Why Old Moms Tell New Moms, "Enjoy Them While You Can!"

In the days when venturing out happened with a bitty one snuggled into a front carrier and two more just as bitty in my double stroller, older moms would pass me and glance with longing. "Ahhh, I miss those days. Enjoy them while you can! They grow up before you know it!," they would sigh a warning as their eyes misted over.

As if I hadn't been hearing that since first becoming a mother.

I knew what the older moms were saying was true, in fact, children do grow up. Of course they do, but it didn't feel like that was something that was going to happen in my life any time soon. When you're drowning in the endless days of motherhood, how do you even digest advice like that?

From the moment my oldest child was born, I was his favorite being. Only I would do. When he was five days old, I walked into his room and just at the sound of my voice, his eyes began searching out. Followed by the cry for me, the wail, actually. He had such an enveloping need for me that my husband would have to lift him up and hold him overhead to see me when I disappeared behind the shower curtain, trying for a shower for the first time in days.

I couldn't take it anymore and my husband's shoulders started breaking down so one day at the discount homegoods store when I saw a see-through shower curtain, I knew I had the answer to our sanity. Now everyone could see me in my full naked glory, just like they all screamed for. My child could not live without me remaining in his sight, I was that essential to his survival.

 

My son and I lived a co-existence, one rightly filled with highs and lows. It was hard to tell where I left off and he began. At three years old, when I would ask him what he wanted for lunch, he'd answer, “What mama have!” I was submerged in motherhood during those days - loving him so, and at the same time, falling apart with the fear that things would always be this consuming. 

 

I didn't know about the seasons of parenting. Just as with his finger sucking, that I thought would last forever. And his climbing on chairs and falling off onto the kitchen hardwood floor, his determined screams of refusal when it was time to take a nap and therefore be separated from me ... I thought each one a static condition, and eternal.

 

But life is fluid, dynamic, and though we see children growing up when they belong to other people, it is impossible for us to imagine that tomorrow comes for us. Will our own children not always be an infant, a toddler, a child in grade school? Nope.

So when that same baby of mine, who once imagined that the oxygen he needed to breathe could only come from me, left for college and found his own air, I couldn't find mine. It turned out he was right, because now I'm the one searching for how to breathe without him here.

The memories I have of holding his small body in my arms are some of the sweetest in my life, but I never thought the moments would end this quickly. When did he grow up? Because I had my eye on him the whole time, and I watched for changes.

 

The days slipped by because children don't grow up little by little, they do it overnight. You go from leaning down to snap their size 2T onesies to standing in front of them, your arms reaching up as you help them with their tie on graduation day. Like that.

Childhood is temporary, even on the days it feels permanent.

Older moms on the bike path who would pass me with reminders of the whooshing of the days, I would hear them, I would. But how could I tell them Thanks for the reminder I know you mean well but it doesn't feel like the half-second that you remember it as because I am knee deep in the seasons of babyhood.

You have to be at the far end of anything before you can look back. That's the only way it works. How can you see your starting point if you're not at the finish line? In those days of early parenting, when women feel it their duty to tell you, “Enjoy every bit of it!,” I didn't want to reflect on that.

Because I just wanted one freakin' second to myself.
Because those days of early parenting are trial by error/ baptized by the flaming hot fire/flying by the seat of your pants.

 

No one can tell you what those days are like because you have no point of reference. Loving those minutes so much that every thought is about your children, their well being, what they need, do they have it all? The other half of your body and soul are falling apart while you watch. How do you explain to a parent that both ends of the spectrum are part of life with children? That you can't untangle either one and would they believe you, if you tried? 

 

That's why “Enjoy them when they're little!” doesn't work. I want to say it myself, to so many new moms, but I catch myself and swallow the words because I know. Just as when it was said to me, the woman with three children hanging from her neck like necklaces, it's impossible to project that far out with little chubby fingers waving in front of your face. When your days are made of four-hour sleep the night before and your lunch is left-over finger food from toddler's plates while you stand at the sink rinsing something out for the twenty-ninth time that day, who's going to believe, "Enjoy it while you can!"

 

Had you told me that one day this 20-pound baby of mine sitting on my husband's shoulders, red faced from screaming on the other side of the shower curtain for his mama while I for the love of God took just a three-minute shower for the first time in five days for God's sake, would today be half an inch shy of six feet tall and grabbing for the car keys, I'd tell you that happens to someone else's child -- but not mine. Mine will always need me there in front of his vision, won't he?

 

If I could say anything to new parents, it would be this: Smile when you can, cry when you have to, and know that where you are now, is part of the beautiful seasons of your life.

 

You don't need me to tell you to enjoy them while you can.

I have no doubt that you already are, and know how -- in your own way.

 

Just like I did.

 

 

What You End Up Saying Instead of I Love You

It would be perfect: I had memorized every word the night before. Actually, more like the early morning of. At 2:19 a.m., I knew exactly what I was going to say and do when we dropped off our oldest son at college the next day.

I would stand before him, like the Virgin Mary. Offering gentle outstretched hands with my head leaning just slightly to the side, I would pull my child in close. Reaching up to smooth his hair, his trusting eyes would search out mine. I would smile with the peaceful restraint of someone who had just been drugged and sigh, "My beautiful baby boy. How proud we are of you, how well you will do this year. We love you so!" Then we would share a brief but meaningful hug with the end goal being lasting just long enough to cement the moment. His arms over mine, I would whisper, "Goodbye, my son!" I would then turn, no looking back, and walk to our minivan, on firm--not Jello--legs. And then, it would be over. Goodbye with a noble chin up like Margaret Thatcher.

Ha!

Wednesday's college drop-off went like this: Our son walks us to the car. We knew it was the goodbye. My resolve is to gift him with the reassuring calm of our love and wisdom. What sprang forth instead, was:

Use single-ply for toilet paper because double-ply plugs. You have to sleep or you'll start to feel depressed. Make sure you smile back so you look happy to be here. Never put your drinking cups mouth side down on counters because so many germs. Wash your hands because other people wipe their butts and they never wash their hands. I've seen it.

He tried to step away for air as I made his neck into a lifesaver.

