Making Lemonade Makes Me Laugh.

So much of life is a joke. OR the only way to get through most of life is to think of it that way. Laughter usually makes things bearable. Lemons can seem more like lemonade if sprinkled with a giggle or two.

Like you know when you open the umbrella in the pouring rain and it is ripped down the middle. The rain gushes in soaking you but do you cry and add more wetness? or laugh and start singing (in the rain I might add)?

You drive thru the expensive coffee place for your weekly treat. The barista hands it to you and the heavenly steamy smell fills the car. You place it in the cup holder and pull away hitting a bump that sends the cup flying along with your dream of deliciousness and your 6$! Do you cuss and give in to the pain of the burns on your feet?? Nope not me. I laugh...and swing back through to buy another with the change I manage to dig out.

When you realize your kid has been crunching up crackers in her room to feed her elf and shoving them under a book for a week do you yell and tear the arm off the poor unsuspecting elf? NO. You giggle as you sweep up the cracker crumbs and ants and you write a note from the elf thanking the kid for feeding him.

Like when you call the Dr.'s office to see if they have any flu mist left and they tell you they only have ONE and you really need three....so you talk to the receptionist for 10 minutes trying to rationalize enough to choose one kid over the others for the mist instead of the needle. Only to start to giggle. Loud and uncontrollably. Into the phone. And end up not making an appointment for anything at all.

Or when you order your teenage daughter jeans online and can't face the fact that her legs are as long as yours even though she tries to tell you. You order what size you wish she still was. She tries the jeans on and they are half way up her calf and look ridiculous yet while trying to keep a straight face you try to get her to keep them and wear them with boots so you don't have to admit defeat.

When my husband complains about my coffee breath do I stop drinking coffee?? of course not! I make him a cup with half a container of creamer and a dash of coffee and serve it with a smile. He feels like he has become a coffee drinker too. It is a win win situation. He doesn't notice my breath anymore and he buys me the good kind of creamer.

I figure laughing so hard you cry burns lots more calories then just crying. I choose laughter.

Rough Edges Are Pretty Too

November. Already. I like the idea of being thankful all year for things not just one day or one month. Because I am... you know...thankful. But to clear up exactly what I really cherish I wanted to say a few things. Things that I have just recently figured out. I am slow I know but sometimes things that are most important take time to realize.

To me the things that I find to be the most important in my life are not things at all. Nothing you can really touch or see but things you can feel. Finding that peace in your own life where you aren't trying to make things perfect anymore. Accepting what you love warts and all, no more trying to smooth the rough edges to a slippery pristine perfect. Realizing how important it is to love who I am when I am with someone... as important as how much I love that person. Why surround myself with people that I can't be myself with and enjoy myself with? I won't. Not anymore.

Tangible gifts are nice for sure but giving the gift of time to someone is more important. Taking the time to really know someone and experience memory making together. Reading a story or jumping in a pile of leaves makes more of an impact then a brightly colored package arriving in the mail. One hundred thousand presents don't equal the same as making a lopsided cake together or licking the spoon afterward. A pocket full of things doesn't make you a better mother, father, friend or grandparent...not with out the time investment.

Lastly I am grateful that I can lend an empathetic ear to those who need it. I pride myself on being able to listen and feel for but not judge those who confide in me. Real empathy takes becoming the other person and not reacting with approval or disapproval. It means listening and reacting in a calming, soothing, bridge-building way. Without having true empathy I don't really think it is possible to develop any relationship past superficial.

So those are the things that come to mind when I am asked what I am thankful for. Also the things I hope my kids can someday say they are grateful for.

Like Fine Wine

It feels like it has all been leading up to this moment. My life I mean. Traveling all the way up that proverbial hill and teetering right there at the top. Ready to start slow on the way down and pick up speed finally crashing into a pile of wrinkles and gray hair.

Giggle.

I have to laugh at that analogy of being over the hill at 40. The trite crap you read on birthday cards. Real life tells a different story.

Saying goodbye to my 30's is surprisingly easy. I feel stronger now then then. I feel like the first 40 years were like studying for the test and the next 40 will be taking it. It is like I have put all the outside edge pieces of my puzzle together and now I am ready to start on the more complex, meatier inside pieces. That can be really hard when you don't have that all important picture on the box top to peek at. But maybe such a defined picture wouldn't really help me since I am making it up as I go along. Maybe some of those pieces have pictures of me doing a triathlon or a marathon. Maybe there are some of me in a bikini on a far away beach or sitting in a college classroom. The possibilities are endless really.

So on Tuesday when it is official don't feel any sympathy. No walkers or putrid black icing for this girl. Fine chocolate and expensive red wine, please. Let's celebrate! Besides isn't it success when you reach an important birthday and you find that you are exactly the same as you were the day before?

Frayed Apron Strings

I feel like I am on the verge of the time when the kids decide they don't want me in the examining room at the doctors office any more. The time where if they forget their lunch money they don't call home but figure out a solution all on their own. When they choose their own science fair project and do all the research themselves and don't ask for input. You know the time when friends and the mall are chosen over family gatherings and diaries are really kept locked and hidden away. When their bodies are growing so fast their brains can't quite catch up.

I can't decide how I feel about it all. On one hand I feel glorious and victorious that we have done our job as parents so far. That they can find that independence and ability. But it is hard to know that things are changing and that I am not needed in the same way I once was. If only I had known all those years ago when I was up at 2am holding a crying baby while crying myself wishing I could just get her to sleep how things would change. I might have enjoyed it more then. As torturous as those tearful drop offs at preschool were I selfishly sometimes wonder if I should have gone in and sat down in one of the tiny kid chairs for circle and snack. But I didn't. I couldn't because it would have been all for me and would not have fostered any sort of independence.

My hope is that I am still the one they will come to for advice. That I am the one they know will set the boundaries that they can't cross but if they do will still love them no matter what. That when something is too hard or too unknown they feel they can confide in me not only because I am their mom but because they trust me to have their back. I want them to know mistakes happen and perfection is a fairy tale.

This parenting thing is a scary tightrope walk but at least there is a net below to help us bounce back up and try the walk again.

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.