Surviving my "Year of Crying"

Welcome to my Year of Crying. It isn't a year of crying over lost loved ones like 2010-11 was. It's more like my year of crying, 2011-12 when Robby was a senior in high school. In fact, I have been preparing myself for this year of crying because I remember every "last" that got me choked up to the point of tears the first time around. This year of crying began at this past spring's CHS commencement ceremony as I teared up watching my emotional friends return to their seats after handing diplomas to their graduating seniors, knowing that I would be doing the very same thing in approximately 364 days, (note to self: get waterproof mascara). This year of crying will be different though. It will be a year of lasts as my youngest son goes from a high school senior to a college freshman. I will cry on his last first day of school, his last first football game, and his last final football game. I'll be on the bleachers wiping away tears during his last first wrestling match and during his last tournament of the season. I will be misty-eyed though homecoming and prom pictures. I'll choke back tears as he pole vaults for the last time and as we go on college visits. Mostly, I will cry because I am not ready for this to end. I'm not ready to be done being the mom of school-aged children although I realize that even if I had 10 children, there eventually must come a time when I would be forced to pass into the next phase of life as the parent of adult children. Tom and I wonder what we will do on those quiet Friday nights in the fall, and the long Saturdays in the winter. There will be a gap between school aged children and grandchildren that we have been preparing for since the kids got drivers licenses and summer jobs. Even though I pray that this year will creep by I know that like everything else in life I will blink and it will be over. I will try to enjoy each moment, every report card, every joyful event, every heart break, every win, and every loss. Because in June 2015, life must carry on in new and hopefully exciting ways not only for our children, but for Tom and I as well. So if you see me and I am in tears, don't worry. They are tears of sadness for what must pass and tears of anticipation for what is to come. I will survive my year of crying because that anticipation far outweighs the wad of damp Kleenex in my hand.

My Life in the Stands

This one was written in early March. It didn't make the paper. Enjoy!

It's Friday night and I have done the grocery shopping. Now the weekend is mine, I tell myself. But not so fast. Don't forget that the laundry needs to be done, we are volunteering at a youth wrestling tournament on Saturday and there's church and a play I want to attend on Sunday. Oh, and remember the stack of papers that need to be corrected and the lesson plans that still aren't finished. Since Early December our Saturdays have been spent in the bleachers at various varsity wrestling tournaments throughout northern Michigan. With my son making it all all the way to States this year we tacked on 3 more weeks to the season. Don't get me wrong. I love the sport of wrestling and I especially love supporting my son and his athletics. I enjoy supporting both boys in whatever they choose to do whether it's Sammy's sports or Robby's music and ministry. However, spending 8 hours sitting in bleachers after a two hour drive can test even the most dedicated parent. I always take a little ditty bag of stuff to keep me busy. I have even taken to letting school work pile up so I could take it with me on Saturdays. Even the excitement of the state tournament at The Palace of Auburn Hills quickly wore off as we stayed in the stands for the familiar 8 hour stretch. I have to keep reminding myself that we only have one more year and then it will be over. I do know there are parents who can completely relate when I utter that tiny prayer "Lord, please let this be the blizzard that calls off the tournament just this one Saturday." I understand that swim meets and volleyball tournaments can be just as brutal on the lower back and posterior. I really don't remember my butt hurting that much when the boys were younger. Maybe I just had more padding back then or the cartilage hadn't yet begun to break down in my hips. But besides the pain and discomfort of bleachers, Saturday tournaments reduce my weekends to the 5 hours after church on Sundays to get everything done that I can't do during the week. As much as I would like to say that everyone willingly pitches in, let's be real. Most of it falls on me. Fortunately another wrestling season is behind us and I am looking forward to a weekend of rest and relaxation. It just won't be this weekend.

The Endless Grouchy Teen Stage

"I am soooooooo over the grouchy teen stage!" I lamented to my aunt via text message. We started that stage of parenting when my older son Robby turned 13 and it continues with our younger son, Sammy, who is 17 and literally disgusted with our every word. I should have known. When our boys were toddlers I was having a conversation with a neighbor.
"I remember when my son was little. He was so sweet. Then he became a teenager and he turned on me." She warned.
"You must be a bad parent," I remember thinking. I was going to fill our home with positivity and open lines of communication. Wrong answer. I was quickly humbled to learn that I was just as bad at parenting because with each 13th birthday came a stranger. Apparently this isn't a new phenomenon. In her book, "Just wait till you have children of your own!" Erma Bombeck said that her children withdrew to their rooms when they turned 13 and didn't reappear until they were married. Where were my sweet boys, one who brought me wounded chipmunks and the other, who said "Watch Mom!" as he showed me tricks he could do on his rip-stick in the driveway? They talked to me about everything and had smiles that were contagious.
Now I find myself learning about my boys relationships through the gossip grapevine.
"I hear your son is taking so-and-so to Homecoming."
"Yes he is! She's a sweet girl. We're so glad he asked her."
Then I send the rage-filled text. "Really? I have to learn about your homecoming date from someone at school? Will you at least be kind enough to invite me to your wedding?"
I literally have to work up tears so they will tell me where prom pictures are going to be taken.
"I have raised you for 17 years and I can't even be there with the other moms when you get pictures taken? What have I done that is SO embarrassing? My mere presence is humiliating to you?"
"Take it easy Mom. I'll be sure to have someone's mom tag you on Facebook."
I know I'm not alone in this. One of my friends sat in her car for 20 minutes waiting to take homecoming pictures, only to learn that pictures were being taken at a different location.  Just asking simple questions evokes a hostile response with "that face." I recently said to Sammy, "Do you realize that the only time you're nice to me is when you want something from me?"
"No, he replied. I just asked you for gas money and I wasn't nice."

