Octopus Mom

Ever since my first baby was born I've thought that for each child a woman produced she should
grow an additional two arms & hands. All the tasks we're expected to accomplish while holding a child! (or accomplish while we are not holding a child who is instead clinging to our legs and
sobbing piteously, or in another room out of sight doing God knows what).

Now that my children are more self-sufficient - they walk (even though they'd rather be driven), they talk (back), they manipulate tiny knobs and buttons on video game controllers
(& they manipulate their parents) - the need for me to have extra hands is not so apparent.

But at lunchtime today, it all came so clearly back to me. I was frying tortillas and grating cheese for a meal, and my 11 year old daughter wordlessly backed up to me in her bathing suit, and held out a bottle of sun block. As if she couldn't see that both my hands were busy, and busy in a way that did not easily lend itself to interruptions. I looked at her and waited. She eventually looked over her shoulder back at me. I glanced at the pan of hot oil, the tortilla close to burning in it, at my fingers holding tongs, at the pile of chopped lettuce and cheese on the cutting board. She waved the bottle of sunblock in tiny circles in case I didn't grasp her meaning. I shook my head. She frowned. I shrugged. She stalked off to sulk, and I continued cooking.

In time, the meal was prepared and my daughter's shoulders and back were protected from sunburn. But it still would have been easier if I had been Octopus Mom.

P.S. A few days after I wrote this, I drove myself and my kids to Chicago to meet with my eldest daughter and her husband and their 3 month old son, Guthrie. To say that Guthrie likes to be held is a serious understatement. This little boy feels incomplete if he is not physically attached to another human body, preferably one with milk-filled boobies. (I am not criticizing, I believe that Guthrie's attitude is completely natural and I support him in his endeavors to be constantly enveloped in his mother's arms.) Over and over again during that weekend my daughter, Sarah, said, "I don't have enough hands to do everything, if only I had another pair of hands!" I just smiled and said, "yep."

PPS-a few days ago I was helping a woman at the library - her twin daughters were pestering her with requests and she finally said, "I can't! I don't have enough hands!"