Wistful Thinking

You know, the longer I am at this full time work thing, the more I see what a sweet deal I had being a stay-at-home-mom.  Of course I didn't appreciate this sweet deal when I was living it. No, I was worried about money or I was bored and a little listless.  I love my job and I see how much I need this interaction and intellectual stimulation every day, but there will always be things I miss about being a SAHM.

1.  Napping.  Oh how I miss a good weekday nap!  Got a bad night sleep?  No worries, a little post-lunch nap will be in order.  Rainy blah kind of day?  Curl up on the couch and sleep some of it away.  Sigh, napping.  Naps are wasted on the Pre-K, let me tell you. 

2.  Coffee/Lunch with Friends.  Those gatherings during the week with my friends where we could talk and catch up and see each other.  Email is a poor substitute for face time and texting is even worse because my fat thumbs constantly misspell things.  My weekends are gone before I get out to see anyone, or if I do, I feel like I am rushing through it.

3.  Shopping during the week.  I used to go to at least three stores to make sure I got the best deal on things.  There were no crowds and I could take my time or rush, depending on the day.  Now there are always crowds, I am stressed because people can't push their cart up the right side of the aisle and if I forget something back in produce, well, we are doing without because there is no way in hell I am swimming upstream to get it.

Not 100% sure, but I think this is our HEB on a Saturday afternoon.

4.  Being up at the kids' schools.  I miss volunteering at my kids' schools.  I miss coming up and chitchatting with the teachers and staff and helping.  I miss seeing my mom friends and hearing the latest and feeling like we are all connected up there.  Right now I feel like the only thing I do to help at school is make sure my kids put on deodorant before they leave. 

5.  Little errands.  You know running the non-essential errands like taking library books back, dropping off the donation stuff before it takes over the laundry room, getting the dogs' nails trimmed.  Right now both dogs are tick-tick-ticking across the floor and it is driving me crazy but by the time I take them to get them trimmed, they might just grow long enough to curl around (like the guy in Guinness Book of World Records) and maybe they will thud rather than tick.  Actually if anyone out there can come to my house and trim their nails, I will make you bread.

6.  Making bread.  How obnoxious was I with my posts of freshly baked bread?  Working friends, how you did not come over and smack me in the face with said bread, I don't know, but thank you for your restraint.  I spent a lot of time baking bread and cookies and muffins and liked to drop extras off on friends' doors like a Baking Fairy. 

This new normal of mine is a frenzied, cluttered place and it makes me a little wistful remembering the calm of earlier days.  Sigh.  Oh well, back to the frenzy.  Besides, Thanksgiving and Winter Break aren't too far away, there will be time for napping then.  

 And I am totally serious about the dog nail/bread swap - let me know.


 





Letter to a Summer Bully

Oh Texas.  Twenty years in and you still disappoint me every September.  I have slowly learned to calibrate my expectations of you.  I know that it will be hot the first day of school as well as the thirtieth day of school.  I know not to rush you with my needs for cooler weather because I only end up making you angry and you act like a hurt child and keep summer going through October.  I know.  But Texas, I forgot that you can be so cruel.  This year you gave me a little tease of autumn on the first calendar day of autumn and I thought this is it!  Sweater weather!  Open windows!  Fall is upon us with all of its glory!  But no. It was just you, playing with strings of my heart, giving us just one cooler day and then BOOM.  Here we are in the high 90's again and all I got was a cold. 

Please Texas.  We had a very nice summer and I thank you for that.  It was not until the end of August that I found myself so weary of sweating and tank tops and heat that I contemplated moving and fantasizing about wearing comfy pants again.  This is usually a June occurrence, so again, thank you.  But please, I need fall.  I need open windows at night and I need the smell of crisp air in the morning.  I need temperatures that dip into the 50's and don't get above 78.  I need the trees that do change color to start changing.  You know you only let them shine a day or two before they dump all over the ground.  I need to see all those resplendent reds, orange and yellows and not just in front of HEB with its anemic pumpkins and sad, wilting mums.  I need to take a walk through leaves and hear the crunch of them beneath my feet and smell the sweet decay that rises up.  Please, I would like my electric bill to go down for a month before the gas bill rises to take its place.  And I would really like to hold a cup of coffee and enjoy the warmth of it spreading through my hands rather than the sweat pouring down my face.

