Literal Mom

Now What?

Now what?

Now what.

Now.  What?

This is the prompt for Just Be Enough's monthly link up and I'm stumped as I look at all the varying ways to say "now what." 

Rolling them around in my mind, tasting them, trying to see which one fits for where I am today.

Now what?  I suppose it's a perfect question for me.

For I am in flux, trapped in a gray area of wishing summer were still here and trying (it seems unsuccessfully) to slide into a Fall routine that's satisfying.

I'm DOING stuff.  A lot of stuff.  But I'm unsatisfied.  I'm going through the motions, getting enjoyment from some things, but wanting more (and more and more) fulfillment from others.  

I'm lonely.  I unexpectedly cried talking to a friend today about how I missed summer.  And I miss the girls.

The endless "moms" I sometimes not very patiently answered all summer long are just echoes and memories now, all day long.  

Then I pick them up, so happy to see them and as they pour their days of trials and tribulations into me, I don't want that either.  It's so much, going from nothing all day to everything in an instant.

I'd prefer the slow trickle of daily emotions we had in the summer.  Watching their slow build to the end of the day, instead of being bombarded by it. 

And though I miss them and though it's lonely, the days fly by, filled with what feels like unimportant details.

Trouble is, I'm not sure what I think is important right now.  

Now what?

Is a question I'm asking myself daily.  

Will the answer come?  Yes, certainly.  

I just have to have faith.  And patience.  And remember that sometimes when I feel like I'm not getting an answer, maybe that in itself is an answer I need to pay attention to.  

Writing About Family

Sometimes the time for a story comes and you're afraid to write it.  

Sperk asked me to write for Wednesday's Woman a long time ago.  And when she reminded me that it was today, I had a bit of a panic attack.  

See, I can write about moments.  I can give you kid vignettes.  I can hide behind humor and tongue in cheek posts, like I did last week.

What I normally don't give you is information about my past.  

And today I'm writing about someone else's past.  

My Mother.  

I'd love for you to come read the rest.  Head over to Sperk's site to do so.  And Sperk (real name Kimberly)?  Not only are we neighbors whose kids have attended the same school, but she's amazing.  Did you know she was a BlogHer Voice of the Year?  How cool is that?  For writing an awesome piece about Dan Patrick.  

So come visit, would you?  And say hi to Sperk while you're there!

Privacy, Defined by a 10 Year Old

Big G recently had a "talk" with Little Iggy about privacy:

Big G:  Little Iggy, I need to tell mom about what you did last night.  It's all about the importance of privacy.

Little Iggy:  Ok, Big G.

Big G:  See, when the babysitter's here, I don't want you telling her that sometimes I only pretend to brush my teeth before bed.  That's rude and it's an invasion of privacy.

Little Iggy:  But it's true.

Big G:  It doesn't matter if it's true.  My business is MY business and I don't want you sharing it with the sitters anymore.  Do you understand?

Little Iggy:  Aye-Aye, Captain!

Big G:  I'm totally serious!  Mooommmm, she's not taking me seriously!

And while I smirked through the whole conversation, and was impressed that Big G can translate our Vegas rule ("What goes on in Literal Mom household stays in Literal Mom household"), I was struck numb after it hit me.

 

This waterfall reminds me of how information travels on the internet.

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I can't talk about her anymore.  Because, like that waterfall, talking about her can end up places I didn't originally intend it to go.  

Her privacy, important enough to warrant an 8am Saturday morning conversation with her sister, is certainly important enough to be respected by me in this space.  

But.

I want to talk about her.  I want to emote about all of the things I'm helping her emote about.  

I fear I'll go crazy if I don't share the challenges of tweens with someone.  

I fear, so many days, that I'm not doing the right thing and I want to share my strategies in response to the issues she brings home with her.  

So I can find out if I'm on the right track.

Like so many mothers before me, and no doubt so many after me, I find myself in new, strange territory.  Letting her grow and spread her wings while trying to make sure her roots are deep enough and strong enough to withstand her attempts to learn to fly.

