The Main Dish

The fall is always busy. School and sports and birthdays and friends. This fall is over the top. There isn't one night during the week we are all home at the same time for dinner. We eat in shifts. Mostly sandwiches or cereal. Late. Then after that there is homework and showers and bed. No time to be a family. I miss that.

I miss the 20 minutes sitting together to eat. Where we are all turned toward each other and really talking. No phones or iPods or TV. The mismatched dishes and the thrown together meals add to the relaxed conversation. Everyone has something to say to contribute to the chatter. Questions are asked, days are talked about all around that table. Walls are down and problems are solvedall around that table. That time equals family and home. I miss that. I think we all do.

Last weekend we found our selves all home for dinner. The kids set the table and lingered long after the pizza box was empty. They had so much to say. So much encouragement to give each other and themselves. That table is helping to build confidence and empathy. It is opening ears and silencing fears. It is about being a part of something. Always having someone to listen and really hear. I love that table.

As the temperatures start to plummet and the darkness comes earlier dinner will be back on the table every night. It won't be fancy but we will once again congregate and connect. That table and everyone around it help me keep a finger on the pulse of what makes life positive. It makes me remember that my kids are becoming such individuals with opinions and humor all their own. All adding a different ingredient to the main dish: Family.

The Paper Trail

I have never been much of a newspaper reader. The headlines maybe but never the stories. The one thing I have always been able to stomach are the vital statistics. Around the time I got married years ago I started looking at the marriage licenses every single day. I would pour over them finding names that I recognized and ages so close to mine. I would imagine how their wedding would be like mine. I would want them to be in as much in love as me. I found myself wondering about their story.Years later after my own wedding had passed and we began to plan for a family I flipped the page to the birth statistics. I saw names I knew often and eventually my own three times.That was a time of lots of laughter and tears...mine and the babies. It was a whirlwind. It seemed to go slowly but when I look back now it passed in a moment. Sometimes I wish I could have read those baby announcements a little longer.

But you have to go forward. I flipped quickly through the next section. But as fast as I went I still saw names I knew in the divorce section. I wondered about the stories behind those names too. Why some marriages make it and others just don't. What happens to those families after the papers are signed.

The last section is still foreign to me. I know I will have to turn the page eventually and read their final story. I know I will start to recognize names as time goes on. I don't want to identify with them. I don't want to recognize names and read those stories but I know I will have to. Some day.

In My Own Defense.

In my own defense.....

...I forgot the window was down and other people could hear me singing to the teen station at the stop light...

...the shaving cream can is the same exact color as the hair spray.....

...I couldn't find my glasses because I didn't have them on...

...I forgot to take into account that the bank would be closed for the holiday...

...I never asked to drive a car so big ...or so um wide....

...someone has to be the official cheerleader at the girl's soccer games, why not me?

...it just felt wrong to leave one lonely glass worth left in the bottle...

...that text was meant for someone else ...

...the kids like frosted animal crackers too ...

...the butter made my phone very slippery...

In my own defense.

Truth Be Told.

I have found myself telling my 13 year old more then once in the past few weeks that middle school doesn't really matter in the grand scheme. That she won't remember who sat at her lunch table or which girls stared sideways at her once her real life starts. That the fears and tears will melt away and won't be important. I want this to be true. I wish it could be true but I know in reality all those things really help to make us who we are. I don't remember the details of the miseries of middle school but I know there were a lot. Each one of those small things helped to make me who I am. The real truth is I appreciate some of the gruesome stuff because it made me more empathetic. I know the uncomfortable feeling of not being one of THE crowd. The one who didn't have the right shoes or the flirty attitude. The one with the zit on her chin

I survived though and I continued on to high school and college and marriage and motherhood and happiness. We all want our kid to make the team or get invited to the sleepover. We want for them what we know to be the easy way. The rough stuff makes us as parents get that pit in our stomach and the lump in our throats. It makes us remember. Sometimes it is more beneficial to deal with the rough stuff though. It makes us better people. I know it did for me. It made me an individual who can stand on my own now. As much as I want to make life easier for my kids I know that with out living through their own experiences and learning along the way they will never be the real them. Truth be told.

