My sons are in Tigers class in taekwondo. They have been at it for a while, and have earned a few new belts and patches. Their current patch is, in fact, a Tiger.
These boys must earn three black stripes per session to advance to the next belt.
My boys are, as my husband says, all boy.
Their listening skills, my father might say, leave much to be desired.
When I was a single mom to them, I would think to myself, I’m doing the best I goddamn can with what I have to work with.
There is only one of me, and there are three of you, I would say to them.
I love that they are wholly who they are everywhere they go. But they are loud. They are boisterous. Curious, is a nice word people sometimes use.
And now I have a husband. Perhaps I should better have it together, I think, having a husband.
It was down to the wire this last session, wherein both my twins had only earned two black stripes with one day left.
My husband took the boys — his stepsons — this last Tuesday, which was good because I may have had an aneurism. I want so badly for them to earn this. I want so badly for them to learn the lessons in taekwondo, to learn integrity and honesty and strength and commitment.
It’s about me, I think, in the grips of what might be a panic attack. This fear I have that they will feel left out, that they will feel less than. I feel like the world will crumble around me if they don’t get these belts. They’ll believe themselves not capable of doing well, I think they’ll spiral, they’ll develop a core belief that they, they themselves, are bad.
They will associate taking longer to reach an accomplishment with badness.
And I never want them to believe they are bad.
There has to be somewhere in between where I teach them to finish things they start, I think. But where I’m not so harsh as to also teach them accomplishment is only associated with goodness.
But maybe this is just me talking to myself.
Llew earns his third stripe, and so does Cooper.
The first time my stomach swelled, pregnant with the twins, stretch marks formed deep and red across my stomach. The tiny tears in the skin. Abundantly red, across that rounded belly.
Before I get in the shower, I see these stripes, faded white.
To have earned her stripes, I think.
I watch my children playing in the pool. Maybe I have too many children to wear a bikini, I think. I try not to stare at these stripes, but I see them. But I am not ashamed.
God, I think, have I ever earned these stripes.
My sons stand barefoot on the taekwondo mat. Earlier they had demonstrated their skills. “A-ya!” they had called, following the sequence.
After all the children have followed the sequence, instructor calls the parents to the mat.
We remove their previous belt, the one with just the orange stripe across the center.
Because of a mix-up outside our control, my husband is outside.
My mother, also attending the graduation, joins me on the mat. I have the baby in a carrier on my chest. We untie their old belts, drape their old belts around their necks. We tie their new belt. This time, the boys have also earned an orange hachimaki with a picture of a cartoon Tiger on it. We tie the headbands, and the boys try to pull them off to look at them.
Good job boys, we say to them. And when I look up, my husband is now back in the room, the timing off, just barely off, off enough to have missed the part he desperately wanted to be a part of. Instead, he is watching the boys walk off the mat with their new belts.
Wow, he says to them, enthusiastically and with pride, but he is hurt. There is nothing anyone could have done, we agree, but dammit, we were about thirty seconds off.
These little strip-ed Tigers, I say.
When I was a little girl, I had a cloth bedtime book by Mister Rogers called Daniel Striped Tiger Gets Ready for Bed. Maybe it was called a bath book. I believe that’s why it was cloth.
Daniel brushed his teeth, put on his jammies. He thought about today, and then he thought about tomorrow. He may have prayed, although I don’t ever recall Mister Rogers directly calling it prayer. More like, just looking at the stars and saying, please, and thank you.
Mister Rogers. A Pisces. Our baby Abigail, also a Pisces. I know screentime isn’t good before they’re one but God I love the way her face lights up when the Daniel Tiger theme song begins.
“Boys, come here,” I call to Cooper and Llew. “Come here, my little strip-ed Tigers,” I say to them.
I hand them their old belts, the ones with just the orange stripe, and hand them their new belts, the ones with the black Tiger stripes.
“Parent, come to the front,” I say.
In our foyer, crumbs on the floor. It’s poorly lit, the blinds closed in an attempt to lower our cooling bill this summer.
The boys are giggling, because what is the purpose of this ceremony. They aren’t even wearing their uniforms. Cooper is wearing a Lego t-shirt, and Llew a Pokemon T-shirt.
My husband ties these new belts, these striped belts, tightly around their waists. Their T-shirts crease.
“Now give your parents a hug,” we say.
The boys hug my husband, their stepdad.
“Thank you,” he says.
It is silly and maybe even dumb, but this: this private ceremony.
“Now give your belts back to your mom,” my husband says.
I reach to help untie the belts, but Cooper and Llew both say “I can do it myself,” and pull at the knotted belt around their waist.
Beautifully written as always