And I want to talk about it.  I want to hear what others have dealt with and how they handled it.  I want affirmation.

But I can't really preach to her the Vegas Rule of our house if I don't follow it here, can I?

"Girls, what goes on in our house stays in our house.  Unless of course I need to blog about it.  If that happens, it's ok.  Ok?"

I know I'm not the first person who's had this particular problem with social media and familial privacy.  I've even talked about the privacy issue before.

But I think I need to try harder.  To give my girls the privacy they need, but still share in a way that helps me work through issues.  And maybe help some of you along the way too.

This is a fine line to walk on.  One of several fine lines I feel like I'm walking on right now.  

Fall, at the moment, is aptly named.  It's something I don't want to do as I continue on this narrow path I've created for myself.

Fall.

Ohio's New Texting Ban - How to Comply When You're a Social Media Junkie

Ohio's new driving while texting ban recently went into effect.  

Well, kind of.  

It's in effect, but you won't feel the effect for 6 months.  As in, they're only going to give warnings between now and then.

So, between now and March, I need to figure out the following:

Does the law apply only to texting?  Because I really like Twitter, Facebook and email too.  And in the age of smart phones, all of those social media outlets can create a driving emergency.  

Let's define a driving emergency as this:  I hear the ping and need to check the source.  Depending on the source, I can either 1) wait because it's a non-vital communication or 2) must check now.  Like this instant.  

photo credit - pictureYouth

How much can I let my 10 year old help me with when a driving emergency occurs?  She texts for me already.  Sometimes (shhhhhhh, this is just between us) I'll have her pretend she's me and send it in 100% my voice.  Sometimes I'll let her say it's her on my behalf so she can insert 15 emoticons, which is apparently all the rage for 10 year olds.  And maybe 41 year olds too.  

But what about the Facebook disagreement I was copied on awhile ago?  When my phone was pinging, sometimes 3x a MINUTE, and we're just trying to drive to piano lessons, can I have her check that and read it back to me?  She would have gotten a good lesson in language, that's for sure.  (And maybe she gets a smattering of that kind of lesson from her old Mama on occasion anyway).  

How can I keep my husband from finding out?  He has laid down the law - NO TEXTING IN THE CAR.  So if I get a warning in the next 6 months, do I tell him?  Is this one of the the instances it's OK to lie to your husband?  

Legal Implications.  What if I have an actual ticket 6 months from now and I want to fight it because I wasn't texting, I was facebooking?  Can I hire a lawyer and take that case to court?  Will I be a case of first impression?

These are the questions plaguing me as I adjust to Ohio's texting ban.  

And if you don't think this was written in jest, we need to talk.  Texting while driving is incredibly dangerous.  I actually applaud Ohio for taking this step to curb it.  

I just wish I knew the full extent of the law.  You know, for educational purposes.  

 

 

28 Embarrassing Things I Love

Some things I love.  But I don't talk about them.  I can't say they're secret, oh-my-gosh-if-people-find-out-I'll-die-or-be-blackballed-by-my-volunteer-organizations things.  

But some of them just aren't polite conversation starters.  

You know?

Here goes:

Raw brownie mix,

The movie Titanic,

My dog's wet nose,

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Burping,

Passing gas (you may remember I can't even say the "f" word - so disgusting),

Reality TV,

Cutting someone jerky off on the highway,

Getting through a yellow light "just" before it turns red,

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Listening to gossip,

Drinking Red Bulls with Vodka (that first one is like nectar of the gods),

Putting my kids to bed at night,

Falling asleep,

Taking a nap while the kids are at school,

Ke$ha,

Shaking it like a polaroid picture,

Usher's Yeah, Yeah,

Picking my nose (I know, by this point you are like, "You are SO gross!  I AM going to blackball you after all.),

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Picking wedgies,

Flossing my teeth,

Popping zits (come on, admit you like this one too),

Finding hidden pictures in Highlights magazine,

Playing pizza palace on Webkinz,

Being alone,

Arranging my kids into more comfortable positions as they sleep,

Being right with an asshole,

Being wrong and learning something new from someone I admire and respect,

Scratching a mosquito bite until it's raw (gross right?).

