A Whole New World - 2024 edition

It has been almost seven years since my last blog post. To say things have changed would be the world's greatest understatement. 

LP is 17. SEVENTEEN. And is preparing to go to college in the fall.

AK is 15. And in a few weeks will take the train to Baltimore by herself to visit a friend and in a few months will go to Europe with a high school class.

Way back when I started this blog, I was faking it - hoping I was making good decisions and being a good role model for my girls. I can unequivocally state that I was not always right. That being said, LP and AK have far surpassed anything I could ever have imagined.

They are poised, confident, smart and kind. 

They have chosen to take very active roles in a teen youth movement and this has given them incredible leadership opportunities and life experiences. They are often best friends in the best sense (and still occasionally annoy the $h!t out of each other - and us).

Looking back, it was not intentional, but I see that the life lessons the Hoos and I tried to instill were about helping them to be good people, empowered to and capable of making good decisions - or recovering from less good decisions. 

And they make me better.

A few years ago, I was telling LP how proud and impressed I was by how she did not care what other people thought of her and stood up for what she believed in. " I wouldn't have done that when I was your age. I am in my 40s and I only have gained that confidence recently."

She looked right back at me and said, " I didn't know you then. I see you now - that is how I see you."

WHAT THE ACTUAL F?! Mind. Blown.

If you are still reading this blog - or getting notifications - I hope this gives you some sense of closure - we are all okay! Better than okay. Thank you for hanging on. 

And for those of you about to watch your littles waddle out of the nest - I am confident that the world is going to be better thanks to the people you created.
 

More In Awe Than Ever

There is a lot about the last 11 years that I can't recall. Sometimes AK will read aloud printouts of this right here blog and ask me "Mom, do you remember that??" And honestly, thank goodness for me writing it down in this blog, because otherwise I would have absolutely no recollection.

One thing I do remember is a complete sense of awe after giving birth to LP. The Hoos and I looked at each other in amazement- we had created a person! A person! Two cells - one person! The feeling was the same two years later with the arrival of AK.

Thinking back makes me laugh. We hadn't created a person. We had created a blank slate. Perfect in many many ways - all of the physical parts and the unbounded capacity to learn and grow and be full of life and knowledge and personality. 

Today, when I look at LP and AK I am truly overwhelmed. They are smart, strong and independent. They are beautiful - inside and out. They are full of words and thoughts and emotions. Ideas that I can't even fathom. 

Oddly enough, I still sometimes find myself at a loss as to why they are behaving a certain way. Much  like when they were newborns and parenting was new and all the Hoos and I could do was guess as to the rationale behind a cry. They have words alright--more words than I could have ever imagined--but they too are still learning to express themselves and understand their feelings and the world. 

Every day I am more in awe. Even as I type this with my thumbs as the two of them annoy each other upstairs and pick at one another for no apparent reason. We are so proud of them. Their triumphs fulfill me more than my own. They are my biggest triumph. 

Holding Hands

The other day I took LP and AK for a swim at the JCC and from an observation room high above the pool, AK's class clustered at the window to watch us swim. Both AK and LP relished the attention and showed off their swimming and jumping skills. I tried to keep as much of my body under the water as possible.

I know that there will be a time in the not-too-distant future when my babies are embarrassed to be seen in public with me. They will no longer hold my hand or even wave at their friends when I am in the vicinity.

I also know there will be times when they don't want to even look at each other, let alone spend time together. Right now I don't mind that LP occasionally requests AK in the morning, instead of the me (or the Hoos). Sure, AK typically refuses to help and I have to bribe her to kiss her sister, but still, they love each other.

Some mornings I lay in bed with the girls when they are just waking up and I whisper, "Mommy will always love you. Mommy will always give you hugs and kisses when you need them. I am proud of you everyday." I also use this opportunity to remind them that they will never be too big to cuddle with me.  

Lack of Focus

We just had our house painted. It looks great and now it is time to unpack all of the decorative items we stowed away during the process. I was determined to get it done, and here is what really happened:

1. Headed upstairs to get bins of breakable items from their storage space on the third floor.
2. Atop on second floor and realize washer has stopped, so I should put stuff into dryer.
3. Realize dryer is full.
4. Realize laundry basket is overflowing with other clean, unfolded items.
5. Start folding sheets in basket.
6. Realize basket is too full for me to make immediate impact.
7. Remove stuff from dryer and put it on our bed.
8. Move wash to dryer.
9. Continue folding sheets.
10. Fold all 3 loads that fill basket and cover bed.
11. Try to put sheets away.
12. Realize linen closet is bursting.
13. Empty linen closet.
14. Refold and reorganize linen closet.
15. Leave out sheets for the unmade trundle bed on third floor.
16. Head up to third floor.
17. Put sheets on bed.
18. Realize blankets for trundle are in LP's closet.
19. Go down to second floor to get blanket.
20. Notice girls' folded clothes.
21. Put away girls' laundry.
22. Bring blankets to third floor.
23. Put blankets on bed.
24. Locate bin I originally came upstairs for...

No wonder I can't accomplish anything! 

LP in the House

Yesterday, LP came to work with me. In honor of Martin Luther King day, she had the day off. I did not.

While I could have made alternate plans for her for the day, she was adamant about coming in to the office with me. She had big plans. She wanted to spend the day with Maggie, the yellow lab that LP fell in love with over the summer.