Not to call you out Texas, but Buffalo does fall WAY better than you.  Yep.  I hate to be the one to tell you, but Buffalo, NY has this fall thing down.  Glorious you could call it.  Autumnal splendor some would say.  Cool nights, warmish days.  People up there are reveling in the majestic colors of the trees already.  They are drinking their cider and crunching through their leaves while wearing their cozy clothes and not sweating.  Fall fests up there are enjoyable - a celebration of summer's end and the pause before the onslaught of winter.  Fall fests here are just more kettle corn and hot, sweaty people wondering why they thought calling it Fall Fest would make it seem more like autumn.

Glorious, right?

Oh Texas.  I have tried so hard all these years to explain, please listen this time.  Autumn is just so special to me.  It holds my birthday month, it reminds me of years playing field hockey, or the year I spent making donuts at the cider mill.  Yes, I know my complexion was a mess but that $4/hour was a princely sum.  Fall is football games and crisp nights and huge harvest moons taking up the sky.  It is walks at night and mugs of tea and perhaps a light blanket as you sit on the couch.  It gives you time to prepare for winter.  Not that winter here is especially cold or harsh, but fall is a time to get your crops in, tighten up the house, bake to warm up the kitchen and a time to get your mind right. 

Please Texas.  Please give us some fall before you throw us into winter.  We need that pause between seasons of two extremes.  You are starting to act like a bully Texas, and I just won't put up with it anymore.  Well, I will but I will pout and whine to all who listen and eventually you are going to get a bad name for yourself.  They might stop flying your flag as high and stop making kids pledge their allegiance to you, Texas, in schools.  C'mon Texas.  Do it.  All the cool states are doing it.  What's a little cooler weather between friends?  Bring on the fall Texas and I will open my windows and doors and publicly declare you the best, ever.  I promise.

The F Word

I am looking it straight in the face.  It is out there, it is waiting for me without mercy.  I have watched so many friends fall victim to it this year; one by one they have crossed over, never to return.  Forty.  F-O-R-T-Y.  The ultimate "f" word.

The first person I remember turning Forty is my dad.  My mom rented a big light up sign that said "Happy Birthday Pete, U old fart".  I remember it vividly because our entire front yard was lit up, I was allowed to stay up until my dad got home to see it and because my proper spelling mother substituted "U" for "you".  Right there I learned that Forty was special: it was to be acknowledged loudly, proper spelling and grammar were to be thrown to the wind and you should immediately mock anyone turning Forty.  Valuable life lessons that were a million years away from applying to me, until now.

Me at the time of the "U Old Fart" sign

I have a friend who just turned Forty and being a go-getter, set goals to do something new each month of her 39th year.  She tried new things, went new places, even went back to work as one of her new things.  I admired her but knew better than to try and set something up like that myself.  I like to take the ostrich approach to change and bury my head in the sand until the last possible moment and then let the adrenaline and crisis coping skills take over.  I will admit that Forty is not one to be shunned and it kept showing up in my random thoughts throughout the year.  Ridiculous thoughts such as "did you see that baby....you'll never have a baby again....look how big your kids are..you'll never be seen as a young family again...if you went back to school now, you'd be twice as old as every one else in class....how can you have wrinkles and pimples at the same time....you should learn to knit."  Forty clearly has some issues.

Looking for inspiration, I typed "forty is" into the search engine and the first thing I got back was "Forty is the old age of youth".  Ouch.  I also got "forty is fabulous".  I don't like that one either.  I don't use fabulous to describe people (other than drag queens), places or things so I find it annoying.  "Forty is fearless."  Please.  I worried my way out of the womb and through the last 39 years, that will not be changing any time soon.  Then there was this book title that was something about women turning Forty and coming into their fullness.  Insert gag noise here.  Or Forty is the new twenty.  Is it?  Who says?  And why? 

Uninspired by the results of my internet search, I was forced to finally confront Forty and this is what I have found.  Forty is fit.  I am in much better shape now that I was turning 30.  No, it does not count that I was 5 months pregnant when I turned 30, I am still taking it as a win. Forty is family.  We are in the thick of the crazy years with one kid in high school, one in middle and one in elementary.  We are exhausted and stressed, but we have been blessed in abundance with these three.  Forty is factual.  I have been around, I know some things, I can share this knowledge, but I can still learn new things.  I know that the kid at the grocery store is carding me for my beer purchase because he is new and scared and not because he thinks I am underage.   Thirty year old me would have prided herself on her youthful appearance.  And finally, Forty is feisty because I am feisty and that is how my tens, twenties and thirties have been, so why not?  Forty will not be the old age of anything for me.  Do not go gently into turning Forty!

That said, I do ask that you do not put up a lit sign in my yard for my birthday as my son will quote from it like he quotes commercials and forty will get old very fast.  Or toilet paper my trees because my children will be so embarrassed when I take it down and bring it back in to use.  Forty will be acknowledged, it will be honored and it will be feted, but it really is just a number and we all know I was never very good at math.

