The Fairy Garden

My mother asked to keep Lowery overnight so she could make a fairy garden with her. While I didn’t know what a fairy garden was, it didn’t sound like anything involving knives or needles, so I didn’t question it.

When I rang the doorbell of my parents’ house the next day, I heard Lowery burst into tears—she does not go quietly from Nana. While she ranted and raged in her usual way, I hugged my mother hello and asked how the evening had gone.

From what I could gather from my mother, Lowery hadn’t wanted to sleep in her own bed—something she’s done every night of her life—so she had slept in the bed with my mother. In the morning, she hadn’t wanted breakfast—something she’s eaten every morning of her life—so Nana had given her ice cream. Lowery hadn’t liked the shoes I had packed—the shoes she had insisted on taking to Nana’s—so my mother had driven to Wal-Mart late at night to buy her a different pair. My mother must have used up the word “no” on me as a child and had none left to give her grandchildren.

As I tried to listen to my mother tick through all the many manipulations and victories my daughter had during her stay, Lowery’s despair over leaving grew louder in the background. My mother suggested Lowery show me the fairy garden. Lowery immediately stopped screaming, grabbed my hand, and pulled me into the kitchen.

And there it was.

A shallow plastic pan, two feet in circumference, filled to the brim with mulch. At one end was a beautiful, colorful, ceramic dome hut—presumably where the fairy sleeps at night—which was molded and painted to look like an upside down flower. From the door of the dome was a walkway made of iridescent marbles that curved through the pan, twisting and turning around a constellation of tiny succulent plants and an arched, wooden bridge. Nestled within the plants were tiny chairs made of tree branches, and an intricate little swing next to a beautiful fairy perched in the mulch. It was adorable.

My mom bent down and wrestled to pick it up. When she got a hold of it, careful not to knock over the tiny fairy swing that gently squeaked with the sway of the plastic tray, she worked hard to keep it steady.

“Here you go!” she said, handing it to me.

I looked at her face for more information. Surely she was joking. But as she handed over the large plastic tray full of dirt, highly breakable toys, and marbles the exact size of a child’s windpipe, I came to see she was not.

“The garden needs to stay indoors,” she instructed. “It needs to be lightly sprayed with water every few days so the succulents will thrive. Also, it needs to be near a window so the plants can get sunlight, but not a window that gets direct sunlight. Put it up high so your dog won’t eat the plants.”

And with that, she hoisted up a 10-pound bag of mulch—in case I needed to add more to the fairy garden later—and pressed it down in the bend of my full arm.

“Thanks for letting me keep her!” she beamed. “We had the best time!”

For the past few months, the fairy garden has been sitting in the only spot in our house that meets all the requirements: the small, round bistro table in our breakfast nook. The garden takes up the majority of the space, leaving mere inches of table top around the perimeter.

After a few days, we had to move our dog Lucy’s food bowl because she kept bumping into the table, causing a small shower of mulch to rain down on her while she ate. A few weeks later I noticed all the marbles were gone—Lowery had taken off with them but then forgot where she put them. Jim and I went on a hunt around the house to find each gleaming ball so our youngest daughter wouldn’t choke on them. We are still missing four. A few days ago, I noticed the top half of a fairy was discarded under the couch, so I peeked into the garden to find a pair of body-less fairy legs sticking up out of the mulch. We found the tiny, squeaky swing in London’s crib, stuck between the slats, and the tiny tree branch chairs were discovered, underfoot, in the upstairs bathroom.

One night, while loading the dishwasher, as Jim tried to clean a spider web out of the tiny window of the flower petal dome, I threw up my hands and said, “Can we just get rid of the damn thing already?”

“No!” he exclaimed. “I mean, at least not until after this weekend. Your parents are coming over.”

The garden was like all things aimed at kids: inconsiderate of parents.

It seemed sometimes that was what grandparents were, too.

My favorite aspect of how my own parents parented was how they never made their children the center of their world. I always felt heard, respected, loved, and safe. They came to all of my recitals, my plays, and my graduations. But I knew they were doing and accomplishing more than just parenting. I was empowered by the fact that my mother was an entrepreneur. I admired that my father was an expert in his field. And what an example they set by having a date night every week. And hobbies. And a social life.

They were highly invested, but not overly involved.