Question is, if I've shared mine, what secret loves are you going to tell me?  

Come on . . . you know you wanna!

Hanging on for Dear Life

I'm inspired by Kir's post today at Just Be Enough, where I also contribute regularly.  

She talks about hanging onto the last few days of summer and how she keeps summer in her heart all year long.  

And this week, with both of my kids back in school, I find myself looking at the gorgeous blue skies here in Columbus, Ohio (forecast says Isaac remnants won't reach us until Sunday or Monday - my heart goes out to those being pounded right now) and I feel sad.

I don't want summer to end this year.  

Despite what I said about goodbyes on Monday, there have been some years where it's just time for summer to go.  The kids are fighting and bored, I've gained weight (well, that's happened this year too - sigh), I have so much volunteerism to do, and the routine is just so necessary. 

Not so much this year.  Even despite some ugly moments (all of life, even the best times can have ugly moments, I'm finding), my wish is that we could have just one more week of summer.

I don't want to think about schoolwork, personal growth, weight loss, no longer eating french fries, obligations, after school activities, getting up before 7am, or being responsible.

And maybe (Shhhhhhh, don't tell ANYONE), I'm going ahead and taking this week to NOT think about those things.  

Maybe I'm putting all of the looming responsibilities on the backburner for a few extra days.

Maybe I've even gone to the pool by myself a few times this week to sit in the quiet, read my book(s), and just BE.  

I don't think school should start until after Labor Day.  Who's in school mode before then?

Not this girl.  

Thank goodness no homework's coming home this week.  Or my little playing hooky plan would be a little harder to implement.

And while I'm playing hooky, big things are happening behind the scenes at Literal Mom (it might be another reason I've played hooky this week).  I can't wait to tell you all about them.  

A Love Letter (of sorts) to My Parents

Are you parents alive?

Do you take them for granted?

Do you think your kids take you for granted?

I think the very nature of the parent/child relationship has the child taking the parent for granted. 

Even when a child is thankful for what a parent does for them, the child still takes the parent for granted.

Until that parent is gone.

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My parents are both alive.

But I take them for granted.  I may be an adult, but I'm very much a child in my view that "my parents are always going to be here for me," so I take them for granted. 

Except I have to stop that.  

I got a glimpse a couple of nights ago of why I shouldn't take my parents for granted.  I got a glimpse of what life will be like when they're gone.

And I need to try, MY DAMNEDEST, not to take them for granted while I still have them.

I know that so many of you out there no longer have your parents or you don't have the relationship with your parents that you wish you did. 

And I get it.  Sometimes it's hard to be an adult and still be someone's child.  After an argument with my mother, I confessed once to my priest about that - "how do I continue to respect my parents when they treat me like a child?"

And I thought I'd get sympathy and understanding.  Instead I got this:

"No matter how old you become, you will always be their little girl.  And they deserve your respect.  Even when it's hard." 

And I tucked that little thought away, because I wasn't ready for it at the time. 

But today?

I'm ready for it.  

My parents aren't perfect.  No parent is.  Lord KNOWS I've learned that myself in the last decade of parenting.  We are all human beings, with flaws and baggage that we bring to the parenting table.  

And most of us are just slogging through it in our imperfect imperfection, trying to do the best we can.  And most of our parents were doing the exact same thing when they raised us.

My parents won't be here forever.  And from now until the end, they deserve my respect, my attention and my appreciation every single time I talk to them.  

Because one day, I'm going to pick up the phone to tell them something about my day, and they're not going to be on the other end.  And I'll have picked up the phone because I've forgotten, even for a moment, that I don't have them anymore. 

And I'll bet I'll regret every moment I took them for granted then.