Did that stop my brilliance? Nope. I shout directions like I did that night almost two decades ago when we first left him with a babysitter.

Clenching him by his shirt, I start anew:

Don't lend money. Look over your shoulder when you walk home alone at night and do not walk home with earbuds in so you can hear if someone is following you. Eat protein or you'll feel depressed. Always take a shower because it's like a miracle. So is a new shirt, so let me know and I'll send you some. Good posture and a good haircut save many a day.

Then I fall full-face into my son, in the same desperate way that he would try to crawl back up into my arms and out of his small plastic bathtub when he was four months old.

I couldn't stop. My voice muffled by his chest, I continue.

Read labels so you know what you're eating. In your white plastic bin are three bottles of vitamins and calcium each, take them. Change your toothbrush when it's splayed. Drink water. Keep a hat--earmuffs aren't the same--in your backpack. And an umbrella--because chills and rain come out of nowhere in Wisconsin. Move five minutes for every hour of sitting. If you think you need to go to the health clinic, don't think, go.

I force down the lump rising in my throat. I don't know why I am on this mission, but I am. I caw, Purell. Wet socks are bad. Be sure and see some blue and green every day, because scurvy is real.

All the while I am spouting verses that sound like Mother Goose, the real message has yet to happen. My beautifully rehearsed golden college send-off speech that I am determined to carry out.

It's now or never for the final goodbye, so I square my shoulders and step back. I open my mouth to bestow my practiced pearls of love and wisdom upon my son, and I hear a crackled glottal fry worse than a Kardashian fill the air.

Suddenly, streams. No, rivers. Waterfalls. I lunge for my son and a flood of tears that would not stop soak his shirt while I am back to swinging from his neck like a weighted pendulum. I try to break through but the moment swallows me up and I am croaking like a frog.

Never has my voice disappointed me more.

"Mom," my son asks, sounding genuinely puzzled. "Why are you crying?"

He asks me so simply, as if words could answer. I squeeze my eyes and hide my face in his neck. I pull on both his shoulders and want him to know that I just need him to do all these things I've sputtered at him like someone who has five minutes to blow up fifty balloons.

I can't be here anymore to make sure he does everything so I need him to.
I need him to listen to this manual on how to care for himself and all these things I've thrown at him will keep him safe, sound, healthy, happy.
I have taken care of him his entire life, and now, I won't be here to do it.
He has to be the one to make sure he arrives home every night.
Without earbuds in.

Because this beautiful baby boy, the one we are so proud of, the one who is going to do so well, we love him so much.

And if there was a google translator that he could plug in to make sense of my, "Wash your hands because others don't and earmuffs are not the same as a hat," it would tell him with 100 percent accuracy, "Your mama loves you so much it leaves her stupid."

* * *

 

*Special thanks to my dear friend who is walking this path with me, Peyton Price of Suburban Haiku, for providing the inspiration for this post. Times like this, friends carry us. 

Dear College Freshman Child

Yaaaaaasssss... perfect!

Dear Son:

You've been away at college for five nights now. We miss you but are thrilled for this new chapter in your life. I mean, we all knew you were ready for this step, busting at the seams of this parent/child role was something we all felt. We miss you 'round the clock and your siblings left back home really feel the loss of your presence, especially on family outings. They asked me to write you a letter so that you would know just how much life sucking fun you've been missing.

No need for us to go into the Costco trip you missed Friday morning when your dad came home with gas can sized containers of corn oil that we have piled up against the sink, I mean -- those are just incidental happenings.

No, your brothers want you to know about the #deeplife that is going on this Labor Day weekend. Like today.

Today was the day your dad decided to relive moments of his boyhood. Your brothers explained it to me this way, "You have your writing, mom, dad has his days of what once was." And so this is how it came to be that your dad piled us into the family van this morning and set up the GPS, whose directions he ignored most of the drive up (Ms. GPS no longer even pretends to be patient) and we drove the two hours your dad needed to, to get what was once for him the childhood marking of a summer's end.

We went to small town Wisconsin where today was "Cornival Day," so named because three! free ears of corn are promised to everyone in attendance at the Cornival. You know what's weird, Alec? Your dad never mentioned Cornival Day to me. Ev-er. Anyhow, in theory, since there were four of us in attendance (again, we miss you sorely) we could have brought our Trader Joe's canvas bags and had them filled with 12 ears of grilled corn, but since only your dad was interested in end-of-summer symbolic feeding, we just waited in line (like some kind of outer space aliens were feeding us from a truck, but that's just my opinion) for the three ears of the free corn, for him.

Your brother, Xavier, wants you to know that he volleyed back and forth about whether or not to purchase "chips" at a food stand because "chips" for sale on a sign with "chips" written in black marker "quotes" makes for an unsettling description, add to the fact that they came in "all kinds." He paid the 50 cents for the "chips" but ate them "tentatively."

We missed you today. Your father had a grand time reliving Cornival Days gone by, but the rest of us, the three of us, felt out of our realm. I say out of our realm, Auggie describes it as "unbearable air smelling of Spam." 

I was okay with your dad searching out his corn roast memories. Even the full lines at the drive-through liquor stores that we passed on the way into town didn't worry me. Today was an important family excursion for your dad and I think he needed to do this as a way of working through his feelings on you being up and flown. As your brothers said, I have my writing to work through life transitions. I can talk to you like an adult now, Alec, so I'm going to tell you, your dad was working through some shit.

Your brothers were rough on your dad, I'll admit. I knew he was going through some intense thoughtful moments, and maybe your brothers went too far in calling today a "crushed memories and broken corn cob dreams" family outing.

It wasn't that bad. I mean, yes... unfamiliar and something we're not used to. For example, the turkey  sandwiches we purchased were turkey porridge (Auggie called it brain soup for zombies) on store brand hamburger buns BUT all that can be tolerated by simply tossing the wet sandwich away and considering the $3.00 purchase price a donation toward the free cornfestivus corn. 

And there were some unexpected moments of delight -- like Magic Mark who performed magic tricks, silently -- though he wasn't in a mime outfit, while following along and interactively learning with the audience to the DVD Magic For You! that he had playing on a two foot thick TV on a TV tray to his right.

