I have a friend who is, for lack of a better term, a real free spirit. Now, how you interpret that word will be largely based on your experience of free-spirited folks, and for my friend and I, it was fun and interesting –until she had a baby. Not that her free-spirited nature was a problem, no, that wasn’t it; the problem was that her son is the product of a free-spirited full-time mom.

Initially, no one really cared how Sylvie (not her real name) looked after Will. She seemed to be following her gut, and for a long time it worked just fine. Will appeared to be completely happy and healthy, proof that regular meals and naps and a bedtime weren’t the answer for everyone. We’d watch him toddle around barbecues with his handful of crackers, engaging delightfully with everyone, and think, so what if he has never had a meal? Over time, little complaints started to seep out of Sylvie, though. Slowly we learned how exhausted she was, that she spent the entire weekend sleeping when her mother could cover Will. Will had never slept in his crib, he slept with her, on the floor, and kept her awake all night with kicking and multiple requests for juice. He never napped, and crashed at any given time after ten at night. This little boy is now five, and has never slept through the night, only eats crackers and, every time I see him now, is in full-blown tantrum mode.

Oh, there it is, can you feel it? Can you feel the judgement? The head-shaking, tsk-tsking creeping in? I have, for years, every time I saw Sylvie and Will. When she would have to ask one of us to put him in his car seat. When she had to borrow diapers or juice or some money because she never had anything with her. It was so easy –and so wrong –to feel superior to Sylvie, but we did, all of us, when we talked about her and wondered how long before she could come to her senses. None of us wanted to insult her choices by making suggestions, so we sat by and watched her  All the things we loved about Sylvie were getting drowned out by Will’s increasing tantrums and his possessiveness of her. I know I began to wonder if I really wanted to spend my precious free time listening to Will lose it once again.

And then one day, Sylvie showed up early for a get-together. Will bolted out of the car as usual and tore around the yard. She’d clearly been crying, and before I could even ask what the matter was, she threw her hands up and blurted out. “Help me. I have no idea what I am doing. I can’t parent myself, nevermind that one.”

“Oh, Sylvie,” I tried to hug her but she was too far gone.”That’s the thing, someone does have to be in charge.”

“I hate being in charge.”

“I know. But it’s not forever.” I treaded carefully. “You know, your life would be a lot easier if you made a couple of changes. Just structure your days a little.”

She broke down again. “People keep telling me that, like I actually know what that means.”

And that’s when it hit me. She hadn’t structured or disciplined anything in Will’s life not because she didn’t want to, but because she didn’t know how. She was from a family of bohemian free–thinkers who had been supported by her grandfather’s genius.They had never been troubled by practical concerns like routines or holding down a job. Asking her to structure Will’s day was like handing her a physics problem when she had no idea what math was. 

We stood and watched Will throw pebbles at my car. “Will you help me?” she said.

“I  can only tell you what works for me.” I said. ‘it’s not like I have the patent on parenting or anything.”

“Please.”

“Okay. Do you think he should be throwing pebbles at my car?”

She shrugged.

“That would be a ‘no’ for me. Why don’t you start by taking a deep breath and tell Will to knock it off.”

“Will, sweetie, don’t do that, baby,’ she crooned. Will ignored her.

“Sylvie? You want my help, right?”

“Yes.”

“Try this.” I took a breath. “KNOCK IT OFF, WILL! ” Startled, Will stopped, his arm cranked back, and stared at me. I looked at Sylvie and she smiled, the tiniest of smiles.

“You okay?’

“Yeah.”

I am usually not one to talk about feeling old or feeling my age. Really, I’m not. I don’t feel much different physically than I did a decade ago, unless of course I try to do some out-of-the ordinary athletic feat. I try not to talk about age, or fall into those easy cliches about age for no reason other than it doesn’t ring true to me personally.

Notice above, I said “usually.” Well, today I am admitting defeat on this topic. It’s been a long time since I chased a toddler all summer and I am feeling it. We have construction going on at a neighbor’s house and Colin loves trucks, so every day I am negotiating all the elements of our lives, plus Colin rushing off down the street to see the backhoe or the dump truck. He is fast, really fast (which is revenge on any former athlete; these are my genes engaging here). His siblings were really fast too, but I was in better shape back then and didn’t mind 20 or 30 sprints down the block each day. Oh sure, we discipline and sternly instruct him to stay with us and all that but if anyone out there has a 21 month old that actually applies this instruction when the big trucks are calling, let me know. He’s crafty, too, because he will ask to ride his trike, and as I pull it out of the garage, he’s off across the grass, a good fifty yards away before I even start running. Of course, I am yelling “Stop!” but I am not one to expect a toddler to stop running once he has hit the street. He sees that open road and whoosh, he’s gone, freedom beckons.

So I sprint, I grab, I lug him back, all 25 pounds of resistant kid, which is a good ab and arm workout but I am feeling it in my back instead. Between tripping in puddles, wallowing in mud, climbing what he shouldn’t climb and tasting what he shouldn’t taste, I am on constant alert. It’s a triathalon of catch/lift/carry, catch/lift carry ten hours a day. In short, he is doing his job of exploring the world but all the lugging and wiping and changing and comforting–and clinging, as he is super clingy right now –by the time I get him in bed, I am useless. Tom can’t get used to seeing me prostrate on the couch. 

“What, are you sick?”

“No, dear, we have a toddler,” I say through gritted teeth, envious that he gets to sit in an adult chair all day. This has been the first summer I have ever longed for the fall semester to start so I can go to work and get some rest. 

Bless my babysitter, that’s all I can say. She’s smart and cheerful and organized — and a lot younger than I am.

Last Friday evening, I sat in the audience of a makeshift concert hall in a school cafeteria. The staff had done an impressive job of rigging lights and speakers, and a rosy glow suffused the “stage” up front where drum kits and line of amps and microphones lay waiting.

Tom walked around entertaining the baby and I checked my watch. I wondered how long this concert was going to last. As much as I support music education and childrens’ recitals, I had been to my share of them, and one can only take about an hour of badly played music. I had no idea what the quality of the music was going to be tonight, but based on the fact that a woman was passing out ear plugs, I knew it would be loud. I like rock and I like it played loud, but was not looking forward to a couple of hours of feedback and screechy electric guitar.

The past week Dex and Neve had been attending band camp –not that kind of band camp, no–a rock’n roll band camp. The instructors grouped the kids into bands according to age and experience, had them write a song, learn it, perfect it and perform it at this concert. They’ve both been taking music lessons for a while, and had both made noises about starting a band, so when Dex found this camp, we all thought it would be a good indication of what working in sync would be like. They loved every minute of their camp day, and rushed home to practice their parts in the basement each night. What they were playing sounded pretty good to me, but I had to factor in five other kids for Neve and seven for Dex, so I didn’t get my hopes up.

I could not have been more wrong. Every single band impressed me. The songs were complex and fun and catchy, the arrangements strong, and every single band was completely in tune and in sync with each other. There were even some truly professional instrumental solos and two singers who, at 15 and 14 respectively, could be fronting a band right now. And as I sat there, head bopping, I thought over and over, look what kids can do. Give them some time and a fun leader, and look at how much they have leaned in a week. The key is, they all wanted to be there, they all loved rock, and they all wanted to perform. It was a  meeting of minds, a grouping of passion, not a “my parents are making me play violin” sort of agonized performance.  They played with joy and abandon, they lived in the moment, and most importantly, they worked as a team and were all communicating with each other silently, working off each other’s body language. And, for a few minutes anyway, they got to feel larger than life. 

And I got to bask in the glow of their joy. Definitely one of the highlights of my summer.