I Am Old

I am not the kind of person who fears getting older.  Hitting 30 was not a trauma, I welcomed it.  Of course, I had already pretty much hit my milestones by then.  I built a successful career (and then walked away from it, which was kind of fun, too).  I got married (for the first time so far) and had kids.  In fact, by the time I hit 30, I was good. I celebrated with pink hair extensions.  No sadness there.  Each year after that has been just an other candle on the cake.  After all, getting older sure beats the alternative, right?  But, suddenly as I am within weeks of 35, I am feeling O L D.

I am not sure its even the date that is morphing my Google searches from combat boots to orthopedic shoes, but the fact that I feel old.  I am the oldest 34 year 50 week old on the planet.  Case in point (or points):

• My birthday and Christmas wish list for my parents and husband includes a Shark Steam Mop and a Dustbuster.  Hello, Middle Age.  My name is Lynn, but at least I'll be clean.
• I have plantar fasciitis.  While that is a foot thingy, it just sounds like the scientific term for "old."
• When I stand from a seated position, there is a cacophony of sounds from creaking ankles, cracking knees, and a guttural groan from the exertion.
• I seriously look forward to the days where I can wear elastic waist pants (but I blame it on work.)
• When my friends came over on Halloween with their little baby, I spent a great deal of time discussing my ulcer and trying to determine if my friend has one, too.  Once you stop talking current events and gossip and start comparing ailments, its all down hill from there.
• I have gone from being the youngest in the group, be it at work or the neighborhood, to not.  I work with a 24 year old and my next door neighbor is one, too.  For those of you doing the math, I am a decade older than my peers.  So, when I talk to my friend about how I was in middle school when she was graduating college.... there are now people who can say that to me!  TO ME!!!!

So, the long and the short of it is that I'm old.  I am turning 35 and I am moving like an old person, shopping like an old person, talking like an old person.  I am an old person.  And, if I am this old at only 35...  God help us all when I hit 40!

Bunco

Every month I get together with a group of women to play Bunco.  Its a funny thing, because number one, they all joked about me blogging about them last night and now I am doing it  and two, because when I was first invited, I scoffed about it.  I thought it was a game for old ladies and I didn't know most of the other women well, if at all.  I am not a good "make new friends-er" and I was hesitant to join the group.  But, my desire to abandon my husband and children for the night won out and I went.  

There is absolutely no reason why this group works.  We are all women who live in the same neighborhood, but the similarities stop there.  I am a pretty liberal lady, and the woman who started the group is anything but.  Last night's hostess was an animal lover to put it mildly with three rescued dogs, some number of cats and rumor has it there was a guinea pig in the house somewhere.  Others were cringing at the furry visitors as they came by.  There are mothers, marrieds, singles, divorcees, grandmothers, career professionals, stay home moms, public schoolers, home schoolers, health nuts and some are just plain nuts.  But, we come together on the second Friday of the month and we play a silly little dice game of luck and we talk... and we laugh... and we learn from each other anything from recipes to health plans to how to get my new dog to stop pooping upstairs.

It is odd to think that a group like ours could forge friendships with people who have nothing in common, but it did.  We are a melting pot of women who don't get together and worry about competing.  We cheer the other team as they score higher points and the usual female cattiness is left at the door.  Its a weird thing, this Bunco.  Its brought together a group of neighbors and turned us into friends.  Maybe the world would be a better place if there was a little more Bunco going on.

I Don't Drink From A Glass

You know that inane cliché of someone being a glass half empty or a glass half full kind of person?  Well, I am not that person.  My glass isn't half empty and its not half full.  In fact, I drink mostly out of a Diet Coke can that you can't even see inside.  I don't know if its half empty, three quarters full or a sip left.  I know that its a soda.  When I open it, its full.  Then I drink it.  Then when its gone, its empty.  That's my can.  Rinse. Recycle. Repeat.

I'm not an optimist, pessimist, or anesthesiologist.  I have no ist at all.  If I had to add an ist to my personality, I guess I'd be called a realist.  I tend to look at things as they are.  I don't add in a hopeful rose colored view and I don't doomsday it to death either.  It is what it is.  React accordingly.  When something goes amok (a word my mother embraces for most things), I try to live by the philosophy of "don't panic until there's something to panic about."  Deal with the problem, move on.  I don't stick my head in the ground and Ethel Merman "every thing's coming up roses" either.  I have no roses.  Well, that's not true.  I planted a rose bush about a month ago.  But, I'm not sure its going to survive my black thumb.  That's not cynicism, mind you, that's reality.  The Jolly Green Giant, I am not.

Nine times out of ten, any comment from me either written on a social media site or coming out of my mouth is an attempt to get a laugh.  I tend to blurt out sarcastic nothings rather than serious somethings because I like the laugh.  I'm a regular Jim Carrey, minus the facial expressions and paycheck.  The reality is negativity gets more laughs.  Does that mean I am negative?  No.  It means the response is funnier that way.  Does it paint me in the best light to announce to the Facebook world that my bra snapped open in Meijer and I had to tuck the twins into my waistband and slump out of the store?  No.  But was that damn funny?  YES.  Should anything funny be shared with the world even though its embarrassing?  YES YES.  If it made someone laugh that day, then it was worth it to share my humiliation. 

