It Started With One Gray Hair…

It’s amazing how one small thing can snowball.

First came the hair.  Then it was getting ready for kindergarten, and ending 3 years of preschool.  Add the effects of gravity, and the mirror constantly reminding me that I am not a rubber band, and things will never go back to the places they belong.  Combine this with the fact that we’re not having any more children and…the realization..

Yup, I’m getting old.

Now, some of you may be reading this in your 40’s, 50’s & 60’s and thinking that I’m being ridiculous.  That I’m only 33, and that I have so many years ahead and that my kids are still babies, and yes all of this is true.  It doesn’t change things though.  I think it’s even worse when you have really little kids, because it seems like the smaller they are, the faster they grow up.  I just gave birth to E 2 1/2 years ago.  I will be 49 when he graduates high school.  49.  I can’t even envision that.  I don’t want to envision that.  Just like I don’t want to think that the DH will trade me in for a younger model at some point…(which he assures me he won’t).

I just had these kids.  I still have one in diapers.  Why do I feel so damn old all the time?  Why can’t I find the humor in all of this, like I try to do in so many other situations?  I wake up every day around 5 (which if you know me, is absurd) and worry about crap like this…and other crap, like my last 15 lbs, getting my hair cut & donated before I’m entirely gray and how I’m going to deal with the fact that I’m not having any more kids.

So…how do I feel young again without involving an inordinate amount of booze, updating my wardrobe to resemble a 20-year-old’s and going to a bar where the median age is 22?  I have no idea…but I hope I figure out something soon.  Before AARP decides to send me another card…

 

Learning to Read

Lightning is learning to read.

It’s pretty awesome to see how kids’ brains work.  Last night, I was reading my Nook, and L asked how it worked.  I showed him.  He then realized that there were words on the Nook.  I pointed to some of the words and asked if he recognized them…his “sight words.”  Then we worked on some of the other words…he began sounding them out, putting the letter sounds together, mouthing sounds and then blurting out the word.  It is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen…since the kids came out (of course).

It made me realize too…I need to use technology to my advantage to help him with the reading process.  So many people are scared of technology, the internet, children & computers.  I say we have to cautiously embrace this technology.  My kid isn’t going to be wandering around construction sites to see how his favorite trucks work.  He’s not going diving in the Great Barrier Reef to see his favorite sea life.  He’s going to pick up books and stories, but right now, he may not try to sound words on his own.  (I DO realize that he’s only 4…and that reading is a long learning process).  However, if he’s going to pick up the iPod so he can work on some letters and site words…I’m going to let him.  Reaching kids these days takes learning about how they learn, and working with them.  Technology (and parents) can really help kids learn in a new and exciting way.  I’m really proud of my sons, and all the different things the do…and the ways they do them.

It’s Not a Heart Attack

I didn’t have a heart attack this week.

Here’s what happened this past Tuesday.  I started having chest pains.  Bad chest pains.  Sweating, labored breathing, dizziness..the whole nine yards.  I was at work, and decided to walk next door to my doctor.  They checked blood pressure (130/80), high for me.  They did and EKG.  They figured out that I wasn’t having a heart attack.  And they called the ambulance.

The ambulance ride was pure hell.  The IV they gave me hurt.  The EMT was very nice, but  used the needle like an ice cream scoop and my arm was a packed half gallon.  I now have a giant bruise.  I also get car sick, so travelling down the beaten-up road at 90 miles/hour, made me feel even sicker.

I’m not going into every detail of the hospital stay.  I fought them when they wanted to admit me.  They won.  My blood pressure dropped to 84/55.  I stayed overnight and barely slept.  The next day (Wednesday), they brought me a low-salt (cardiac) breakfast.  The woman next to me had doctors coming in and out to visit her.  I saw a prayer lady, a priest and had communion before I saw the doctor.  When I finally saw the doctor, they told me what the doctor’s office had already told me.  I didn’t have a heart attack.  But I need to follow up with a doctor.

I understand…I get the whole precaution thing.  But to keep me overnight…and then push to discharge me before a doctor even saw me…not helpful.  Plus, I’ve still had bouts of dizziness and nausea, and I have no answers.  Hopefully I’ll get some Monday.

Master of Nothing

It’s virtuously impossible to be a “good” mother/wife/friend/daughter/sister/employee/person.  There are just too many different things that happen at the same time.  It’s the line about being a “Jack of all trades, Master of nothing.”  The more pieces you divide yourself into, the less everyone gets.

