Be the Trout

OK, it’s official: My friend and co-creator of this blog, Elizabeth, is without a doubt the most badass mother I know. I just got back from three days at the Sullivan house in St. Paul. The idea was that I would go to Minnesota to help Elizabeth, who gave birth to her fourth son two weeks ago. But Elizabeth is so absurdly accomplished and unflappable that she can corral three active, young boys with a droopy newborn slung over one arm and make it look easy. I’ve been feeling kind of rickety lately, so I figured chances were good that she’d be the one taking care of me. 

dueling babies @ the pizza shoppe

I’d never been to St. Paul before and was blown away by how nice it is. Their neighborhood, Tangletown, is filled with old homes with big grassy backyards, tall trees, and actual sidewalks. You can walk to Whole Foods in five minutes, lug a month’s worth of baby wipes back in a red kiddy wagon, and debate stopping at the Grandview Theater to catch a late movie on the way home. Or you can walk five minutes in the other direction to the Italian Pie Shoppe on Grande to pick up pizza, like we did on my first night in town. 

Just as we got back to Elizabeth’s house, a man across the street began shouting at us. My first instinct was that he was a hostile lunatic and that we should yell back or run into the house and hide. Then I realized that he lived there and was just being friendly. He stood on his front steps and we stood on hers and yacked back and forth about the new baby, his dinner plans with his wife, the ETA of his babysitter. Ah, Midwesterners. I’d only been in town half an hour and I already knew the neighbors. All of this filled me with a deep sense of nostalgia—this was just like the town in New Jersey where I grew up, only even more Normal Rockwell-wholesome. 

It’s fitting that Elizabeth should live in St. Paul. Everyone there seems so nice and normal and not at all caught up in their own dramas. Even the drama of having four kids six and under is not a drama in the Twin Cities, where baby carriages are standard accessories and a family of four is considered small. I was impressed to see that Elizabeth was taking her new arrival in stride, and life continued more or less as normal in the Sullivan household. There were chickens to chase in the Wild Rumpus Bookstore after a Mother’s Day outing to Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis and bikes and wagons to ride in the backyard, and tiny baby S. slept through most of it, sacked out on a chair in his brothers’ room or tucked into his sling while we ran errands at the Mall of America (natch). As chill as the mother who birthed him. 

bliss is a brand-new (sleeping) baby

I was beginning to think nothing could phase Elizabeth—until the last night. Details will be spared, but suffice it to say the scene was straight out of the movie Outbreak, with rubber gloves and buckets of bleach being wielded and small children howling in the next room. I did as all good houseguests would do and hid in the kitchen, doing the dishes and marveling as Elizabeth tamed the wild rumpus by barely raising her voice. 

Still, I learned a lesson. Or two. Even seemingly perfect, imperturbable mothers can get crushed by a code red HazMat situation in the bathtub. And it’s easy to remain calm and collected when it’s not your kids melting down in the next room. When Elizabeth finally emerged, looking like she could really use a glass of wine, I remembered some good advice I’d read recently in the mega-wise Becoming the Parent You Want to Be. Whatever happens, do your best not to get sucked into your kids’ drama. Remain as detached and mature as possible. Even if they’re freaking out, don’t freak out. Stay calm and carry on. In other words: Be the trout. Don’t get hooked. 

Easier said than done. Be the trout, I coached myself the next day, back in Santa Fe with a wild child of my own flinging rubber duckies in my face and sneaking out of her room to hide outside when I wasn’t looking (hello, heart attack). But I wasn’t the trout—not that day. I was blown out from traveling and took the bait, which of course only made things worse.

No one’s perfect. We’re all human. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be the trout. One can always hope.