It's all perspective, I explained to your brothers.

Where else could we see Cornival clientele arguing with game booth workers over the number of balloons they popped with a dart, three chances for a dollar, and the size prize they felt they should have received rather than the one they did receive. Life can be a book, or a Twilight Zone episode, that you step into.

You would have enjoyed today's outing, Dear Son. If you talk to your brothers, it was close to but not as awful as they describe it. The "chips" were tolerable. With your dad paying no mind to the chattering of the GPS, we found our way home. Your family survived this Labor Day without you. More than anything, we missed you.

We made your dad happy today, though there was a moment that we caught him wistful -- almost as if he expected someone to recognize him from 40 years ago. But we returned home, no worse for wear.

Although Auggie says that today made him hate corn forever.

 

* * *

More News from The Nervous Parents Gazette

My firstborn started college this week and I am cycling through these phases of him being away like a pro.

After sending my son a text as soon as I woke up this morning, I haven't heard back. Rather than busying myself with daily life until he responds, I'm going to do what I do best. What I gold star in. 

I'm assuming he's in danger. 

I don't play around with this Nervous Parent stuff. It's my style. As a little girl, I would wring my hands over my baby Chihuahua, Pepe, whenever he'd shove the food around in his dish with his  nose. I knew just what his actions meant -- that this was the beginning of the end and that he was never going to eat again. 

Being on the homefront while the first of your baby birds has left the nest is no simple task for the nervous parent. We're not like the rest of you, and either you'll pick up when I'm puttin' down here, or you'll just send me links to articles from Psychology Today with titles like 50 Ways That Nervous Parents Destroy Their Children. And then you'll sign your email, "I say this because I love you, have you sought professional help?"

I've heard it all. I'm no stranger to the nonsense that worry is. And yet, I've made it into a hobby, a past time, and a mental game of ping pong that bruises my brain into the size of The Great Gazoo.

This is how a day in the life of a nervous parent goes when their son's first day away from home, is today: 

6:30 a.m. My eyes popped open. Had to text my son or I couldn't sleep. He needed to save the receipts from the books he was going to buy today. Sent him text.

6:32 a.m. Lie back down. Await quick response back.

7:00 a.m. Unable to fall back asleep. Decide instead to imagine son slipped on water that roommate spilled on floor night before and now son has been lying unconscious since 3 a.m. with roommate snoring and unaware only two feet away. 

7:39 a.m. Cursing myself for not telling son he needs to respond to texts with "Yes I'm alive." It's all I need, just a confirmation of being alive.

8:19 a.m. Try to eat a yogurt. Can't. Yogurt triggers panic that son didn't check expiration date on his yogurt so grabbed dairy botulised yogurt while sleep walking and now lying unconscious from food poisoning, only two feet away from roommate. 

8:42 a.m. Visualize son walking to breakfast this morning when man in white windowless van pulled up and asked him for directions. When polite son leaned in to answer, man grabbed son's head by the neck and pulled him into said van and sped away. Enhance scene with details of van without license plates, making said perp unable to be identified. Like ever.

9:23 a.m. Sit on hands, thereby disenabling myself from calling campus police to check on son.

10:09 a.m. Thinking perhaps son played early morning game of basketball. When basket made, he disturbed a hornet's nest with over 200 wasps inside. While running away to escape hornets, son tripped on untied shoe lace and is now in student health center, unable to give nurse in attendance my phone number so I can be alerted to son's status. 

10:56 a.m. Thinking how it's almost 11 a.m. There is no text back. Reason must be that phone charger burst into flames like that story on FB this morning from China about the smoking phone charger.

11:16 a.m. Thinking son went to find a church, as I had suggested. Church was charming, but a charismatic cult. Now my son is being held until he speaks in tongues. Hoping son speaks in language that says "Call my mother!"

12:04 p.m. Thinking son was followed by a disoriented older woman who mistakenly believes my son is her son. He's my son. I need to drive there and tell woman this important bit of information but first I need to find birth certificate for proof.

12:47 p.m. Thinking son accepted a FB friend request from someone's hijacked account and now he's on his way to meet who he thinks is someone from grade school but is actually this crazed woman who still believes my son is her son. 

1:17 p.m. Thinking someone on son's dorm floor brought in left over fireworks from the fourth of July. And they set them off in my son's dorm room.

2:10 p.m. Positive son's phone exploded in his pocket like that post about that kid in California that someone posted on FB this morning.

3:12 p.m. Son must be sleeping. He's been sleeping all day because he has sleeping sickness from a tsetse fly. No matter that this hasn't happened in America since 1966.

4:09 p.m. I call husband at work. Husband doesn't have a chance to talk because I do all the talking. I talk-convince myself that if anything had happened, son's school would have called me. Before hanging up the phone, I thank husband for wise advice.

5:05 p.m. No other explanation other than son must be lost. Due to amnesia from being hysterically blinded from homesickness. Chastise myself for encouraging and enabling strong mother/son bond that he misses me to this degree.

5:48 p.m. Try to eat dinner. Only able to take liquid nourishment. Sigh and accept loss of appetite. Wanted to lose 8-12 lbs anyway.

6:10 p.m. Decide to go for walk to relieve agitation. Halfway into walk, I receive a vision. It is of my son falling out of loft bed due to night time confusion over new surroundings. Race home, heart pounding.

7:15 p.m. Hear husband's phone ding. It's text from son. Son says "busy day. bought books. went for 4 mile run. met with friends and on way to bonfire. having a great time. "

7:17 p.m. I ask husband to text son back, tell him sorry I haven't had a chance to call all day. Glad he's having fun, if I have time, I'll try to squeeze a call in tomorrow.

7:26 p.m. Doing dinner dishes, heart begins to race. Wishing I had discussed importance of bonfire safety before son left for college.

 

 * * *    

Not So Wordless Sunday -- He Graduates

Remember to enjoy the ride, everyone -- there are some heart-bursting moments in there.

xo

 

* * * 

Last Day

I'm trying to sleep tonight, but a lump in my throat keeps me awake. Tomorrow, is here. The morning that I've put out of my head, preferring to not think about, has come. I'll drive my oldest son to school today for the last time. After that, he leaves in just ten weeks for his own life. I shake my head at the unreality of reality and keep saying to myself, 18 years? That was no 18 years  -- someone's lying.  

