beers in at a college bar about 20 years ago but had this kid looking like he was trying not to vomit.

“And then Snickerdoodle, well somehow he actually climbs on top of the snuggle hut and sort of launches himself off of it on top of Henry from behind…..”  He was now completely avoiding eye contact.  “I’ve dodged that move a few times, myself, if you know what I mean,” I joked, throwing a wink while the poor guy hugged his arms around himself and rocked back and forth.

“Ok, well I guess you could bring them back and we can check them out again,” he sputtered and turned on his heel towards the fish tanks.

But I haven’t brought them back.  My kids love their guinea pigs and I don’t want to separate them, and so just like the 40 year-old grandmothers on 16 and Pregnant, I have my head in the sand.  From my research, I know that guinea pigs are typically 8-13 weeks when sold at the store.  They mature sexually in 3-5 months.  Gestation is another 60-72 days.  If I do the math, we’re not out of the woods yet.  I have done a lot of online research, reading articles about guinea pig pregnancies, guinea pig C-Sections (apparently those are really a thing), litters as large as six.  But these things happen to other people’s guinea pigs, not mine.  I pretend not to hear the squealing, the jostling cage, the Snuggle Hut flipping over, as I go about my business.

My children will have empathy and responsibility, I think, gazing lovingly at my son as he walks past me towards the kitchen for a snack, oblivious to me where I sit scooping gallons of tiny poops and aspen bedding into a garbage bag.

“Where are the forks, mom?” he shouts.  “Where are the forks?”

I scoop and sigh.

Author’s note:  Between the drafting of this post and its publication, Henry received his angel wings (this will be the subject of a future blog).  This post is published posthumously. RIP, Henry you were an awesome guinea pig, a good sport in light of continued humpings, and the empathy lessons you taught us were evidenced in the face of my heartbroken son.   

There is no way I could do what I do without my mom.  I couldn’t commute 45 minutes on a good day to my demanding 70% corporate job and mother my three children.  I just would not be able to do it without her.   I leave in the morning and come home in the evening and I know that she will take care of all that needs to be taken care of in between.  She is up when I awake in the morning to watch the littlest while I shower and get ready.  She makes sure the boys have backpacks with lunch boxes and swim bags on the appropriate days, gloves and mittens fill coat pockets and diaper bags actually contain diapers and wipes and a change of clothes.  She will walk the boys to the bus stop if I am running behind and am still in my bathrobe.  She drives the SUV to and from basketball, baseball, and soccer practices, piano and voice lessons, and theater rehearsals.  She sorts, washes, folds and attempts to put away the kids’ laundry.  She changes, rinses, washes and stuffs Fuzzi Bunz every other day.  She turns on the slow cooker at the requested time and adds the olives during the last hour.  The best way to describe what my mother does for me is SHE GETS SHIT DONE.  I don’t have to write it down, nag, or review.  She just knows.  I wish I could get the same from all my direct reports.

It wasn’t always this way for me.  The beginning of my career as a working mother started with a nanny that I could barely afford.  I knew I didn’t want to put my children in daycare and I knew that I didn’t want to quit my job so a nanny was the in between for me.  She loved my child like he was her own and I knew he was safe with her.  But it was so hard.  So hard to give up control to someone that just didn’t take care of my child exactly (or at least close enough) to the way I did.  So it was a blessing in disguise the day my nanny quit and my husband asked if my mother would fill in until we found another nanny.  The catch was my mother lived two and a half hours away.  I was nervous about asking her.  I did not want her to feel like she HAD to do it.  But she was excited I could tell as soon as I asked her.  There was no hesitation.  My father had passed away six years prior and she had recently sold our family home and had moved to a new town.  She was ready and willing to live with us for the days I worked and go back home on my off days and weekends.

That was nine years ago.

I have come to realize that the saying “once a mother always a mother” really is true and “once a daughter always a daughter” is equally as true.

She urges me to gargle with salt water when I complain of a sore throat.  Tells me I need to go to bed earlier so that I get enough sleep.  Bags up fresh cherries that she picked the day before for me to have for an afternoon snack at work and reminds me to not forget my lunch bag as I head out the door!  However, I still roll my eyes and say, “I know Mom … “ just as much as a did as a teenager. Or laugh when she is describing the new movie she saw that was really good with “you know, that actress that was in The Help that was writing the book and the actor who played Mr. Mom …” And sigh when she can’t remember the names of the mothers at school that she has been talking to for years.  But I will still climb in to bed with her when I am anxious, scared, and upset about my life.  She will still remind me to not look past today when I call her and am overwhelmed with my never ending to do list.  And she will always, always be the one that never gets tired of my gushing about my children.

My mother is a rock.  I witnessed her dedication to my grandmother when she was in a nursing home for years with dementia.   I watched her give up her life for a year and a half and live day-by-day by my father’s side while he battled a brain tumor.  And she continues to take care of my children and me.  She is the ultimate model of unconditional love.  There is no way I could do what I do without my mom.

