Bye Week

We watched all the football this past weekend and as a result I find that I keep thinking about this week’s bye week. We know who is going to the SuperBowl and those athletes get a week off to rest, to recover and to recuperate. I have decided that this is a brilliant idea and that I need a bye week as well: a bye week from parenting.  I need time to rest, recover and recuperate so that I can start again fresh and be ready to be awesome in this next round of parenting.

The boy turns twelve today and I was okay about that until we started talking about how he was the skinniest baby in the world when he was born.  Maizy sent us some pictures she found of him when he was about three and they just killed us:  soft, yellow hair, no glasses and that huge space where his two front teeth were knocked out. These pictures are so super sweet, however it is the look of pure joy on his face that grabs my heart and smacks it.  There has not been a lot of joy on his face this year.  Middle school can suck the joy out of even the happiest kid in record time.   I look at those pictures and barely remember the tiny kid he was and only see the big kid he is now and it makes me a little sad, a little wistful and hoping I enjoyed him then and trying to find ways to enjoy him now.  

Maizy graduates in about four months and if that isn’t crazy enough, she has also decided she is moving to California pretty much the second she graduates.  I don’t think I have really given it a lot of thought other than I think she is taking the hard road and we talked about that, but she is 18 and she knows what she wants to do.  Bill gets teary every time it comes up and as I write this, I realize I am sad too.  This girl and I have gone head to head and toe to toe and taught each other a lot about ourselves and what makes a family.  She is a terrible slob, mostly non-committal when I ask her to do something and slightly self-absorbed, but she is also as funny as hell and integral to who we are as a family.  Damn, now I am really sad.

SG, normally my rock, my stalwart child and my kindest soul, killed me with her words yesterday.  Her words reached into my chest cavity and pulled out my still-beating heart which she then held in her hands and utterly destroyed with her tone.  The look on her face and the hate in her eyes then finished it off by tearing it to shreds.  I know this is timely, I know it was bound to happen, I know I have been lucky on what a good girl she has been, I know.  But it still hurts!  And even though Bill stepped in as the heavy and made her stop, made her see it from my side, even though she apologized later, it still hurts.  I forgive her and I see she feels bad, but I need some time to regenerate my crushed and shattered heart.

Just one of the looks I have received this week.

Therefore, I need a bye week. I need a week where my children are cryogenically frozen and where I can rest and recover from them.  I need a week to pause and think about what it is I am trying to teach them and how I can best do that while letting them make their own mistakes.  I need a little time to reflect in how little they once were and how big they are now and how much bigger they are going to get.  Bill and I need some time to regroup and focus on us.  Just one week off to look at all the parenting we’ve done and gear up for all that we still have to do.  I’d love to hit the rest of this parenting thing refreshed and repaired.

I know that I won’t get that bye and I won’t get that rest and I am jealous of professional athletes and a little weary of myself.  But weary or not, we push on.  I will keep trying to pull the boy out of the cocoon of “cool” he tries to layer himself in and celebrate when I see actual joy come across his face again.  I will admonish, lecture and preach about all the things Maizy needs to think about before she goes but I hope that I listen, encourage and laugh with her as well.  And as for SG, she and I are going to have more of those major disagreements but I will try hard to remember that I am the adult.  Or at the very least, learn to guard my heart.

Let's Get Sh*t Done

When I was in high school, I wrote a scathing article in the school newspaper detailing the disparity in which boys’ sports and girls’ sports were treated.  This was in the early 90’s and I was a product of a mother who did not burn her bra in the 70’s but was highly influenced by the push for women’s equality of that era.  The main complaints I had as an athlete was that the sports teams I was on had substandard uniforms, equipment and fields.  I don’t think I had ever heard of Title IX; I just knew it wasn’t fair that boys’ teams got new uniforms and we were wearing hand-me-down boys’ uniforms.  I don’t think I need to explain why a uniform designed for a 13 year old male basketball player might not be the best fit for a 17 year old female field hockey player.  I experienced quite the notoriety when the article was published because I was quite passionate about the inequality and voiced it.  (go figure) Girls told me great job and boys, especially football boys, threatened to hurt me because I may have mentioned their losing season in the article more than once.  This article even struck a nerve with teachers; again, female teachers were basically fist bumping me while I received a lot of stony faces from my male teachers.  I struck a nerve, but then I graduated and moved on and the inequality of boys’ sports vs. girls’ sports didn’t seem an issue I needed to press anymore.  I was very busy not playing any sports for the first time in four years and gaining an excessive amount of weight as college freshman are prone to do. 

I didn’t think about girls’ sports much until this past year when my own girl started playing on sports teams at her middle school.  I looked at the new uniforms she was given along with warm ups, sweats and athletic bag and thought about how things had really changed.  I was happy for her that in this era, not only are girls’ sports teams endured, but that they are expected and encouraged and funded.  My girl however, still spoke often and passionately, about how the boys’ teams were treated better or didn’t have to work as hard.  I told her I was sorry to say, but even today, her female coaches and her female teammates would always have to work harder.  This is, unfortunately, life as a woman.  Forty-four years after Title IX, these girls and coaches still have to work harder, play harder and be more than their male counterparts and women everywhere are still working harder, trying harder and still being paid less than their male counterparts. 