I love my kids.  But some day I’m a shitty mother.  Some days, I come home from work and I don’t feel like being a mom.  Maybe I’ve had a stressful day at work.  Maybe I’ve been up at night worrying and got terrible sleep.  Maybe the kids have decided that this is the day they’re going to locate the “missing” Quacker from the Ducks’ Game…I don’t know.  The reality is, this is the job that I have “signed up” for.  Yes, I’m going to use the word job.  Raising kids is work.  It’s not glamourous or glorious.  I’ve been peed on, crapped on and puked on.  I get told things like “You have a big butt.”  “You smell like poop.”  and “I’m sorry to say this, but I don’t love you anymore.”  (PS-the kid that said the last line…is 4).

Now, you would tell me that it was “my choice” to have children.  Yes, it was.  And I love them.  I love them every moment of every day. I love their laughs, their good hearts, and their fleeting attention spans.  And I worry.   If they don’t wake up by 6:45 in the morning, I worry that someone came in the middle of the night and took them.  I worry about their education, their health and their “moral compass”.  I worry about their eyes, their words and their heavy breathing.  They require 24/7 thought and attention.  When I’m asleep, I dream about them.  Sometimes the dreams are good, but once, I dreamt that Lightning was hit and killed by a school bus.  I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

I am fortunate enough to have a husband that is not only an amazing husband, but a great father as well.  He does more for us than any other I dad I know (other than my own Dad, who watches the kids during the day).  I recognize every day how lucky I am.  But here’s my reality…I have to work.  This is what it is, and this is what it has to be.  I also have to make sure my kids are taken care of.    And it isn’t easy at all to do both.  But I have to do it.  And I really don’t think it’s easy for anyone.  I have a lot of respect for people that are in positions that have to do both…especially when they have cracked support systems.

Maybe I’ll never be a “master of anything”.  Or maybe, I’ll find out 30 years from now if I did the right thing and became a “master” of something.

There’s Always Room…

I went away to a convention this weekend for work.  Our newspapers won a lot of awards, and our company had more points than any other weekly news group in the state.  Pretty awesome.  I don’t write for them…I’m pretty much the distribution facilitator…making sure our publications get where they  need to go.  We have very talented writers and thinkers…a good group of people.

There was a lot for me to think about and absorb after this, but I think one major thing that I took away was the belief that every person can always make themselves better.  There’s always room for improvement, no matter who you are what you do.

Duh!  I fully recognize that this is not a brilliant revelation.  I didn’t come up with a plan to end world hunger or save Japan.  But I feel like the more people I encounter, the more I realize that they aren’t thinking about this.  I wasn’t thinking about this for a while.  I really need to constantly strive to think differently and change things about things that just aren’t working…not just at work, but at home as well.  Try to be more positive…part of the solution instead of making (and having) more problems.

One of my biggest problems.  I constantly preoccupy myself with other people, and how they got the things that they have.  I get mad if I feel that someone achieved something in a way that I feel isn’t “right”.  It’s pretty bitchy, but that’s how I’ve always been…and it’s high time I stop being like that.  It’s not going to happen overnight.  My DH is still making fun of Bono and the boys…(though I told him not to) and he still teases me about being a slob (though I told him not to).  He does a bunch of other things right, so I’m letting him slide a little on some things.

Listen…I’m not trying to be perfect…by nature, we’re all a bunch of fuck-ups wandering the planet.  If I can go to bed a little less fucked-up than I was when I woke up, I guess it’s been a good day.

Rock Out…

I’m not the type of girl to write about American Idol.  I don’t watch every season, and I wouldn’t consider myself a fan.  I hated Simon.  I still hate Ryan Seacrest.  But I do love one thing…

Rockers.  I love rockers.

My favorite song when I was in 8th grade was Quicksand Jesus by Skid Row.  I played I was Axl Rose one year for Halloween.  I had this great shirt with the Use Your Illusion I album cover on it that I bought in Germany…where I also fell in love with a couple German punk bands.  A couple years later I fell in love with an Irish rocker n by the name of Paul Hewson, and the lads that travel with him. There’s just something amazing about listening to a powerful, loud, raging voice.

Enter American Idol….

I never thought I would actually enjoy watching, but several years ago I committed myself to move beyond the wacky auditions and see if any of these “kids” had talent.  That was the Clay Aiken year.  I vowed I would never watch again…

A couple of years ago, I started again, after I heard rumors that the show was producing rockers.  Rockers?  Bullshit.  Not possible.  My general feeling is that with performers like Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga, the American people wouldn’t be ready for someone who “rocks” because they prefer people who suck. David Cook proved me wrong, and gave me faith that some people out there still believe in music.