For My Mom

Tomorrow is my mom's birthday, she will be turn something between 60 and 70.  As I tell my son, we never press a woman for her exact age or weight.

My mom was born to loving, devout, strict German Catholic parents.  She was one of twelve children, number four down the line.  The guy who wrote the birth order book would have his mind blown trying to say where each of the twelve fit in the rankings he created.  My mother had the misfortune of immediately following my super genius uncle and while she always got good grades, they were not as good as his.  Don't think too poorly of my grandparents, this was a time where children were sat in the corner with dunce hats on in school as well. 

given the awkwardness, I would put her age 12 here

My mom got good grades, graduated and went off to work a variety of crappy full time jobs because my grandfather did not believe women needed a higher education.  Ouch.  She met and married my dad and had my sisters quickly after and settled into being a policeman's wife.  My brother and I followed and after awhile she went back to work, working a variety of crappy jobs because by this time you needed a college degree to get good ones.  But my mother is nothing if not persistent and she found her niche in commercial real estate appraisal and did well.

The older and more hormonal my children get, the more I realize what an amazing mother my mom is.  The venomous looks my daughter gives me now makes me want to call my mom and apologize for my miserable teenage self.  She raised the four of us pretty much on her own as my dad worked a lot of nights and third shifts.  She carted us to various sports practices, plays, band and anything else we were in and she was at almost all of our games, our concerts and events.  We did well in school because she knew we could and it was important to her that we go to college.  I am an excellent speller because she made me look up words in the dictionary rather than telling me how to spell them.  Her inability to go to college really left an ugly wound in my mom's psyche and she raised her girls to think and know that they could do anything.  The world was as much theirs as it was their brother's.

My mom is an excellent baker and she made sure we all knew how to bake.  We did not have a lot of money and the good food (junk food) ran out quickly with four kids, but somehow there were always enough ingredients to put together to make a cake or cookies or something sweet.  My mom is also a good cook...when she follows the recipes and doesn't wing it or add things in she has lying around.  Ask me about the hot dogs, potatoes and peas....or, God help me, hamburger pie.

My mom is a do-er.  If something needs to be done, she is your woman.  Need a pancake breakfast organized?  Mary will do it.  Need a dozen cookies for a bake sale?  She will make you two dozen.  Need an arm or a leg?  She has two and she will gladly give you one.  Even pure exhaustion from caring for my dad going through chemo didn't stop her from taking care of others.  We spent two hours chasing down a wheelchair for a sick friend who needed it.  That is my mom.  Do and help and go until you just can't anymore.  I have had to tell her to stop being a Martha and to just be Mary: to take care of herself, to say no every now and then.

 She is an excellent Grammie and delights in her grandchildren.  She throws them Cheeto parties and lets them paint walls in the basement and make it a clubhouse.

She taught us all how to value family, how to be a part of our community, how to work hard and achieve our goals.  We are confident, mouthy and driven because of her.  We love our kids and expect good things from them because of her.  We are opinionated, purposeful and busy because of her.  I am so grateful for my mom, so proud to be her daughter. I know how much you value college Mom, but I learned more from you about the world than I ever did there.  Now on your birthday, go be Mary - not Martha.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

This past week I have survived the first week of fourth grade, sixth grade, tenth grade and my own work at high school.  My kids did great and while the new middle schooler had a tough week, she left on Friday triumphant having finally conquered her locker.  Whew!  The boy loves going to his after-school care; so much so that he is not happy to see me when I get there to pick him up. This should make me feel good, but it does make me a little mad when I have sat in traffic for an hour trying to get to him.

I have gleaned a lot of knowledge this first week working among so many teenagers.  First, they are not as clean-smelling as I hoped kids of this age would be.  We have two rooms off of the library and when classes are held in there, it smells like PE class after everyone leaves.  I expect this from grade school kids who are totally clueless that the smell they smell is indeed themselves, but it surprised me at high school.  Second, when over 2000 kids attend a school, there is not enough room for them all to eat lunch in the cafeteria.  Even with two lunch periods, kids spill into the hallways, the grounds outside, seniors leave campus and hundreds of kids make their way into the library.  We ask that those who are going to eat to eat up front.  Half of the kids say yes ma’am, sit where we ask them to and smile pleasantly. I LOVE these kids.  The the other half is sneaking food in every time they think I am not looking.  I am always looking and it is a game of “how stupid is the library staff vs. fast-chewing teens” for the next 30 minutes.  Third, pep rallies are not as fun as I remember.  Our student population is large, so they have two pep rallies instead of just one.  There was a dance routine, a cheer routine, the football captains murmured something into a microphone, a school fight song and then everyone was ushered out.  Eh.  Fourth, having school spirit means you can wear jeans and sneakers on game days. I just can’t buy enough spirit wear!