Anyway, soap box speech over, yesterday I was just reminded again how incredibly important sports are for teenage girls.  I’ve watched my girl over the past year go from awkward and clumsy to an athlete.  I have watched her run, climb, lift, throw and shoot.  I have watched her win, lose, try and fail.  I have watched her play her heart out and I have watched her dig deep when she needed to.  I have encouraged her and watched her encourage others.  But yesterday, yesterday, she did something that gives me goose bumps to think about.  Her basketball team was losing very, very badly.  They were outmanned, outplayed and outshot.  They were frustrated, they were learning as they went and they were struggling.  My girl did not get to play much, which I still don’t understand, but the last time she was in, she was on it.  She was here and there, she was defending, she was getting her arms up and in there and tangling up and she was giving it absolutely everything she had.  The look on her face during her last play had me desperately wishing I had a great camera or could draw.  Her face was red with exertion, hairs around her face just everywhere as they slipped out of her ponytail, her jaw was set, her shoulders back, but it was her eyes set like steel and determination that just killed me.  The look on her face simply said “Let’s get shit done.” 

I guess I had that face too.  Plus mouthguard and bad uniform.

I like that she is an athlete. I like that she is learning teamwork, perseverance and endurance. I love that she is learning at age 14 to set her game face and her mind to “let’s get shit done.”  This, this is what she is going to need to be successful, to be heard and to be everything she is meant to be.  This is why sports are so damn important during girls’ teenage years.  This is why we need to sign them up, this is why they have to try different things and this is why we sit on those benches and bleachers and run around town taking them where they need to be.  I am thrilled my daughter is 14 and learning how to get shit done and not 24.  Or 34 or older.  I am so thrilled I have goose bumps as I write it and picture that face, that feral, ferocious face once more.

So we need to keep pushing for true equality in spending and funding for sports.  We need to talk about female athletes with the same reverence we use when talking about male athletes.  We need to be present, be encouraging and be LOUD as we cheer them on.  These girls are learning how to be strong, to be there for each other and they are learning how to get shit done.  And if their faces look anything like my daughter’s, they are going to change the world.

Say You Want a Resolution

Here it is, January 2^nd, and I have already broken two of the three New Year’s Resolutions I set for myself.  I normally do not make resolutions because I know me.  I know that I take things that could be possible and give them a ridiculous time frame to get done and when they don’t get done in that time frame, I throw my hands up in the air, retreat into the fetal position and self-medicate with handfuls of chocolate.  This year, I got caught up in the hype.  New Year, New You?  Yes, why not me!  New Year, New Beginnings?  I could start something fresh or new!  Out with the old, in with the new?  Yes! I cleared out one whole drawer in the kitchen after I read that.  I don’t know, too much daytime TV or too many exclamation point headlines, something spoke to the slacker in me and said “join this”.  So I did.  I quickly decided I would lose weight, be a better friend and this will be the year I become a teacher.

Let’s look at number 1: lose weight.  I normally do not believe in losing weight because I gain and lose the same three pounds every few days and if my jeans fit, then so be it.  Not this year.  This year I was going to lose real weight, measureable weight and glow in the satisfaction of it.  Sadly, this goal lasted until lunchtime on New Year’s Day.  Bill made homemade mac and cheese.  Kraft in the blue box I could have passed up but not homemade mac and cheese.  It was delicious and I ate myself into a cheesecarb coma.  I am not proud to say that when I woke from my couch nap, I went straight to the kitchen in a low blood sugar zombie trance and ate the remaining ten cold noodles out of the congealed cheese at the bottom of the pan.  Go ahead and judge me, you can’t be thinking any worse of me than I was while I kept shoving those cold, yet tasty, noodles in my mouth.  Knowing that this is my life and I am weak, I gave up on lose weight and changed it to “make healthy choices.”  This morning I ate quinoa with banana and walnut for breakfast.  This erases the shame of the cold noodle eating from the day before.

Goal number two was to be a better friend.  I have friends, I love my friends, but as of late, I feel as though I am terrible friend.  We don’t get together often, I forget what they tell me and all I offer is words.  Well-rested after two weeks off of work, I thought I will be a better friend and make time to actually see my friends before I don’t have any friends.  Today I started thinking about school and work firing back up and I know I am not going to be that good friend.  I socialize all day at work, wait, what I mean is my job is very social.  My kids talk an awful lot when I get home and I guess I am all talked out at the end of the day or even sometimes on the weekend.  If anyone would like to get together and take up some quiet pursuits like yoga or knitting or hiking without talking, call me.  Especially if it involves comfy pants!   Until then friends, I am sorry I don’t make book club or parties or neighborhood events, but if you need emailed words, I’m there.

New Year’s resolution number three is to be a teacher.  That one I am not compromising on.  Since that is really more of a life goal or a career path, I think I just stuck it in with the resolutions to keep the fire burning. However, I don’t need New Year’s to make me remember I want to teach because I think about teaching all the time.  This is going to happen, stay tuned.

I feel amused that I was such a lemming and followed the resolution crowd right over the cliff. We all know better than that.  If something in your life really needs to be changed, it shouldn’t matter if it is January 1^st or June 23^rd; you should change because you are ready, not because the rest of the world is proclaiming you should do it now.  

As for me, 2016 will see me continue as me.  I will work and be a mom and be the loudest mom at all the sporting events.  I will write, I will read, I will learn new things and insert myself into any teaching opportunities that come up.  I will try and I will succeed and I will also try things and fail.  I will inch along, I will race along and hopefully end up ahead and not behind. I will laugh, I will cry and I will say bad words at both opportune and inopportune times.  I will make healthy choices and I will fight my coworkers for more than my share of the queso.  I will value myself, I will value the friends who stand by me even though I am a terrible friend and I will love my family with all of my heart.  And I will, this year, at some point, be hired as a teacher.  The things I have listed are not resolutions, they are just my life.  They were my life in 2015 and they will be a part of my life in 2016.  It makes me happy to read them and it makes me smile to know I get to keep doing these things.  My hope is that the things you list make you happy as well.  Happy New Year!