Note To Self:

Always be sure to check the cats mouth for mice, birds or well anything alive or formerly alive before letting him inside.

Never focus attention on one kid when all three are sitting there clambering for attention. You will end up with mucho eye rolls, tears and a migraine.

Leaving a glass of water on your nightstand right next to your cell phone and laptop is never a good idea. NEVER.

You really do learn something new every single day. Sometimes it is as small as finding a new flavor of gum and sometimes it is as big as realizing how wrong you were about something.

Starbucks really can turn a frown upside down even if it is ridiculously overpriced.

Not all people have good intentions. Sometimes they want something and will do whatever it takes to get it...over and over again.

Cute shoes are most often painful as are cute underware and sometimes even cute seven year olds.

Eating 2 bowls of Lucky Charms at 10pm makes you have dreams about little green men, rainbows and sparkling pots of gold.

Never use your teeth to try and fix the dryer-bent clasps on your favorite bra. It could end in a cut on your tongue, a scratch on your chin or worst case both.

Laziness equals 10 pair of identical denim shorts and 10 white tank tops. Buying new is easier then trying to dig through the mess of your closet.

Playing in the Puddles

Life gets complicated. Schedules and budgets. Jobs and kids. It isn't easy to just smile and enjoy much when you are trying to be a responsible adult. The stress gets extreme and we do things because we have too not because we want too. Everything becomes a chore. A to do list that has to be checked off no matter what the cost.

Maybe it is important to not always be responsible or act like an adult. When I was riding in front of my daughter on a bike the other day and we approached a big puddle I felt my jaw clench and as the water hit my legs and mud sprinkled my back I was less then happy. Well I was until I heard her behind me squealing with delight and laughing a deep belly giggle. I actually circled around and went through the water a second time. Opened my eyes wide and felt the cool sprinkle of water cool my legs. I let myself like it. I almost felt young again myself for a fleeting moment. I felt myself surrender again ,later, when I dragged myself to my tub to soak away the day and discovered brightly colored plastic "scuba" gear strewn across the bottom. Initially I wanted to be mad but instead I filled the tub and gave the goggles a try. Things were quiet under there and everything serene. Everything slow and moving at its own pace. I even sipped a cherry Icee the other day instead of my usual boring iced tea. It was like a party in my mouth that made me think of summers from years ago. Those summers when I played outside from sun up to sun down without a care in the world. Imagining without the burden of reality.

I am only weeks away from hitting that forever-forbidden-milestone-at-the-top-of-the-hill AKA: the big 4-0. Instead of feeling older I am feeling wiser. I feel like I am slowly learning to capture those simple moments..the ones that block out the chaos and slow down the clock. The moments that make life worth living.

Where is My Tiara?

I feel pretty today. It could be because I actually washed my hair and took the time to blow it dry. It could be because Chris told me that he thinks I look pretty this morning. Personally I think it is more about what is going on the inside rather than the outside though. I am really beginning to like me. It has taken practically 40 years of self doubt and body hate to get here. It has taken many tears of why me and anguished sobs of why not me too. Lots of energy spent worrying about what people think instead of what I think. What is important to me and even more specifically why I am important.

So here I am with a spring in my step and my shoulders held back (with freshly washed hair I might add). More concerned about how I pay it all forward then what people perceive about me. Focused on why I make the choices I do rather than what I get for making those choices. Not leaving room for regret because it is not worth wasting precious time on that. Consciously embedding empathy into my reactions and advice. Hopefully being the best daughter, wife, mother, sister, friend and neighbor I can possibly be.

I kind of feel like I have won a beauty pageant of sorts. OR at least first runner up. Where is my tiara??