So, that's just a little bit of me.  I look at the world and all of its happenings as it is.  Sometimes negative, half empty and full of weeds.  Sometimes positive, half full and full of flowers.  All times worth the joke if you can make it.

Letter to Will's Second Grade Teacher

I wrote to Will's first grade teacher, his Kindergarten teacher, and his first preschool teacher.  Tomorrow, my not so little man walks into his elementary school for the third year.  Second grade.  It's time for another letter.

Dear Miss K,

Let me introduce you to my son, Will. I know you already know him since he is hard to miss, but, I am pretty sure you don't really know him.  So, I am going to take a minute to introduce you to my boy. 

Will is a kid who will love you at first sight.  In fact, he has hoped for you to be his teacher all summer, so really, the love has already started.  He is excited to see all the kids, and every single one of them will be referred to as his "best friend."  With that, comes great potential to hurt.  He will be deflated when criticized.  Heartbroken when ostracized.  He is love and pain wrapped up in one.

He is no perfectionist.  He will write sloppily because it gets done faster that way. He won't read words, but will guess what a page says because its quicker.  His mind will wander while you teach, no matter how interesting you may be.  He's a do-er.  He's not a sitter.  He's not meticulous or careful. He's a bull in a china shop and rushed to do everything so he misses out on nothing.  But, he will hold himself to an insanely high standard.  He will be crushed by poor grades, despises missing baskets, and often opts to quit something if he thinks he can't do it. He wants perfection, but he's not going to work for it.

Will's smart, but goofy.  Happy, but easily dismayed.  He's loud, but sensitive to noise.  He's a million different things and then the complete opposite in one.  He's both ying and yang, up and down, back and front.  He's a little of everything and a lot of somethings.  He's Will.  He loves you and the class and is super excited, but if you ask him, he hates school.  He's so very many things these days, so just be sure to see it all.  Like Will, you're not going to want to miss a thing!

Thanks!
Me  

The Joy Less Club

I live for my kids.  I do.  When Will was born, I say I made a decision to stay home, but it wasn't even that logical.  It wasn't a choice.  It was a need.  A must.  The first day I spent with him, I knew I was never going back.  The day before he was born, I had the daycare all picked out.  The day after, I knew.  It wasn't happening.  That was almost seven years ago. 

Don't get me wrong.  I love my kids, and not just in a "they are yours so you have to" kind of way, but a lay down and die for them, take a bullet for them, beware if you hurt them because you'll feel my wrath kind of way. But, I find myself sitting at my desk today tracking responses to Will's birthday party invitations, organizing my VBS stuff, scheduling my next Cub Scout pack meeting, and remembering that PTO elections are tomorrow, and I wonder.... where is my joy?  I may be in a slump, or it may be just that this time of year is over scheduled and emotionally hard....  but I have lost my joy and I can't seem to find it.

My calendar is packed.  My days are full.  Its not that I am wandering around lonely or with nothing to do... but there are days that I sit back and wonder... what do I want to do?  Do I do this because I want to, or because I made the choice to be a stay home mom and this comes with the territory.  Is this a life of want or necessity?  Should I be taking joy in it?  Does everyone have joy or is that too much to expect?  Am I overlooking all of my blessings?

Mother's Day was a prime example.  I don't know what I was expecting, but maybe a sense of feeling like "this is it."  This is why I do what I do.  They appreciate it, we have joy as a family.  But, my expectations were too high and the day was like any given Sunday.  Church, lunch, chores, dinner, bedtime.  The gifts were nice, but just the little things I mentioned to make it easy to buy stuff.  Its not like I was waiting for a BMW to magi-ppear in my driveway with a  big red bow, but I guess I needed that feeling of "yes, this is worth it."  It doesn't even have to come in a gift bag.  It can be as small as a Jack cuddle or a Will hug (which is actually anything but little).  Something to make me know that I am doing a good job.  I would get joy from that, I think. 

I think I am just in a slump, and as Dr. Seuss so elegantly puts it, "unslumping yourself is not easily done."  I'm trying to get there.  I'm trying to look at the day with the eyes of someone who takes joy from the little things...from living the life that I chose.  But, as I look at my agenda of garage sale prep and laundry....  I'm not sure I have the rose colored glasses I need for that right now.

The Reality of Their Childhood

I was in high school when the Oklahoma City bombing happened.  I remember being in keyboarding class with the very German named Mrs. Schottenstraussenburg or something like that, and she was so upset.  I remember hearing about it and learning it was Timothy McVeigh, and I remember a trial and a conviction.  But, I don't remember being affected.  He was on death row and it wouldn't happen again.

I was in college when Columbine happened.  I watched the news horrified, but I didn't internalize it.  I didn't fear that it would happen again.  They were dead and it was over.

I was a working adult when 9/11 happened.  I was terrified.  I was affected.  I internalized.  I knew it could happen again.  I knew it wasn't over.

