The Other Side Of The Fence May 14, 2008

Back when telecom was good, really good, Adventure Guy travelled constantly–jetting off on seemingly glamorous trips that took him from one coast to the other on a weekly basis.  And me?  I had not quite so glamorous a gig–balancing work as a high school principal with caring for three young kids.  Adventure Guy told me then that it wasn’t quite as fun or interesting as it looked.  But I would have given anything then for a week in a hotel ALONE. 

Fast forward five years, and now I travel more than he does for work.  Granted, I don’t come close to his previous schedule (thankfully!), but I’ve been away for two weeks in the last four.  In April, I presented at a conference, and this week I’m taking a training course.  While I’ll admit to enjoying my nice comfy bed, made daily by someone else, I miss my family, and I am so happy I don’t have another trip scheduled until July!

While I’ve been gone, Dancer Girl got her braces off, Soccer Boy moved up a level in Boy Scouts, Gym Girl attended her last gymnastics team banquet, and even Ludwig had a big night when he got to go to church for the blessing of the animals this evening!  And, this was supposed to be a low-key week.  Fortunately, Adventure Guy has things well under control.  I know the kids are in good hands.  Right now I just wish those hands were mine.

Protected: Party Pics May 13, 2008

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Are You My Mother? May 13, 2008

Adalex72 over at The Glass Jar tagged me for a meme–and a quite challenging one at that.  I’m supposed to write my “six word memoir.”  And, it got me thinking…how would I like my family to think of me, to describe me, many years from now? 

This past weekend, I had the honor of attending my grandmother’s 90th birthday party.  Every one of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren made it–a feat in itself.  And we’ve done a nice job of reproducing.  Her two daughters gave her six grandchildren, who in turn have given her eleven great-grandchildren so far, with two more scheduled to arrive this fall.  On Saturday, we visited with all the extended family, caught up with some old friends, many of whom drove several hours to attend the party, and told stories about a grandmother who made life special for us. 

The stories brought to light the differences between her life and mine.  Though, unlike most of the other mothers on the street, she worked outside the home (okay, so that’s not a difference!), my grandmother still made time to stop by for coffee with her friends every afternoon when she finished teaching school–a tradition that lived on well past her retirement and one I got to partake in myself when I came to visit while growing up. At Saturday’s party, the “kids,” AKA my mother, aunt, and the children of my grandmother’s best friend, reminisced about the days when they build clubhouses in the woods and ran the streets of their neighborhood protecting their “territory.”  It all sounds so innocent in comparison to the hectic lives my children and I live today.

Beautiful, funny, adventurous, loving–with those thoughts of all the wonderful things people said about my grandmother swirling around in my head, I have to wonder how people will describe me in another 50 years.  How will my kids describe me when they themselves are grandparents?  I hope it’s like this…

present, loving, smart, ambitious, kind…mother.

 

 

 

 

 

Digging Out May 11, 2008

Just like my dachshund, Ludwig, I’d like to bury my head under the covers right now. However, I don’t have time. 

We pulled in from visiting my family in Texas at about 7:15 tonight, and I’ve been madly working to complete the “pre-work” for training I’ll be attending this week ever since.  I’d like to say that my last-minute rush had nothing to do with procrastination, but I’ll admit that was a bit of the problem.  The main problem, though, is that I’ve been running non-stop at work and at home for the last two months, and it’s been hard to fit in the additional 40 hours of work required for this project.

I’m off to pack now. I’ve got several blog posts floating around in my head.  More to come on those later.  I just wanted to assure everyone that I am indeed still here, and we were not blown away by the inclement weather experienced near Suburbia over the weekend!

Happy Mother’s Day From Texas May 11, 2008

Taken on the trip home today….

Only Eleven Years To Go May 8, 2008

“Mom,” shrieked Gym Girl, “DON’T DO THAT!”

Evidently I do something weird with my mouth when I dance.  Even if that dancing happens while I’m seated behind the wheel.  And, of course, someone is likely to see that particular move, from 50 yards away across the darkened parking lot.  Yes, some of you who read this blog previously may not have figured out just what an embarrassment I am.  In fact, I myself have only recently realized the degree to which my day-to-day actions cause distress for my children.

And, in case you’re wondering, I am also NOT FUNNY.  I am especially NOT FUNNY when the girls’ friends are around.  But somehow, Adventure Guy is still “sorta cool in a weird way” according to Dancer Girl.  How is this possible?  This is the guy who has his own rendition of the Pussy Cat Doll’s “Don’t Cha” song which goes something like “Don’t cha wish your Daddy was hot like me.”  Which he continually threatens to sing, complete with his own unique dance moves, when the kids have friends over. 

I have hope, though.  I clearly remember going grocery shopping with my mother when I was home from college one summer.  As she stepped up on the lowest shelf so she could reach a package of toilet paper on the top shelf, she stopped for a second and said, “Oh, I’m sorry!”  I must have had a strange look on my face because she continued, “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”  Totally confused, I asked her what she meant, and she shared that she knew my then teenage brother and sister would have been horrified if she’d done that when the were with her.  She told me she knew I must really not be a teenager any more if I’d moved past the “embarrassed by every little thing” stage.

So, the good news is that eventually this too shall pass.  The bad news?  It’ll probably be another eleven years or so before I can safely dance while driving!

My Boy’s Birthday May 6, 2008

I jumped ahead a bit with March’s “tell your birth story” challenge, so I’ve already written all about Soccer Boy’s arrival in the world nine years ago today.   But that story only captures the beginning–the beginning of a journey that made our family complete.