Life overwhelms me right now. The feelings of love and attachment too large to contain that they push against my heart and throat. I try to keep them in this week and they look for any way out, springing tears from my eyes or making the sound of my voice like a tight string. As if I'm girding up against a watershed of emotion that will flatten me. 

Today is his last day of school from a place where he's been every morning that I've woken up. I am disoriented, muddled, in the daze of a new land. I am proud, thrilled, intoxicated, delighted, grateful, honored, at having been his mother. 

This morning is like that day when he was first placed in my arms, swaddled tight, and it felt like a ceremony. Like the world was trusting me with the most important thing on the planet. The warmth and weight of him surprised me. I looked down at his face, so in love with him, wanting to say

I'm your mom
You're my son

My mouth opened and closed, croaking out nothing, only tasting the salt of my tears instead.

I love you, Alec. I love you, so much. This life passes quickly, though I can't say it sneaks up on us. I've been looking over my shoulder these years, knowing this day was always there. Thank you, my son, this time of you as my little boy, has been the most wonderful of my life.

*Here is the little man above, today:

* * *

I Don't Understand This Weepiness Over High School Graduation

This whole week on the internet, there have been posts, Facebook updates, pinterested pinterests on the woeful parent saying good-bye and good luck to their child moving on from his days at home. Life beyond the four walls you've given them, and their turn to leave our two arms that have held them for so long. There are new beginnings on the wide horizon! And always, these posts end in "hold me" "tears" and "where did my baby go??" Sometimes, they use an interrobang.

I don't get it.

So your child is ready to spread his wings, this is a good thing, right? I mean, this is evidence that we've been successful, no failure to launch at this house! All of us had that as our goal.

The first time our son mowed the lawn at this house, he looked like this:

 

And now he looks like this:

 

When we moved into our house, our dark-haired boy looked like this:

 

And this past Christmas, in front of the very same fireplace, we had someone who looked like this:

 

 He stands above me now

when I once could hold him, the entire whole of him, with one arm.



The boy who has always talked of airplanes, flying, of someday being a pilot so much that every year at every fair, the first ride he would run to would be this one:

 

is now getting his dream with an Air Force ROTC scholarship.

Sappiness, nostalgia, poignancy, bittersweet, the march of time. What are people getting verklempt about? You mean going from this?

 

To this?

 

Is that it?

There's a trick to it all, you know. Pretend the days last forever. Go about your way and when his almost 6 foot frame reminds you of the months ticking down until he starts the life you hoped and dreamed for him, find that smile -- practice it in front of a mirror so that you look borderline lunatic. Do it, keep on doing it, until you convince everyone around you.

It's all good. Because it is all good.

If, as I've heard, tears and a lump in your throat that you can't swallow away show up on graduation day, remember it's just part of the beautiful messiness of life, of moments too big to contain, of a world that's been so good to us, why wouldn't there be tears from the joy and excitement?

Looking at these pictures doesn't bother me. Really. They're photos of my life, our life, together. Packed with love that is more than four letters powerful. Of time spent with my son that feels like he's been with me since my own life began. This boy lives in my body, my bones, my heart.

These pictures show you something, but not everything. How does an image capture love, pride, inspiration and gratitude that I have for the days shared with him? *insert interrobang* There's no painful heartbreak, just surreal disbelief of such a good life.

And I'm going to be fine.

That's another trick I've learned to maneuver through these days looming with high school graduation now too real to ignore, my 24-hour mantra, I'm going to be fine.

I love you, my boy. I am so proud when I hear people say as I walk past, "That's Alec's mom."

I think these came to the wrong house.

* * *





How To Get Your Teen To Clean

Last Saturday day, I made my 18-year-old son clean his room. I say Saturday day because that's how long it took. The two of us worked together, side by side, because misery loves company and I'm not a fan of cleaning, myself. I sequestered myself to do the boys' bathroom which looked like a meth lab, and my teen son worked on his bedroom, which looked like the pilot episode for World's Youngest Hoarders.

We began not bright and early -- second cup of coffee o'clock would be more accurate. My goal was to not have to kick clothes out of the way with my foot to make a path past his front door and to accomplish this without me needing a whip and a chair. And no threats. Because what is a threat anyway but just an upside down bribe.

I wanted to get his room clean because I had just read an article about how disorganization can cause stress for teens. What I wanted for my son was for his room to be a sanctuary of retreat, a haven of zen where he would look forward to spending time at the end of the day, and not like his brain had a compound fracture at the sight of it. Long story short, mission accomplished and here's how we did it, minute by longest minute on earth, minute:

9:03 a.m.
I walk past the room. It looks pretty bad. I didn't think it would be this bad.

9:21 a.m.
Spend quiet time over cereal, talking to son, follow him back upstairs after breakfast.

9:32 a.m.
Act surprised at the condition of the room, "Oh my gosh! Wow. Look at this. Looks like things got out of hand. And the bathroom! Well, we'd better get busy, if we wait until we feel like it then we'll never feel like it." (This I know my son relates to because, apple, tree)

9:37 a.m.
Son mmhhmms, then wanders into room and plops on bed to listen to music to get him ready for the day. I rubber glove up and begin with the toilet seat in the boys' bathroom.

9:49 a.m.
Time for son's music to have done its day prepping. I tell him so.

9:57 a.m.
Son with music still on ears, that's okay, I can deal. I'll just shout and point. His first job is to make the bed. I extend my index finger toward the rumpled sheets and hope he sees the possibility of a miracle is in his hands.

10:03 a.m.
Mission underway, he sees the vision, too, and Houston we have lift off! While he grabs the blankets scattered around the bed frame, I tackle the bathtub with something deceptively called Soft Scrub which still makes me scrub hard. I leave him with the job of the bed, and a pat on the back to prove team work.

10:05 a.m.
He stops mid blanket toss and runs downstairs for a fruit roll-up break. I don't say a word and ask him to save me a quarter inch.