However, the most important thing I have learned this week comes from the teachers.  I was hired with about twenty new teachers this year and when they were introduced during the first staff meeting, it was a like a Who’s Who of American Teachers.  They are credentialed in a million things, they have been working in urban locations with struggling schools, they just flew in from overseas, or they are going to be teaching multiple subjects and coaching.  This is not just the new teachers though, it is all the teachers.  Very rarely does a teacher just teach one subject.  They are teaching Math and heading up the Robotics Department, or they teach English and leading the after school tutoring program or they are splitting time between multiple schools.  Impressed yet? I was, but it goes on.  They are there early or late or skip their lunch period to tutor or even just be available for kids who need help.  They are encouraging kids who don’t get encouragement at home and they are cutting through collegiate tape for those who do.  They are taking kids who won’t go on to college and helping them to identify careers and they are taking special needs kids and teaching them life skills.  It is all very humbling.

This week has opened my eyes to what being a teacher really means.  They are listening when other adults are not and they are intervening when kids need help.  People always comment on how teachers have it easy with their holidays and their summer vacations.  I think they need those in order to save their sanity and come back to do it again next year.  And for those of you who think that your taxes pay teacher’s salaries, that is inane.  Your taxes pay your taxes and teachers pay taxes too, so they could say that they are actually funding their own salaries as well.  And yes, teachers do make good money their first year out of college, but what about ten years later when they are raising a family and have had maybe a 1% increase those past ten years?  Not so much right?

My kids have had decent teachers, good teachers and teachers I would walk across coals for if they asked me because they made such a difference in my kids’ lives.  They have also had teachers who were going through a divorce and distracted, teachers who maybe could have retired a few years ago and teachers who got into teaching without realizing it wasn’t for them.  Poor Bill had more bad teachers than good teachers.  I have railed against certain teachers and how I think they have failed my children without stopping to just appreciate that these teachers were there during the day when I wasn’t.  Perhaps their teaching style did not suit my child, but they took care of them, made sure they were where they were supposed to be and expected things of them.  I didn’t care to remember that they were doing all of this while caring for more kids than their room truly holds and state issued testing breathing down their necks.   

I would like to hope that every teacher my kids get will be a great one, but I know that they won’t all be.  However, even if they are not, I will try to keep in mind all that they do in a day and respect them for that alone and teach my kids to do the same.  

Workin' 9 to 5

Sometimes I remember commercials from my youth that no one else does.  (For example, no one else remembers the "Barcelona.  It's in Spain" commercials that ran before the Summer Olympics in Barcelona to let us ignorant Americans know where Barcelona was.  They were so lame and yet so good in conveying where in the world Barcelona is that whenever I hear Barcelona, I immediately think "It's in Spain.")  However, I feel confident that everyone will remember the Enjoli commercial I am about to reference, but if not, click here.

Released in the early 80's, this commercial was about celebrating the new generation of working women.  Women who fought hard for their jobs and not only earned money, but then came home, made dinner and wowed their husbands with their feminine wiles.  As a kid, I remember being amazed the woman was cooking bacon(!) for dinner!  Decadence.  As an adult, I am amazed she didn't immediately take her bra off and change into comfy pants when she walked through the door. What the hell was she thinking?  On my drive home, I am picturing that sweet, sweet moment I get to take my shoes off for the day.  The Enjoli woman is cooking in heels.  Hmm, my jaded adult take is that perhaps this ad was less about female empowerment and more about what a male director wanted in his dream woman....

Anyway, aside from the constricting foot wear, adjusting to full time work is going well.  I am still getting my kettlebell in, laundry is getting done and the kids are still growing.  It is a new normal and it is a busy one!  Bill used to laugh when I said I did laundry all day, and I would get mad because I really did do laundry all day.  However, now laundry can now get done in an evening.  Apparently my working has thrown the earth's rotation out of whack and more can get done in less time.  Crazy, right?!  The kids are adjusting too and are also feeling the time shift.  However in their case, eight hours is not even enough time to get their teeth brushed before I get home.

I really like my job. I like being busy.  I like the people I work with. I have a desk!  My own desk!   Two of the things I was worried about the night before I started was if there would be a refrigerator and how close a staff bathroom might be.  There is a refrigerator in the break room twenty feet from my desk so there is no need to worry about what I can bring for lunch and, happy day, a staff bathroom right outside the hall. Jackpot!!!  I can't remember everyone's name but that is okay because they can't remember mine and we all wear badges anyway.