It was a balance I had hoped to emulate as a parent.

Which makes the current culture of super involved parenting not only extremely exhausting and irritating to me, but—for lack of a better phrase—it’s just not how I was raised.

And yet, despite trying to put all the aspects of my life on an equal plane with parenting, I still find parenting all consuming. It overwhelms my time, my thoughts, and my emotions. The school activities alone are a full-time job. And while I’m grateful my children are healthy and happy, I’m also exhausted by the fact that they are loud, demanding, tantrum throwing lunatics who set out to ruin every weekend.

A few weekends ago Lowery became upset. I think I gave her the wrong cup or something, and she erupted into a screaming fit—the levels of which cannot be exaggerated. For nearly two hours, our five-year-old daughter was in her room thrashing, screaming and throwing toys; raging against the machine that doesn’t understand which color of drinking apparatus she prefers.

Her fits have always been epic. Since infancy. And while Jim and I try to remain calm and centered through them, it is nearly impossible. At a certain point I usually break down in tears. This upsets our happy and genteel child London, who will start crying out of confusion and concern. This means Jim is stuck trying to calm three highly emotional women while he struggles to calm himself.

If anything is obvious to me, it’s that my children want to be the center of my universe.

While I recognize this phase of life is just that, we still find ourselves struggling. Maybe it’s just the ages of our children. Or their transitions at school. Or our commitments at work. Or this election cycle. Who knows. But when Monday rolls around I’m usually so rung out that if anyone at work asks about my kids, I’m liable to collapse onto them, unabashedly weeping.

Which is why, early this year, when my parents sat us down to announce my father would be running for State Senate, I felt two emotions in equal measure: immensely proud, and, then, pretty pissed. Who was gonna help us with these damn kids?

I have friends whose parents pick up their children from school every day. I’ve heard women at work talk about how their parents keep the kids one weekend a month so they can get a break. There’s even rumor of a couple in town that gets a date night every week because the in-laws watch the kids.

So sure, I’m beyond proud my dad is running for office. Of course. He will make an effective and admirable elected official. But come on. Wouldn’t he make more impact on our state if he spent his time taking my kids to the park? And sure, my mother is a great campaign manager, and has spent the last six months tirelessly knocking on doors for hours after work. But wouldn’t she influence more people if she spent her evenings making us dinner and bathing the kids?

As a child I appreciated, and certainly benefited from, not being the center of my parents’ universe. But now that I have kids, I suddenly want to be.

I need help.

I need a break.

I need them to take the kids every other weekend. And a month in the summer. And two nights a week.

I need them to sell their house, which is inconveniently an hour away, move next door, and pick up my kids from school. And, also, volunteer for the bake sale.

I need them never to say, “Well, they don’t act like that around us.”

And I need them to throw out the f***ing fairy garden and promise never to make another.

I need my parents to focus solely on me.

The other day I was so distraught, so tired, so past the point of feeling confident in my parenting or in myself. It had been another trying weekend full of tantrums, backtalk, and complaints. I woke up before the girls so I could have a few minutes to compose myself. I texted my dad the kind of text I don’t normally send—one fraught with emotion:

“I’m not strong enough to be their mother.”

I stared through tears at the screen until the three glowing bubbles appeared.

“Yes you are.”

A moment passed before three more bubbles began to glow:

“You’re a great mother.”

I knew he would be off to work in a few minutes, followed by a full evening of campaigning. I needed to get going, too, but I sat there reading that text over and over until I could will myself to move.

Jim was out of town, and my mother was driving up that evening to watch the girls while I taught class—she’s my emergency backup when all of our babysitters are booked. After class I came home to find my mother sitting on the couch reading. The house was quiet, the kids asleep. She hugged me, asked how class went, and then quickly left to race home and knock on doors with my father.

I sat down on the couch, exhausted. I noticed the carpet looked vacuumed. The pillows were neatly arranged on the couch, and there was not a toy in sight. Then I heard a beeping noise from the kitchen. I walked in to find the oven timer going off. I opened the door, looked in to see a fully cooked meatloaf, and burst into tears.

I pushed the fairy garden a few inches over and balanced my plate of food on the edge of the table. Then I opened my phone to reread my father’s encouraging text messages from that morning. And I realized something I hadn’t fully understood before having kids of my own:

I have grand parents.