I could not do what I do without my mom.   I normally work a 70% schedule, but there are peak times at work where I am working overtime, nights and weekends.  My mom steps in and helps me with school drop-offs and pick-ups, feeds my kids and keeps them when they are sick and I can’t miss work.   I do have lots of other family and help in my life (I am so grateful to them too, and I will write about them as time goes on), but my mom is the one I can call or text at any time of the day or night (whether stressed out, desperate or hysterical) and I know she will drop everything to help me, talk me down from the ledge, or just tell me not to be so hard on myself. Her voice in my ear encouraging me to let go of her hand on my first day of kindergarten is the same one I hear today in the moments I need it.

I once had a horrible scare when my daughter was two.   I was carrying her out to my car in the morning and I slipped on a patch of ice and took a dive with her down onto the cement.  She had a thick hood up over her head but it was still a hard landing and she lay so still when we landed with such a stunned expression frozen on her little face that it actually occurred to me she might be dead (I know that sounds horrible, but it’s honestly what went through my mind).  She started wailing a split second later (I could breathe again!) as I scooped her up and carried her back inside the house.  After a minute she calmed down.   No bump.   Her crying had stopped- I was the one with tears streaming  down my face worried about traumatic brain injuries as I called my mom.

Meanwhile, I should mention I had six Mexican accountants waiting for me at my office.

They had flown in for a one-day training that I was supposed to teach.  I had no idea what I was going to do.   You really can’t go from thinking your kid is dead one moment to leaving her and jetting off to work.   And yes- I job share, but like all good sharing relationships, it was my turn.   I had no Plan B at this late stage.  To cancel would have been a waste of everyone’s time.   I mentally calculated the cost of all that airfare in my head.  What kind of employee wouldn’t show up?  But what kind of mother would leave?   Panic set in.

Just as I had calmed my own hysterical daughter, my mom calmed me down on the phone and told me that if she had stopped crying so quickly and her pupils seemed normal, she was probably fine.  She offered to come over, take her to the pediatrician and keep her for the day if it would make me feel better.   Fifteen minutes later she was at my house, took one look at my daughter (who was now totally happy) and convinced me to go to work. Fifteen minutes after that, I was in a conference room at work with the Mexicans.  If they noticed my eyes were red and puffy they were too sweet to mention it.

An hour later, the first text pinged my phone- a picture of my daughter with a green lollipop on the way out of the doctor’s office.  “TOTALLY FINE!!!!” the text said.   Then another picture came in around 11:00 of her sitting in the front basket of a ToysRUs shopping cart, clutching six My Little Ponies and a pink Frisbee.    Then noon rolled around and the next photo was a close-up of her small grinning face with Chuck E. Cheese loitering in the background “GUESS WHERE WE ARE?!”  The tightness in my chest from all the worry and guilt that morning finally started to loosen.  I was so grateful to my mom in that moment for turning head bumps into Chuck E. Cheese.    Yes, my mom is the only person on this earth who will truly drop anything and everything for me.

She can also drive me crazy.

I can fight with her like no one else.  All the advice based on information from questionable sources is usually enough to put me over the edge!   If your mom has ever begun a sentence with “Dr. Oz says….”, “According to Nancy Grace…” or “I saw an article on the Facebook….” you know exactly what I mean.  My mom is a very enthusiastic amateur nutritionist, child rearing expert, couples therapist, sports psychologist, interior decorator, lifestyle guru, political activist and preeminent scientist with no formalized science education.  She will lecture that I should eat an obscure fruit five times a day because Dr. Oz says so, and that a Harvard study says that exercise is a waste of time. These “health breakthroughs” often align quite nicely with my mom’s lifestyle.  Unrestrained access to Kit Kats for my kids is a good thing (chocolate is an antioxidant and will make your skin glow!)  and six cups of coffee per day will keep prostate cancer at bay (if only I had a prostate!)   She has definite ideas, and isn’t afraid to represent me at any class gathering or activity.  “They only want healthy snacks” she snorted, handing me a snack schedule from a soccer post-practice parents meeting she attended.  “I told them good luck getting these kids to eat BANANAS!”

When she has my kids, she’ll do things her way.  This will mean holding my tongue as my son comes home with an expensive new toy because he convinced her (falsely) that he kept his pull-up dry the night before.  IPads are perpetually fired up and humming, and McDonalds is a given.  “I am the grandma, so I don’t have to say no,” she says.  And she’s right.  Grandmas should not have to be hardasses with their grandkids.  They have earned the right to be the fun ones.  Sometimes, I have to sit back and know that it is enough that they are safe and happy, even if the discipline and structure isn’t the same as what they would get if I was there.

Because I’m not there.

Yes, she can drive me crazy.  But when I’m sitting in a roomful of people trying to stop my mind from worrying and pick up my buzzing phone to see a selfie of my toddler smiling on my mom’s lap eating a Kit Kat, mouth ringed by chocolate and the caption “LOOK AT THAT GLOW!”, My mom is not the next best thing…..

She is the voice whispering in my ear that I’m good enough.  She is the feminist I’ve spent a lifetime studying, before I could even speak or read.  She is the fairy godmother who sweeps in when the world seems to be crashing down and tells me to fuck it (in front of my kids, of course).  Her magic wand turns head bumps into Chuck E. Cheese. She is my champion.