I will own up to feeling perhaps a tiny bit tired.  Or maybe even bone crushingly exhausted.  Yes, that was me asleep on the couch about 8:15 last Friday.  I know that damn Enjoli woman probably stayed up til midnight knitting a blanket or saving whales somewhere, but I think I am more Rosie the Riveter than Enjoli woman anyway. 

Yes, yes we can.

(Personally, I would love to wear a jump suit and bandanna to work and you know Rosie was sporting some sensible shoes to go with both. And yes, of course, I would up the sleeves of said jumpsuit and show my muscles, just like Rosie)   It can be overwhelming how much there is to get done in a day.  I am trying to take it all in stride and give myself time to adjust, give us all time to adjust as my wise husband suggests.  Until we do, I am going to think more like Rosie.  She rolled up her sleeves and entered the workforce and so am I.  We are strong, we are purposeful and we are determined.  Rosie and I?  We can do laundry in the evening or we can encourage kids to use the same towel once more until we do.  We can clean the house when we get a chance or ignore the dog hair until we do.  Even better, smile as our sweet husband takes up the vacuum.  We can make a great meal on the fly or we can make a sandwich and call it dinner - either one will fill us up.  We can love our kids whether we are spending all day with them or not enough time together in the evening.  It is a busy new normal and one I see that will go on for a long time, but Rosie and I?  We can do it!

FAITH or faith?

Lately, I find I am very adrift when it come to faith.  Not FAITH (God, the Trinity, do unto others...), but faith: which faith, which church, which way to tell our kids is it.  Bill and I both grew up Catholic but stopped practicing as Catholics in our adulthood.  We have had cause to go to Catholic mass twice in the past few months and while he and I found the sameness of it comforting, our children looked like they were being skewered with hot pokers the entire time.  I guess you can't raise kids in a church with contemporary music and programs designed specifically for them and then expect them to sit, stand, kneel for an hour and feel like God is there for them too.  My stepdaughter likened it to secret club where everyone knew how to reply or when to kneel or what to say except her. 

We have gone to a huge, non-denominational church for years and enjoyed parts of it very much, but never really found our place in there.  We tried joining things, volunteering in different areas and then committing to small groups where you get to know a few families and get together with them.  This is an attempt to make a church of thousands homey.  However, every time we joined a group, after a few months the leaders would move.  Really, we were the Kevorkian of small groups.  It gets to where you feel like you just can't invest in the awkwardness of forcing a friendship or sense of familiarity with people anymore when you are just waiting for them to move on you. 

We have been shopping around for a new church for the last year.  We will try a church or two and either the kids will like it and we won't or we will like it and the kids won't.  There are many more weeks that we don't even try.  It is a very first world problem to have so many churches at our disposal to choose from, I know.  We live in a university town in the Bible belt.  People are atheists, agnostics, evangelists and zealots.  I know people who do not go to church but spend more time on the weekend serving and building their community than I have ever thought to do.  I know people who carry God in their heart everywhere they go and in everything they do and wonder how they do it so easily.  But what are we?  We are not any of those things.  I think we are just parents trying to raise good kids and keep God in the picture while we do it.  But I wonder if we are failing them because they are not growing up in a church reaching milestones and then the next milestone and then becoming an adult in their church? 

My grandmother was one of the most religious people I have ever met.  The woman raised 12 children in a house with one bathroom. She went to Mass every day.  My mother tells of having to go to church on Christmas morning before they could open presents.  I remember being a foul mouthed teen and grumbling that I had to go to church on a weeknight because it was a holy day of obligation.  Being a know-it-all 15 year old, I pointed out that if we were really celebrating the conception of Jesus, shouldn't we go in March and not early December?  She was furious.  Having never seen her more than annoyed before, I took note and even listened to what she had to say.  She said sometimes you just have to have FAITH.  You have to stop being so smart and to just believe.  She may have also been hinting at being more obedient and perhaps docile, but I had stopped listening by then. 

We had an incredibly intelligent and long conversation around the dinner table last night with all of our kids about God, about religion, about why we have not found a church.  I was amazed with the insight they provided about what they see, what they think we could do, what things we all could do and I thought that perhaps our indecision and hesitancy about faith isn't affecting them as negatively as I had thought.  It may have been good to tell them we don't have all the answers or they may just use against us in the future.  I did walk away from the table thinking that maybe we aren't failing as badly as I thought.  And I guess for the time being, we should just focus more on FAITH and less on which building to put that faith in.