This year, I’m in love with James Durbin.  I could see myself becoming an overaged, idiot groupie to his music.  Embarrassing, yes, but true.  I’ve already laid a ton of cards out in this blog, and although I’m not immune to embarrassment, I definitely care about it less than I did in my Skid Row/GnR days.

I’m pretty embarrassed to say this…but the ability to rock is the one trait that I wished my husband possessed.  I feel like if he would just learn to play some guitar or something…then he’d be perfect 🙂

How I Met Your Father…

Kids, it’s like this…

In 2001, I didn’t know what the hell I wanted to do about anything.  I wanted to live in Boston.  I wanted to go out to California.  I wanted to want to redeem myself after the Summer of 2000, where I spent every Saturday night at CPI…but the reality was that  I didn’t care.  I was looking for something…but I didn’t know what it was.

I signed up on one of the new fangled dating websites…match.com.  In fact, back then it was the only dating website that existed (at least the only PG-13 one…I’m sure there were NC-17 ones…or was it still X back then???)  Anyway, they sent these little convient lists of available men, most of them sailors from the navel base across the Sound, and called them “Venus Matches”.  Interesting concept…to think a random search based on keywords, disguised as the Goddess of Love & Beauty was providing me with a nameless rabble of young men.  My skeptic/bullshit meter went off.  There was no way that there could be a suitable man in this mess…

Enter Hamlet.

Yes, Hamlet.  I don’t remember if it went Hamlet seeking…or Hamlet seeking Ophelia…something corny like that (that DH refuses to admit).  My first thoughts were 1-He can read and 2-He’s looking for someone who’s crazy.  This guy may have potential!  And he’s nearby…I won’t have to learn to swim or pay for a ferry ride.  Let me pay for the service ($25/month).  I have to meet this man!  (Note: The last line is exactly what  I said.  “I have to meet this man.)

After an exchange of emails, I learned that he was an English major (like me) liked kids, and was very sarcastic.  Perfect…still showing potential.  I think I’ll take a chance and give him my AIM screen name.  If he turns out to be a wacko…I can change it (my screen name, not the fact that he was wacko…I was through with trying to change wackos!)

The first thing he tells me over IM is that he’s not really from R________, the town that he said on the email.  My initial reaction is that he was full of lies, and all those things about him being high school salutatorian and family-oriented and literate (yes, I do mean literate) were crap.  He then explained to me that he was from A____________ and that he said the other town because no one knew where A___________ was.  I told him that I knew…I was from M______________, about 10 min away.  The conversation continued…

(10 minutes.  I had to go online and pay to meet someone 10 minutes away…)

Everything else, as I discovered was true.  Everything has been true.  When he told me that I didn’t deserve the treatment I was getting from my current…”suitor”, he was right.  When he told me that he had a bad migraine and couldn’t meet me for ice cream, he was telling the truth.  When we finally met in person (4 months later)  and he told me that it wasn’t his place to judge me on my past, he never judged me…(still hasn’t).  He meant it when he told me he loved me, he meant it when he told me that he’d marry me, I meant it when I told him that I was pregnant (both times).  He still means everything he says.  He’s the most honest person I know.

Months after we knew where things were going, I realized I was still paying for match.com.  $125 later, I stopped paying for the service and haven’t been on since…As shameful as it was back then…(to the point of where we contemplated lying about how we really met), it really was worth it.

The story didn’t start out well.  I had my share of heartache prior to your father, and by the time I was 22, I had handled just about every after-school special relationship problem that existed…(and some Lifetime issues too…).  But I hope it ended well.  And I hope that some day you each find your own Ophelia too.

(Ok-I’ll settle for both of you knowing who Ophelia is…never be afraid to be smart…that’s another entry…)

 

Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda….

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’ve been living my life, and I’m really trying to live without regrets.  For the most part, I would have done my life the exact same way, except for two things…I would have waited until I had been married for a few years to have my boys (exact same boys, exact same age apart, just starting 2 years later) and I would have gone to graduate school.  I was a good point, where I could have gone to grad school…but sometimes things just come up, and you have to take what you can.

I loved being in school.  I loved writing, I loved reading, and I love fixing problems.  I always loved being a nerd, even when it was extremely unpopular.  Things drove me crazy, and I did have a major nervous breakdown…but I came back pretty quickly from all of that and went on to do pretty well.  It was a great time, and I managed to get through a lot of heavy shit that I had to deal with.

Now, my life is pretty…boring.  I have a great DH, two great kids, a house, and a job.  I’m pretty happy, overall…in a much better place than I was at….14-19.  There aren’t any crazy men to derail me anymore (ok…so maybe it was more my craziness about men that got me into some jams…).  Now I just have a normal life to deal with.  And the question of what to do with this “normal life”.  What can I do with it?  How can I make things happen here and not lose sight of the things I really love?