I am sure that Tim, my co-worker, was sick of me verifying that he would, indeed bring Maggie into the office to entertain LP. I shouldn't have worried. He brought her in, Maggie bounded over to LP and a long day of indoor ball-throwing, outside potty breaks, and bonding began.

Face Time

This is what happens when your children steal your phone.

Oh, the Indignity!

There are lots of things about being a parent that require you to give up a little bit of yourself.

• Modesty and Privacy. More than five (FIVE?!?!)  years ago, I posted about giving these up. That hasn't changed. In fact, I think it is worse. Now my children will knock on the door and then walk right in if I am in the bathroom. And if I am in the shower, they will just pull up a stool and chat with me. 
• Alone Time. Alone time? What is that?! HA!When I get to go to the grocery store sans children, it is freedom I am not used to. I can't decide if I should pick up a mocha before I go to the store and then have to carry it around or if I should get it after and then have to race home to put away the groceries. (Sad, sad alone decisions, I know).
• Humility. When you are wiping butts - however adorable they may be - several times a day, there is just no time to be proud. The most recent reminder of this was earlier this week when LP squeezed her nose shut and shouted, "Mom! can you clean out Humphrey's wheel?" Did he poop in it, I asked. "I don't know what it is, it is just icky!". And so there I was, scrubbing nasty, sticky hamster pee out of his silent wheel.

While this list is not all inclusive - I can't even imagine how much more I could write about humility if we got a dog - I did say you just give up a little bit of yourself.

The girls remind me every so often that I "am the boss of the house."

I am hoping they mean that I am not just the boss of the cleaning up and laundry and cooking and grocery shopping and planning and instead I am the boss of the inhabitants of the house as well.  And then I find myself picking hamster poop out of Humphrey's fur and start to wonder...

I just couldn't go all sad again, I couldn't. I hope this and some of the links back to old posts makes you laugh.

When There Are No Answers

In case you didn't guess from the url of this blog, I am a Connecticut mom. And this week at least, we are all Connecticut moms. Moms and dads and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and siblings who love our kids and will give them dozens of extra hugs and kisses over the next few days and weeks.

It doesn't matter how close geographically one lives to Newtown, CT. We all might as well live in Newtown. There is not a single person unaffected by this tragedy. Even those that are blissfully unaware, like AK, who we decided not to tell.

I am not a political person. And, yet, I do think, hope, feel that perhaps some sort of legislation would make something like this less likely to happen. Mental health? Gun control? I don't know the answer, but I sure would like one. Or maybe I would just like to know that there is an answer for how to avoid it, because I do not think we will ever get an answer to 'why?'.

Like everyone else, the Hoos and I struggled to process. We grappled with if and how and how much to tell LP. As a six year old first grader, she felt too young to tell, but too old not to tell.

A few weeks ago she came home from school and told us about the drills her class did in case of a tornado. We giggled along with her as she described how 22 kids and pregnant teacher would cram into the closet-sized bathroom in her class and one kid asked, "What if I have to pee?"

We aren't giggling anymore.

Quicker Picker Upper

Kids are such perfect blanks slates. Well, maybe not completely blank- there is some "nature" in the whole "nature vs. nurture" thing...

Perhaps a better metaphor is that kids are like Bounty? They really do absorb everything.

Yesterday LP told me that a boy kissed her 10 times. On the hand. And that she "sucked them into her heart" and she is in love with him. Now, I am not saying that I ever said these things. As those who know me can attest, I am not exactly a romantic. But did she hear them somewhere? Read them somewhere? Or is this "nature"?

And there there is AK. Sweet little AK who removes her clothes and walks around the house in my high-heeled boots and preens in front of the mirror. Again, I DO NOT DO THIS. And, actually, no one other than AK does (in our house at least). I am going to chalk this one up to the "nature."

AK also asked me the other day to tell her she is pretty. I said, "AK, I tell you that you are smart and beautiful all the time. You are beautiful." And her response? "I know." When I told her the appropriate answer was "thank you." She told me that she had just seen the same exchange on TV and wanted to "try it out." Obviously not nurture. Maybe anti-nurture, since she was watching Disney Channel instead of reading a book with me? Dang you Cece and Rocky!

While these are not necessarily things that will scar them for life (I am not going to put those in writing so my kids can't hold it against me in 15 years), they clearly demonstrate that:

1. I am in over my head.
2. There is no way to filter a child's entire life experience.
3. Even if they don't LISTEN, my kids HEAR everything that is said around them.

Please, tell me I am not alone. What crazy things have your kids said or done recently that scares the bejeezers out of you?

All the Time in the World

It is amazing to me how time flies. While I grin with glee when I talk about how this is my last year of day care, on the inside I am also remembering that it means my baby will soon be five. I remember when AK was Bun - the nameless, sexless baby that I carried in my oddly pointed belly.

If that isn't bad enough - My big girl is losing teeth! I remember when she didn't even have teeth.

As time goes by, I am also coming to terms with what a big job it is to be a mommy. To be a parent.

At times I forget. I see my role in the mundane - slurbing on bellies, washing dirty clothes, collecting toys from scattered places, packing lunches and reminding and nagging.

And at other times, it seems as if being "the mom" is an enormous task.

Teaching them about inner beauty, self-confidence, body image.

Reminding them that they are smart and beautiful and good.

Gloating when they do something nice unprompted.

Hurting when they are hurt by others. 

Cringing when I see them do the same thing.

Realizing that even if I am there to try to "fix" it and educate and remind, it doesn't make it go away. It might help them temper the response next time, but I can't make it go away. And I can't be there all the time.