Now, as I watch the coverage of what happened in Boston yesterday, I am realizing something.  My kids will never grow up the way I did.  I don't just mean a world without cell phones and Kimye, I mean a world without terrorism.  Tabbi was only two when 9/11 happened.  She will never live in a world where you don't go through airport security barefoot.  Will, 6,  knows about Sandy Hook.  He will always attend school where the drills are not just fire and tornado, but stranger in the building, too.  And Jack, yesterday, learned what a bomb is.  Not just something on a video game, but a real thing that is not just limited to war zones, but can be on our streets.  That's the reality of their childhood.

That makes me angry.  I am angry that my kids know the depths of evil that people are capable of.  I am angry that people, foreign and domestic, think that killing innocent people somehow proves whatever point they are trying to make, and that my kids could grow up more aware of Al-Qaeda or James Holmes than Ghandi and Nelson Mandela.

I am angry at those who make my kids lose a little bit of their youthful innocence every time this happens.  And, I am angry that the evil cowards who choose these actions don't realize the things that I have learned....

You aren't a martyr, but you create them.  You martyr the innocent 8 year old boy that you killed yesterday.  The boy who was waiting for his daddy at the finish line.  Christina Taylor Green, the 9 year old girl who died in the attack on Gabby Giffords, will never be forgotten.  But, the man who shot her?  I don't know your name.  You're nothing.

You aren't seen as a hero.  Osama Bin Laden ran into caves and compounds and hid from the world like a scared weak mouse.  But the heroes, they ran into those engulfed buildings and they tried to get people out.  Heroes aren't hiding behind the bombings yesterday praying they don't get caught.  Heroes carried the wounded out of the chaos.  Heroes held the hand of a total stranger whose legs were gone.  Heroes are providing medical care, and hunting you down.  You're not a hero, but man... you created a lot of them.

You didn't break us.  I can't remember a time where I've seen more American flags and a stronger united country than I did on September 12th, 2001.  And, it kept going for quite awhile.  But, politics and opinions and elections get in the way, and suddenly we find ourselves divided again.  And so you strike.  You strike at a country who isn't unified under a single goal, but were you the last straw that cracks us apart forever?  No.  You're glue.  You unified a country again, and awoke a sleeping beast.  There is nothing stronger than this country's desire to protect and fight for our own.  Instead of breaking us, you walked right into the eye of the storm.  You volunteered to be the common enemy that we will hunt down like a rabid dog.  It may take awhile, and you may think you're safe.  But, you're not.  We will find you, and when we do, the wrath of a unified country strong in its conviction and dedicated to these martyrs and heroes will come down on you the likes of which you cannot imagine.

My kids may live in a world where terrorism exists, but it comes with a world of real life super heroes.  When we talk about it, we will talk about the heroes more than the villains.  The bad people will choose to do what they do, and the good... they will do what they do, too.  They will be the teachers hiding their students in the closet and keeping them quiet and safe.  They will be the firemen running full speed into the burning buildings.  They are our military men and women battling the roots of evil and defending our way of life.  They are the every day strangers using the shirts off their backs to stem the bleeding.  Like Mr. Rogers says, "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”  So, if you're going to make my kids live in a world where these things exist, I can't stop it.  But, they'll know the helpers and heroes are here, too.

Confessions of a Crappy Mom...

I was just on Facebook getting some work done (also known as procrastinating) and I saw this cheesy "love your kids" post. It was one of those Facebook equivalents of the chain letter where you have to share or your cat will die, your mom will get Shingles, God will hate you and your head explodes.  This one was about daughters.  If you love your daughter and will give your life for her and will die for her and will save every hair that clogs your shower drain because you have to be near her that bad, blah blah pukety blah... 

Rather than sharing it, instead it made me wonder.  Am I the only one who gets freaking annoyed by the clogs in the drain?  And this isn't just daughters, I mean all children.  Based on the majority of my Facebook friends, either I am the worst mom in the world, they have way better kids than mine, or... they are big, fat liars.  Because while I love my children and would give my life for them... sometimes, I want to duct tape their mouths shut and lock them in a closet.  Is that wrong?

Here's some more evidence...

I got annoyed at my six year old this weekend, because he has a stomach bug that keeps coming and going.  He'd be fine, then he'd puke all over my floor.  Rather than coddle and clean like I know a good mother would, I would heave a hefty sigh of irritation and just stare at it and him for awhile.

I volunteered to run to the grocery store Wednesday night at 7:30 and though I only had 4 things on my list, I put in my ear buds and listened to Pandora while I wandered Kroger aimlessly so I didn't have to come home.

I skipped Will's before school reading program on Friday because I didn't want to get out of bed and take him.

Both my boys tend to do dangerous and stupid things, and I usually pause to take a picture of it before telling them to stop.

Sometimes when any two of the three are fighting, I pretend to not hear it and assume it is Darwinian "survival of the fittest" if the fight continues.

Sometimes when I am driving and the girl is in the car doing her make up and I'm annoyed that she was super late to leave and still not ready, I'll hit the brakes to make her lip gloss smear.

....And those are just the ones I thought of off the top of my head.