10:09 a.m.
I wait four minutes and then I call downstairs, "FRUIT ROLL-UP BREAK OVER!" Some mumbling and muttering but he bounds back upstairs two steps at a time. Needs to rest on bed to let "sugar enter his blood stream."

10:39 a.m.
Blood sugar is stabilized and he works on making the bed. I'm still working on floor in boys' bathroom. We are humming along.

11:00 a.m.
Teen son notices it's 11:00 and tells me his body is used to lunch at this time because of school schedule. He runs downstairs and has 18 chicken tenders, 4 glasses of apple juice, 1 Arizona iced tea, and a bowl of raspberries, still frozen. He has to rest on sofa, he tells me his stomach "sloshes" when he moves.

11:45 a.m.
I let him digest lunch and then call son back upstairs to finish work. He begins to hang up shirts from the floor but then tells me can't be done without hangers. I tell him where to find hangers. He says he'll work for as long as the hangers hold out.

12:15 p.m.
I find every single hanger in the house and all the shirts are hung. He needs rest. He flops on bed, closes eyes, gets much needed "rest."

12:40 p.m.
I jostle him after a long half hour and tell him time to start folding pants. I offer to help him fold after I see it looks like he gave all of his jeans in the closet spiral perms.

1:10 p.m.
Shirts are hung, pants are folded, clothes are off the floor and away from the front door and we are no longer in violation of fire codes! We now begin with the paper piles on the floor. He determines with a finger snap that anything he needs he already has and so papers are all put in recycling!! and !!! Go, return to whence you came, paper bits! You will live again!

1:27 p.m.
He asks for a break since he has spent the whole weekend on cleaning. He is allowed a break until I finish the laundry downstairs. He tells me I'm the best.

1:43 p.m.
His break is over and his interest is waning. I promise a movie tomorrow.

2:06 p.m.
He is growing weary. I ask him if he likes his iPod and would like to keep it. (will hold off on the big guns of his phone for the most dire of moments)

2:31 p.m.
He shouts down to me that he is tired of working working working. I remind him that I'm tired of cooking cooking cooking, maybe I'll stop. He gets the picture.

2:50 p.m.
Laundry is folded and next load is started. I run back upstairs. We begin anew. "This way, child, this way," I teach him the order of the sock folding phoenix. Every single freakin' sock has a mate! Huzzah!

2:56 p.m.
T shirts get shoved in drawer (that's okay to me) underwear is shoved in drawer (again I don't care) and socks are tossed into closet drawer. It looks good.

3:09 p.m.
Books are picked up from floor and put back on book shelves. We reminisce about his Treasury of Classics collection and how much he loved The Invisible Man. He tells me that if he were invisible he could leave and not come back to finish. I tell him that is true. He could indeed be gone but the mess would still be here because the principle of Invisibility doesn't apply to the mess in the room.

3:17 p.m.
Fruit roll-up break.

3:48 p.m.
I ask him to hold me up while I dust his ceiling fan. He is a great working partner.

4:01 p.m.
He decides he wants to make salsa. Which sounds like such a stereotype but we make salsa. Instead of tomatoes we use carrots and it's delicious. We also use potato chips to dip instead of corn chips and that's pretty delicious too.

4:31 p.m.
I ask him to carry vacuum cleaner upstairs and I suck up the dust from the rug.

4:42 p.m.
The room looks great, he only has the top of his desk to clear up. He falls on his bed and tells me how he never has fun. I tell him I can clear his desk for him -- all he needs to do is run downstairs and get me a plastic bag. He stands up and starts to work.

4:52 p.m.
He tells me he has to send an important text.

4:57 p.m.
He is still sending important text. I think Moses was faster pounding out the commandments, I ask "Are you chiseling it out on flint stone?"

5:13 p.m.
I bury an iTunes card in the midst of the desk mess the same way I used to bury dimes and quarters in the sandbox for him when he was five and I'd say, "Just think what else could be in there! Let's get digging!" When he finds the card he holds it up excited and looks exactly the way he did in the park 12 years ago. "Let's keep digging!," I say.

5:32 p.m.
Voila! The desk top is in neat piles and the room could hold a yoga class from the free space vibes. Breathe in breathe out we now have a sanctuary. He smiles and asks, "Doesn't it look like there's more room in here?" We stand back and admire. High five because it looks SO gooooooood. The oxygen of the declutter cannot be underestimated.


What's the most important thing I learned here? Don't be afraid to go all Look at me, Look at me, I'm the captain, I'm the captain on him. Because, obviously, they may be the ones making the mess up on deck, but we're still the ones that know how to steer that ship.

New Resource for Parents with Firstborn Children Leaving Home!

The Child Rearing Yearning (CRY) Institute announces that it has released a new resource kit for parents readying their lives, homes, and hearts for the day just months ahead of when their baby first child leaves home.

CRY's new manual is designed especially for a small discussion group (ideally, one crying parent, one lonely cup of coffee in the pre-dawn hours) but may be used in a larger group, preferably one that is not popping champagne corks while enlisting an architect to redesign the soon to be empty upstairs bedroom.

"Transitions and Golden Sunsets" is a workbook compiled by CRY for those who have made the choice to view this season of life as a time to linger and ruminate on the days of being an at home parent to the baby they waited their entire life for. CRY's guides and videos are divided into six-90 minute sections, each covering such topics as Torturing Yourself with the First Baby Tooth Pictures, My Baby Says Mama! essay section, and The Mommy and Me Remember Me Please music circle tapes.

CRY kit owners will be encouraged to explore and examine their feelings about this day of launching that is approaching faster than a bullet train. Assignments will discuss expectations such as Disc One: How Much Crying is Too Much Crying and desensitization of feelings, Disc Two: Baby Steps To Walking Past His Now Empty Room.

Our manual offers information on the latest research regarding the needs of those recently struggling with the new face of displacement. (Contest info included! Send us your photographs! Could YOU be our next face?) Don't look away, because together with CRY's online forum, parents will be instructed in ways that reflect their own values and interests on how to fill the hours of their days until the first school break. Aptitude tests are included to help with re-awakening 30-year-old dormant interests and prompts to encourage new areas of possible exploration.