Was Robert Frost Right? Do Good Fences Make Good Neighbors?

I read Robert Frost's poem, Mending Wall, when I was in the 8th grade.  Even then, when I didn't know what it would be like 30 years later to live within mere feet of my neighbors, I identified with the curmudgeonly neighbor who keeps insisting that "good fences make good neighbors."  

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Even then, I thought the speaker in the poem who didn't want the fence between he and his neighbor was being kind of an insensitive jerk.

And my view hasn't changed much since then.  If anything it's gotten stronger.  Much, much stronger.

One day this summer, I found out on Facebook that my need for good fences makes me seem like a curmudgeon, much like the neighbor in Frost's poem.  

I grew up on land.  Just an acre, which isn't much.  But it was enough to provide privacy. And boundaries.

The big man grew up on land too, with a huge yard he and his brothers had to rake and mow growing up, much like my brother.  

And for the past 15 years, I've lived on a lot that's 50 feet wide.  Our driveway is so close to our neighbor's house that we can literally see into their windows.  

If we wanted.  Which we don't.  

The proximity, for the most part, hasn't been a huge problem over the years. 

Sure, I don't want to say "howdy" to the neighbors if they're standing outside when we pull in.  And I usually don't.  They all probably think we're elitist.  But the reality is we just like privacy.  If my kids are having an "I'm too tired to function" meltdown in the car, I really don't want the neighbors to watch it because their house is so close.  

The "keeping up with the Joneses" scenario on the weekend is annoying.  Just because one person decides to do yardwork, why do 5 other neighbors have to do it?  Why can't we just do yardwork on our own time?  Which, in our case, might be never, as we hate it.  I'm sure our neighbors love that.

Maybe these expectations of mine make me an old-fashioned curmudgeon.

Maybe I'm the unreasonable one to want privacy in my own home and my own yard.

But I am who I am.

And that's a person who likes boundaries and tries to respect the boundaries of others.

Good fences, in all respects, really do make good neighbors in my world.

What's it like in your world?  

Addendum:  I am totally ok if you disagree with me.  As a matter of fact, I'd love to hear what you like about close neighbor relationships.  I haven't found that joy yet.

Addendum 2: I'm aware that I'm blogging on a public blog that my neighbors can find any time.  If so, I apologize now.  It's less you, and more me.  

Am I the Problem?

(Written one day last week.  I'm better now.  Promise.  It's important, though, to share some of the hard days.  Because every parent alive has days like this, I think.  Parenting can be hard as hell.)

I sit here, trying to recover from a bad moment with my kids tonight.  

A bad couple of hours, actually.

I can look back and see the warning signs throughout the day:

• a stressful situation I'm dealing with on the side (not family related)
• fatigue from an awesome weekend
• feeling the pressure of back-to-school mounting, though I'm trying not to think about it
• kids being kids, who, by the end of the day have worn down my defenses, my patience, and my ability to respond appropriately

I can see all of that, clearly.  But after a stressful car ride, with lots of tears from one child, lots of complete oblivion and silliness from another, and bad responses from me to both, I feel like I failed them.

Again.

But I also don't understand, for the life of me, how they don't recognize the warning signs in a mother who's reached her limit.  

I grew up the youngest of 6, and I learned very fast how to recognize the signs that a parental pressure cooker was getting ready to blow.  Not learning meant you would be in the line of fire.  

Why don't they have that same ability?  

Because there aren't 5 kids older than them to learn from?  

Because I don't show the signs until I'm already snapping?  

Because I don't give them enough information to figure it out?

This post, even as I write it, seems so reminiscent of my PMS post. And yes, my reaction to them today was similar to the situation in that post.  

So maybe it's not just PMS.  Maybe it's stress and fatigue more than anything else.  

Because I am tired.  

And I feel the pressure of a mounting to do list, a stack of "work" in my basket, and 100s of unresponded to emails in my inbox.