Balance is always an issue for me.  I always feel like I need more of it (who doesn’t?)  and I always get into trouble trying to find it.  What can I do now?  How can I make things happen without compromising what I worked so hard to achieve?  I don’t know…I don’t get how moms ever really balance work, kids, husbands and wanting more.  Some days I can go to bed and feel like I managed, but more often than not, I pick out the moment (or series of moments) where things went wrong.  Today, I had a sore throat and fell asleep on the futon amidst the popcorn spill, dresser drawer explosion and complaints of “my brother is really stinky”.  Could have been an epic fail, but I pulled a save by making Lightning vacuum up the mess.

I don’t know what I’m going to do…I have time to figure some things out, but right now I just need to go to bed and get better!

I’m Sorry…Are You in a Bar?

I’m convinced that many people that comment on websites are drunk.  They would have to be to think it acceptable to write some of the things that they do.

DH and I were discussing an article on Yahoo the other day that discussed a public proposal of a black man to a white woman.  The comments were closed.  And why do you think the comments were closed?  Because people are idiots.

This is another example of why the internet is not always a good thing, and also exemplifies the lack of manners that I have previously blogged about.  Would you go into a town meeting in a strange town and blast the town policy, curse at the supervisor and create a scene.  No?  WELL THEN DON’T DO IT ON A MESSAGE BOARD/COMMENT FORUM.  That’s what it equates to.

Throw yourself in a situation you know a fraction of and eviscerate the subjects of the article.  Blast the writer, the commenters, hell the President (a subject of many eviscerations himself) and claim that everything will be resolved in 2012 when the world ends.  Do it because you can!  Do it here, because if you went to the aforementioned town meeting and conducted yourself that way, you’d be arrested.

Free speech you claim?  Well, maybe this isn’t exactly like yelling Fire in a crowded theater, but it is like yelling “Fuck” in a crowded preschool.  You’re going to have a bunch of people commenting and repeating, that have no idea what they’re saying and people standing back shocked…trying to fix the situation, but the damage has been done.

Maybe my rambling doesn’t make sense tonight, but here’s my point.  Use your common sense and your sense of decorum when you comment on things.  Manners don’t fly out the window because people can’t see what you’re doing.  Be respectful.  Be strong.  Be opinionated.  But…and for lack of a better word…don’t be an asshole.  Don’t conduct yourself like a drunken moron.  And for goodness sakes…keep your f-cks sh-ts and c-nts out of your comments.  There are ways you can express your anger without taking it to the gutter!

Manners Anyone?

A friend and I have been discussing manners recently, and the trend of rudeness that seems to be permeating through the…younger generation?  my generation?  I dont’t know…

I’m a swearer.  I don’t curse in front of my kids or my parents, but I do curse at in front of my husband pretty often.  I also curse at electronics.  There are times though, where it isn’t appropriate, and I try to respect that.  Don’t curse at a kid’s birthday party, or at a preschool function.  Don’t curse in a meeting.  Don’t text curses without context (I found out the hard way that they are definitely going to be misinterpreted).  And never, under any circumstances drop the “C-bomb”.

Also, as I’ve been told by my husband…it’s rude not to hold the door for someone pushing a stroller.  Of course, he was the one pushing the stroller, which is probably why he made a point to tell me about it, but after I put myself in his shoes, I realized he was right.  My big pet peeve is the elevator.  People on get off first.  Common sense.  This common sense eludes my mother, but I try to let the people off first.  Unless I’m chasing a 2-year-old that thinks it’s ok to ride the elevator by himself.

Here’s a big one.  If you screw up…say your sorry.  And not one of those “I”m sorry, but… fake apologies that I give my husband (I swear, I don’t know why he married me, but that’s another entry) but a REAL apology.  And, if you’re the recipient of that apology, acknowledge it, even if you don’t agree.   Acknowledging, as I’ve come to understand, is the grown-up thing to do in every situation.  Otherwise, you’re basically telling the person that you don’t give a crap.  Even if you’re just pretending that you give a crap, that’s ok, as long as you don’t say “I’m pretending to give a crap.  Thank you!”

And as my friend reminds me…always make sure you say thank you.  Whether you text, write, tweet, Facebook or send a smoke signal, say thank you.

so…if you’re out with me…or you live or work with me, and catch me breaking these rules…feel free to point out that I’m acting like a rude B…uh…person.  And please, don’t drop a C-bomb on me.