Sections of self-assurance are offered in which topics such as Did My Parenting Even Matter, to Will He Remember The Time I Let Him Make Me Into His Pony For Twelve Hours, will be covered.

At each chapter's end, tips are offered on ways to develop a supportive community and to recognize the need for renewal of spirit and appreciation for the days of the golden past. Homework reading assignments of This Is You 2.0!, complete with journaling and worksheets provided. Extra credit is given for documented hours out of the home. Well-meaning attempts to leave, such as a fresh change of clothes before 11 a.m. are given half credit.

The CRY kit may be used individually, though we recommend it be implemented in like-minded parenting groups, where company will serve as a source of distraction and quasi-substitute for your child's presence.

•  FriendMatch.com is available as an upgrade to CRY's Platinum package level.
• At special request, CRY offers its Diamond package, for those whose child's absence is felt deeply and excruciatingly to the soul.
• CRY will provide unlimited phone and email support to those who evidence need. Personal statement is sufficient. 

CRY wants to be there for you. Please email handleitmama@homenomore.org or send us a note snail mail, every day. It will fill the time while you wait out your child's request of a minimum of four hours between texts.

 

 

* * *

 

Other Places You Can Find Me This Week:

Huffington Post

Aiming Low

MetroParent Milwaukee

Purple Clover 

How Teens Feel About Their Mothers and Baby Haircuts, Naturally

On May 5th of this year, I was thrilled to be part of Listen To Your Mother Show/Milwaukee. Aside from the incredible experience of producing and directing a production for the first time, there was room for me to read an original piece in the show. I talk on the natural subject of babies, first haircuts, and who has the say of the timing of said first haircut.

And as if all that weren't enough heaven on earth for one person, the baby of above referenced haircut is now 18, and he passed the LTYM auditions and was cast in the 2013 Milwaukee show. His original piece, again on a very natural subject, that of a technophobic mom who turns to Dateline to keep her son safe on the internet.

How I wish what he shares here was an example of well-written hyperbole.





If you find my family's dynamics addicting, you can watch me here, explaining the rules regarding when, where, how, and who decides your baby's first haircut.



 For a full playlist of the LTYM Milwaukee show, featuring 14 spectacular stories, please go here.

I can't imagine an audience not feeling our love for community and voices shared.

 Enjoy!

**A special thank you to our sponsors and to all who came out to see our debut show in Milwaukee! For a full list of those that made these videos and the shows across our country possible with their financial support, please visit our LTYM main page. Thank you to Orphonic Multimedia for the awesome quality of these videos.

* * *

So I Have A Son Who's 18 Now

Our oldest son turned 18 a month ago, and I still walk around telling myself, "I have a kid who's 18." It's not something you get used to easily.

I was listening to the radio while re-stocking the refrigerator for the second time in four days, because I live with one other teenager, an 11 year old, and two men, when a segment came on about women and dreams. The mental health expert being interviewed reported that women dream more vividly than men because we deal with more emotions. "Dreams," she explained, "are when we process the emotions of our day."

There's no magisoso to what we see when we close our eyes to sleep, it's just how we humans rehash the events of our life. (that would be why all the taco shells made out of bacon make at least one appearance per night)

This theory explains exactly so much about just how my brain is processing the emotion of having an 18-year-old son.

I had a dream this week where my bicepped son sat at the kitchen table, legs kicked open, downing white milk out of a quart container, streaming dribbles of it pouring down both sides of his mouth and onto to his unclothed chest.

"Stop!" I ordered while running toward him. "You're allergic to milk. You can't drink that!"

He kept glugging, not missing a drop, while he looked me straight on in the eye. Swallowing the last of it, he said in a bored tone, "Says you."

Wiping his dairy-drenched mouth with his hand, he stood up from the kitchen chair and went from being shirtless to suddenly head to cleated toe dressed in a red and white football uniform, huge shoulder pads sticking out of the jersey sleeves. He slammed a black helmet on his head with one hand and began to click across our wooden kitchen floor with his spikes on. I watched him walk out the back door and join up with a group of other red and white football jersey wearing 18 year olds.

"You can't play football!," I called out after him telepathically, because it's a dream, and I never talk in my dreams, it's just lightning bolts of thoughts. "Remember?," I brain messaged him, "We decided you'd swim instead, right?"

No brain waves of answer back.

I knew I couldn't pull him out of the marching ranks so I decided to make my next non verbal shout into the dream world a practical one. "When will you be home?," I asked via hopeful raised upwards eyebrows, ::feeling:: the emotions of wanting to bribe him with pork chops.

Clicking the helmet's chin strap, he mentally spit back his answer, "Two days." Kapow -- right between my frontal lobes.

Message received and noted.

Punk didn't even look back.

...processing processing processing...

Picture of an 18-year-old-man that is my son

 It does not compute.

* * *

What To Tell Your Seventeen Year Old Son

Today is my oldest son's, my first baby's, birthday.

The baby I wanted since I was five years old, no exaggeration.

When he was born, he looked up at me and his eyes were so blue that I heard myself gasp out loud.

As the nurse handed him to me, I couldn't see his face because my eyes filled with tears faster than they've ever filled before. I tried to look at him, but it was impossible; so many fat drops fell on his face that when I bent to kiss him, all I could taste was salt.

Well, he's seventeen today. His golden birthday, too. And I want to write him a letter while I still have him within five feet of me, there whenever I want him, to tell him what he means to me.

But as I try to write down something on paper for him to have from me forever, I can't see. Because, just as they did seventeen years ago, my eyes are filling with tears faster than they ever have before.

And all I can keep writing over and over is I'm so happy I still have you. 

Happy Birthday, my wonderful boy. Just know that I love you. xo

Parenting Will Cost You A Good Night's Sleep, Here and There

I have a difficult time with disrespect. My blood pressure rises when a lack of respect is shown toward me. When it comes from my children, I cannot move beyond that moment in time when I hear that barrel full of words of disregard for me as a human, aimed right at my head. 