And as much as I'm trying to ignore it, I feel the pressure of back to school mounting as well.  

And I'm not ready.  I'm not ready to give them up.  I'm not ready to go back to being an adult all the time, and I'm sure as heck not ready for the hustle and bustle of the school year schedule.  

But I sure could use a few hours to clean up my life.  

What Completes Us

We're in the middle of something grand this week.  

Right before we left for the Our Lady Peace concert. We stayed at the Ritz Carlton, hopefully stimulating the Cleveland economy a bit. I'm sure the really dressy people loved our concert attire.

Or grande, if I'm a Starbucks girl.  

Which I'm not.  

But it's still grande.  Venti, actually.

Friday we visited Cleveland to see our favorite band, Our Lady Peace, at the House of Blues.

The men behind the magic.

Arguably our only band. 

The only one we're willing to see multiple times, travel great distances to, and meet, that is.

Because as of Friday, we've seen them 12 times.  

Two years ago, we traveled 2000 miles to see them in Canada.

And three years ago we met them in person.  

They complete us.  

Can you believe how close we were to the stage? Second row, baby! This is Duncan Coutts, the bass player. We got one of his picks on Friday.

When we talk to people about our love of them . . .

. . .  how they've been with us our entire adult lives,

. . . how each new album reaches us in exactly the place we are at that moment in life,

. . . how we can't possibly pick their "best" song for those who have never heard them, but we may be able to narrow it down to a top 10, or more accurately a top 20,

I see people try to find a connection.  

"Oh, that's how I feel about [insert a band name here that means nothing to us]."

"Oh, I love concerts too." (nope, this is different)

"Oh, maybe we should go with you sometime to see if we like them too." (No, thanks - because if you don't, and truly, you could never know them the way we do, then we likely won't like you very much anymore.  And that wouldn't be fair to you because it's not your fault you can never feel as strongly about them as we do.)

Family kind of shake their head at us . . . "Oh, there they go again to see that band they love."

Raine Maida - lead singer of Our Lady Peace. He has one of the most hauntingly beautiful voices in all of music.

Our kids don't have a chance to do anything but love them as much as us- they're growing up with them, like some of us grew up with the Eagles, or the Beatles.  They love them purely by being saturated with them.  

They want to go to a concert with us, but we're not even ready to share it with them.  

Because this?  

Toward the end of the show. My voice would be gone from screaming by the next morning. It's not back yet.

Is our thing.  It completes us.  It brings us full circle back to each other in a way that very few other things can.  

Our story is seamlessly intertwined with music from their 8 album career.  Things happen and we are reminded of songs that cemented a memory in our lives.

Like the first time I heard the Big Man play Starseed and thought he'd written it.  Which is probably why he started to love me, right there.  To think a song this superb came from him.  

Or the time we almost ran out of gas in the middle of the night in the West Virginia mountains and sang Clumsy to ward off the terror.

Or the time Big G sang Somewhere Out There with her dad on stage.  At two years old.

Or the first time we heard 4am in concert and Raine didn't sing one word of the song - because the audience did it for him.

Or the first time we heard Paper Moon and said "anyone who's hitting middle age HAS to feel this way."  And I'm not one who wants to run away from my life, either.  But this song speaks to me on a visceral level, maybe more than any other song I've ever heard.  Because sometimes you do look at your life, or parts of it at least, and say, "My God, how did I get here?  And how do I get back to where I really want to be?"

I never feel more alive than when we are at another one of their concerts.  A religious experience, it is, for sure.  

And it brings a full understanding of how music, the right music, not the utter shit that's played on top 40 stations today, transcends the mere notes and lyrics themselves.

Uplifts.  

Connects.

Completes.  

 

After the concert, still flying high. I might have been tweeting them like crazy, thanking them for such an awesome concert. Hopefully they don't block me so I can let them know when we're on our way to Cinci next week.

And we get to do it again this Sunday, because they're coming back again - within driving distance.  

 

Life is waiting for us.