You see, I always knew I wanted three children.  Adventure Guy, member of a two-child family, thought that a bit excessive.  After all, it would forever complicate our being seated at restaurants.  People often assume that we had a third child in an effort to “try for the boy.”  When they talk to me, the phrase is, “So, I see you got the boy for your husband.”  Believe it or not, people say this in front of the girls–you know, the ones who must not have been sufficient for us!  But the reality is that Adventure Guy was quite happy with the two little girls who had him wrapped around their little fingers.  Sure, a son was a great idea in the abstract, but the push (no pun intended) for the next child came squarely from me.

And each and every day of the last nine years, I’ve been thankful that we decided to add one more to the mix here in Suburbia.  Soccer Boy brings a dimension to our home that we wouldn’t have without him.  He lives through his imagination, bringing to life great adventures for his action figures who often wage epic battles on the staircase.  He also loves writing stories, either in narrative or comic book form.  In second grade, he and a friend developed their character, Super Worm, who avenged his way through several comic book editions.  Recently, his masterpiece involved time travel and my favorite chapter heading ever, “Chapter 3:  Defeat.”

Soccer Boy loves history, which warms the heart of this former U. S. History teacher.  He’s the only one of my children who seems to have picked this up, and he has a wonderful memory for unusual historical facts.  He loved his trip to Washington, D.C. this year with Adventure Guy.  He particularly enjoyed the Lincoln Memorial and the Smithsonian and was a bit disappointed by the lack of a trip to Ford’s Theater, since he loves learning about Lincoln–even the details of the assassination.

If I could change anything, I’d make Soccer Boy just a little less critical of himself and the world around him.  He’s his own worst critic, both on the sports field and in the classroom.  I had to save his latest novel from destruction, and he often tells me he’s bad at the various sports he participates in.  I know that I tend to choose not to do things I don’t excel in, so I’m trying hard to temper this a bit in Soccer Boy.

But what I find hardest to believe is that my baby, that cute little guy above in the soccer pajamas–foreshadowing maybe–is nine years old.  It seems impossible.  To date us even more, those are hot rollers he’s playing with from my bathroom.  That’s a beauty step that doesn’t happen around here any more! 

These days, Soccer Boy may or may not be willing to give his momma a hug, a kiss, or a cuddle.  But I live for the moments that he lets his guard down a bit.  And as I tell him, no matter how big he gets, he’ll always be my baby boy.

Talkin Bout My Generation May 5, 2008

In some ways, I feel like I was born too late.  Not that I’m unappreciative of being born at a time when, as a woman, I could fully use my talents both in the workplace and at home.  Really, I wouldn’t trade that for the life that many of our mothers and grandmothers lived.  But when I think about the Gen X stereotypes–you know the whole extended adolescence, postponing adult responsibility thing–I’ve just never fit in. 

I’ve been thinking about this recently since I picked up this month’s O magazine and read the article “Divorce Dreams.”  The author, Ellen Tien, writes about her “mid-wife crisis,” a time which she describes as “a period of high irritation that lasts roughly one to two decades.”  She’s talking about a frustration with the institution of marriage and the daily drudgery that often falls to women within it.  Her theory is that women today question the institution more, contemplate divorce more readily than did our mothers and grandmothers.  She posits that we Gen Xers, convinced of our ability to have it all have now discovered that

We can get jobs, get pregnant, get it done.  We can try–with varying levels of success–to get sleep, get fit, get control, and get those important Me-moments where one keeps a journal with thought-provoking lists that go “I’m a woman first, a mother second, a laundress third.”  We get upset; we get over it.  What we don’t always get is:  Why.

But here’s the thing.  I don’t think about divorce.  I’ve been married almost 18 years now, so I’m thinking I’d be eligible for that “mid-wife crisis,” especially if it’s going to last a good ten or twenty years.  And I don’t hold out that Adventure Guy and I have a perfect relationship.  I’m pretty sure I haven’t been the nicest person to live with lately, what with the stress levels at work right now. And he can be difficult to live with when he gets into a funk as well.  But, we’re married. This is what I signed on for.  According to Tien, that makes me a bit odd.

And it makes me think, not for the first time, that I might have fit in a bit better in some ways in a previous generation.  As Tien describes those women

At 25, they were ladies with lady clothes and lady hairdos–bona fide adults, the astronauts’ wives.  By 40, they were relics.

Okay, so I totally disagree with the “relic by 40″ thing.  But I was a lady by 25.  I’d married at 22, bought a house by 23, become a mother at 25.  And, I probably dressed more “maturely” then than I do now.  After all, I was a teacher whose students were 17 years old; clothes were one way I set a standard for myself and for them.  If all that doesn’t make one a bona fide adult, I don’t know what does.

My mother says I was born old.  I’m thinking that Tien might agree.  But if that means I’m destined for a little less restlessness in my marriage and in my life, I’m okay with that.  Just don’t call me a relic.

Climbing Toward Nine May 4, 2008

That’s my boy on his way up one of the walls at the rock climbing gym.  Yes, today I officially hosted my 34th children’s birthday party.  I should never have added that up!

As birthday parties go, I count this as a rousing success.  First, it was held away from my home.  Second, I was able to show up with cake, ice cream, and drinks and then just sit back and watch other people conduct the party.  Third, everyone showed up, behaved well, and was picked up on time.

The two young men who worked the party did a great job of showing the boys “the ropes” so to speak.  They taught those who hadn’t been climbing before the basics and encouraged a few who were a bit timid to make it all the way to the top of the wall.  And did I mention I just had to watch?  Definitely the best part.

Of course, the rest of the family wasn’t content to stay behind the camera like I was.  Gym Girl, Dancer Girl, and Adventure Guy all joined in the fun.  Here’s a shot of Gym Girl making the move over the most challenging portion of one of the walls–that gymnastics stuff pays off after all!

 

Protected: The Week In Review May 3, 2008

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