I feel we are to respect everyone we share space with. If we share a home and live with them, it goes double. If that person you interact with is the one who bore you, it rises to the millionth degree. I idealistically believe that if we show respect to our children, that they will mirror that back to us. So far, so good...until the piece of your heart that goes walking around outside of your body begins making testosterone by the gallonfuls.

I always knew I'd have exactly the tricks up my sleeve that I needed for being the mother of teens. I had such fresh memories of how I was raised during this part of my life, that I knew a whole lot about what NOT to do. That's all you need to know, right, what NOT to do? I never thought I'd need to have the ace in my pocket of what TO do.

Why am I awake right now, at 1:30 a.m., sitting on the sofa eating chocolate chips thinking of what happened in our home tonight, instead of sleeping the sleep I need so much? Because I love my children and when miscommunication between us escalates to a level where you start thinking how much you'd love to have them get their own bodies back and forth to where they need to go, make their own dinners, keep track of their own schedules and Dr. appointments -- well, that's not a healing, productive train of thought for anybody. No matter how good it feels. I am awake, buzzing with thoughts of what I should have done with my teen tonight; asking myself how I could have parented better. These thoughts of pro action are being interrupted by whizzing personal reprimands of all the triggers that flew from my side and right onto him.

I know what I could have done differently now, eight hours later, and it would've been the right thing to do. The mature, zen seeking mother I want to be Plan of Action. I have it. Right here, in three simple steps, how to put out that adolescent fire.

Taming a Teen in Three Simple Steps:

Step 1: So easy, just shuttup. Pretend you don't feel the sting of their words that feel so personal. Let them wail, vent, curse, explode at the crappy day they had. Don't interject, don't advise, don't smirk at the perceived miniscule events they're ranting on. Now is not the time. Listen, and drive: your two jobs.

Step 2: Go to your happy place when they tell you it's your fault they missed that important meeting/assignment/deadline. Later, you can bring up their own scheduling capabilities. The flame is high, don't throw the corn oil on it--avoid that after school explosion. If you need to, keep driving and take the long way home. When it all simmers down, show them how to keep track of school, sports, work, assignments, meetings, on their own calendars.

Step 3: This should have been Step 1, really. Pick them up with a snack in the car. Low blood sugar, a disappointing day, a minor break out on the cheek, and it's every man for himself. Have a bagel, have a travel pak of Pringles, have something. Let them crunch and munch and carb load while they unload. It won't hurt.

Warning: Be open to accepting a heartfelt apology from them when they give it, not when you're ready to receive it. As much as the non parent ego person that still lives inside you from years ago wants to shout, Fresh Wound! Damn straight you should be apologizing ...did you hear what you said to me? Don't do it. With a generous and unconditionally loving spirit, accept and thank them for their apology. They don't like being little sh*ts, either. And they know when they've been one. Just like we do.

UNDER no circumstance ever say, even under your breath, I can't wait till you're away for college. Never sink that low. We are the adult, they're not. Instead, think things like, Wow. You're sure ready to be on your own.

Keep a mantra ready. Mine is, This, too, shall pass. I've been using it for the last 16 years.

Most importantly, know that I do accept shipments of boxed wine. I find the crisp green apple from Franzia a delightful white that dances on the tongue.

The Only Way To Make It Through This

Quick. What's your Rorschach reaction to this picture of teens living in your house?

Does Amazon still sell No-Bite by the dozen?

Keep 'em comin', ladies. Yoga class can wait.

Me and Ziggy, we got this--piece of cake.

Don't judge me!

Wow. Who knew. This retail therapy really works.

Wake me when it's over.

Oh...bring it!

Hey, kids, look--I'm still young and cool. In my head.

mmmkay....says here you'll be entering a self absorption phase...

OK, just listen to me, only three more stories...I've been on this planet a long time and have been around the block not just once but a few times here's what worked for me why don't you try this and see what you think though it's better to just be in the moment and then you will see what works for you because to arrive at your own insights is so much more meaningful although my way is best but you have to learn by experiencing it in your own skin because we are all so wonderful and made of little rays of light and just see what I mean and watch the magic happen but you might want to do it exactly the way I did it then I'll listen to you in a minute but I'm still making a point and let me just finish because what I'm saying is really important

Just do what I say. End of it. and...shhh.

Hi, honey. I redecorated your room while you were at school...

Rule #312: On Saturdays, from 8 am to 11 am you will...

That bush rustling over there, not your imagination.

Being the mother of teenagers, it'll happen.

It does happen. When you're playing trains on the train table, or dressing up barbies, you don't see that day ever coming.

The days creep one at a time toward it: an extra stick of deodorant on your shopping list for the first time, requests to see a dermatologist, being asked to drop them off at the mall--without you.

You can read books and still there is no preparation for the day you pull the clothes out of the dryer and find yourself folding a pair of jeans with an inseam longer than yours.

No one can get you ready for that day. But it comes, and when it does, try and remember what it's like to desperately want to fit in. Know that your teen is doing exactly what they're biologically made to do: grow independent.

Accept the fact that you will never be more uncool.

And you won't be right again until they call home from college, when they realize just how much you suddenly know. 

Think of your own teen years, the pimples, how you were positive that everyone was better than you, at everything.

Be there for your teen.

Make memories while they're still home.

Find the time to talk to them, so that your only communication isn't about what they did wrong.

Decide how you want to walk into this stage of parenting, because parenting isn't static. And we will all enter this phase of it-- of being the parent of a teenager.

___________________________________________________________

Being A Source Of Embarrassment To Your Kids

BIG post photo here, right? Well, you'd swear that's the size of the embarrassment I make my oldest son feel, just by my breathing and being generally alive.

My beautiful firstborn son, who long ago and in a galaxy far, far away, couldn't get enough of me to the point where my husband had to hold this little 3-month-old baby boy up so he could still see me every time I showered, this little baby of mine who I'd have to hold on my lap when I had to go to the bathroom because his world would fall apart if I was out of his sight ... this same little boy now D.I.E.S. that someone might realize that oh my gawd I am his mother. And how many teens actually DIE of embarrassment anyway? (well, yes, I know I did go out to get the newspaper in my nightgown and boots that one time, but it was only once).

The cause for this knife straight to my heart? Three words: He Is Sixteen.

Sixteen-years-old, when everything is about you. Everyone is talking about you. The whole world only notices you. It all has to do with you.

I am no physical monster. Last time I checked, there was no one-sided hump on my back, my eyes were evenly sized and equally spaced upon my face. As the joke goes, when I walk down the street, people do not hang out of their cars shouting, "Is it Halloween already?"

I have always taken care to not embarrass my children. BUT this? Embarrassing them by just being alive? What can I do with that?

There are so many new rules that are spit out by my son at school drop off time now that he is sixteen. Rules like bullets--they come at me, "don't say good-bye, don't say my name, don't wave, don't get out of the car, don't wait to see that I get in, don't shout at me if I forget something in the car, if I fall down flat on my face and my brains spill out, just.keep. going ..."

It's not like I break into self-choreographed interpretive dance moves upon hearing Adele's Rolling In The Deep -- no matter how much that women slays me -- when my son is with me. I save that for when I'm alone in the mini-van. I may think about swaying my hands all over my head like that, but I don't do it.

Not with him - I try not to think about how he once was my bald-headed dance partner in the kitchen, 3 a.m.

He makes me wince as I remember how much embarrassment I felt about my own mother as a teen. She had come another ther country. I was embarrassed, but there was reason for it, right? Or so I thought. I mean, she had an accent, and dressed funny, and acted like she wasn't even in America. She would try to imitate the movie stars of the time. I knew back then, as a teen, that any children of mine would never be self conscious that I was their mother! I had too much going for me -- I spoke perfect English, I didn't dress in the costume from the old country *blackdressblackdressblackdress,* and I never thought to try and imitate Elizabeth Taylor. What kid wouldn't be proud of me as their mama? I was cool, with it, American, and had no delusions of grandeur.

You can see how knocked off my feet I am by this new role in my life: that of social pariah of the village.

Our morning drives to school now go like this, my son reading to me from his How To Be Invisible Manual: "don't drive right up to the door, mom. Just slow down, and I'll get out and DO NOT say good- bye to me so loud the world hears it. You're so loud. I mean it. I MEAN IT."

To which I meekly ask, "c-c-c-an I look at you? for a minute? can I just l-l-l-l-ook at you? I promise not to make eye contact ..."

"No. See? SEE? This is what I mean. Just drop me off.
Just.
Go.
Home."

He might as well have said, "Go back to your door built into a tree house on the swamp, Fiona, go back from whence you came."

I do as he instructs and drop him off far enough from the school's front doors, per his request. I slowly creeper-drive away, sunglasses covering my eyes, so he can't see that I'm still watching him, watching my handsome, tall boy walk away from me ... without even one glance back in my direction.

He walks away, taking my heart along with him. I breathe deep, and pat myself on the back, congratulating myself on my verbal restraint. How badly I want to screech on the brakes -- good and loud, roll down the window and SHOUT, "embarrassing? you want to see embarrassing? How's this:  "BYE HONEY I LOVE YOU AND DON'T FORGET TO WEAR YOUR CUP AT PRACTICE TODAY BECAUSE IT'S IMPORTANT TO PROTECT YOUR TESTICLES!"

You know, I think I might just call it his nutty buddy, for good measure.

*************************

Bring It

Without sounding too allthat, I am so happy with the rep that Bring The Funny? She Can, is getting.

Seriously. There was a fantastic tweet last week that had me beaming: "Sold. I will follow all your recs from now on."

Thank you, and oh, yeah, how I appreciate that.

To do a feature on another blogger takes me a little over 2 hours of solid time. I read their posts, I skip around, I see what the comments say, I scour their tweets, I rearrange the info back over here.

It's solid time. And to know that people are really liking it, and really enjoying meeting bloggers they may not have come across, it's worth the time for me.

And blah blah blah, with all that, to say, Welcome! To Bring The Funny? She Can.  A Thursday feature where I highlight a blogger I've been following that genuinely makes me laugh out loud. Not computer acronym LOL, but real life Funnnnnneeeee.

Today, please meet Melinda, from Finding the Humor.

Here, let Melinda tell you about herself: "I talk too much. Since everyone I know is tired of listening, I have turned to the internet to find a new audience. Feel free to turn the volume down if I'm too loud.
I began following Melinda about a year ago. What makes her so fun, just like what makes things funny, is the unexpectedness there. Her blog looks so sweet, and then you read her posts and it's stuff like this:

Soul Train Dancer Wannabe

Growing up during the exciting emergence of old school hip hop, I fondly remember the very first 45 record I bought with my own money: Double Dutch Bus. Hold on, I have to sing a few lines…

…There’s a double dutch bus comin’ down the street
Movin’ pretty fast, so kinda shuffle your feet…

Good times.
I looked forward to Saturday morning’s Soul Train and danced around the living room and down a pretend line of observers cheering me on.

Yes I have done break dancing…sort of

Ok not the spin on your head kind. A close friend of mine was (and still is) a rockin’ DJ who was a dancer in the only white break dancing group I knew of in the area. We’re talking the Grandmaster Flash days! There is a lot of pressure when your dance partner is that good, so I actually learned enough of the robot, cabbage patch, and running man to spoof them along with 2 other girls for a church youth group talent show. Strangely enough that never came up as a required skill in a job interview.

My kids wonder why I score so high on those moves on the Kinect dancing game. Shh…secret.[READ MORE HERE]

---------------------------------------------
A woman as dorky as me. I love it.

Twitter? Need I even say ANYthing? Of course, look at this:

findingthehumor Melinda

Sometimes the stars line up just right and a friend sends you a Wonder Woman swimsuit. Can't wait to horrify the kids!!

30 Apr

Every post is a good one. On twitter, @findingthehumor, Melinda will crack you up. 

Add Melinda to your reader, follow her on twitter. What good is it to be alive if you're missing out on even one funny person?

Right? I thought so.

And, you're welcome.

COMMENTS CLOSED HERE, SO YOU GO VISIT MELINDA at FINDING THE HUMOR.COM

You guys are the best!  Happy Thursday!