And there you have it. See you at your wedding!

Feeding Boys--2 Years Later

A few years ago I wrote a column about the challenges of feeding teenage boys. At the time we were going through roughly a gallon of milk a day and couldn't keep food in the house, now I find myself at the other end of the spectrum. My guys are older. Both are driving and have jobs, sports, and other social obligations or responsibilities that take them away from home quite frequently. In the old days I'd spend an hour or so coming up with a weekly menu. This worked out pretty well until we turned the corner into jobs and drivers licenses. These days my menu consists of 2-3 meal ideas with the hopes of having at least one night with everyone home. Meat stays frozen until the last minute and I make sure we have lots of eggs and cereal. Poor Tom has been the one who seems to suffer the most because if I find out the boys won't be home for dinner I figure there's no point in making an elaborate meal until he says "What's for dinner?" And I say "Oh, um eggs." Or Ill try and act like I had a plan by saying "fried egg sandwiches!" Sometimes we have one of the boys and a friend home so Ill make dinner. Then just before dinner is ready they will say "We're heading out. Sorry! We'll grab something in town" and then Tom and I are stuck with sloppy joes for the next three nights strait. One particularly annoying situation occurs when I make dinner expecting one or both boys home and when they arrive I tell them that dinner is ready only to be informed that they have already eaten elsewhere. Again, Tom and I are eating cream of something casserole leftovers for a few days. As you can tell, I'm kind of an all or nothing person. If we all aren't going to be here I'm not crazy about putting in the effort to making a big meal if its just going to be the two of us at the table separated by a laptop and an iPad. Transitioning into empty-nest hood seems to be a process of slowly making adjustments here and there. I am learning to cook for two while being ready for four. I seriously understand why empty nesters eat out a lot. Its just easier. Our weekly family dinner has evolved to JW Fillmore's after church. It's still a challenge feeding boys. However, the challenge seems to be knowing when and how much. One thing I fairly certain of is when the transition has been made and its just Tom and I, he probably won't be requesting eggs for dinner.

You're Gonna Miss This

Well, it happened again.No matter how hard I try to control myself, I fail. It doesn't matter if I am driving home from work, riding on the back of the motorcycle, or jogging with my iPod. If I hear "You're Gonna Miss This" byTrace Adkins or "It Won't be Like This for Long" by Darius Rucker, I end up in tears, especially if I try to sing along. When my kids were young and I was in the throws of terrible twos or spending entire Saturdays at wrestling tournaments full of screaming kids, I didn't feel like I was "gonna miss this." Sometimes I feel bad that I didn't cherish every moment with my kids when they were young. More than once I stood at the check out line with a screaming child and a cart full of groceries thinking "Just take me now Lord" rather than "It won't be like this for long." I don't beat myself up over it. That's just the way parenting goes. When we are there, we don't always say "Hey, I'm gonna miss this." But something happens to me when I hear certain lines in those songs. I'm taken back to dropping a crying child off at daycare and an angry teenager telling me that I have no idea how he feels. But the line that really gets me every time I hear it is in the Trace Adkins song where the mom is apologizing to the plumber for her screaming kids and he says something like, "I have two babies of my own...ones twenty-six, ones twenty-three." I literally choke on the words every single time I try to sing them. In fact, I have a lump in my throat as I type this. My kids aren't out of the house yet, but they are independent young men who don't depend on me for much of anything anymore. I look at the pictures of them as little boys and wonder why it went by so fast. I hear screaming kids in the store and look at another middle aged mom and we smile at each other because we too had been there. The other night Tom and I were driving in the rain to watch Sammy play football. I was grumbling about having to sit in the stands and be cold and wet for two hours. And suddenly I remembered that it's his junior year. After next fall there won't be anymore football games, rain or shine. And I'm gonna miss this.

The Quest for Cool

I realize that there are many parents out there who are around my age (40-something) who want to be "cool" in the eyes of their children and their friends.

They dress well and drive awesome cars. They hang out with their kids and their kids see them more like friends.

I also know that there are some who want only to be parents, and if nerdyness is part of that equation, then so be it.

I fall somewhere in the middle. I realize that most likely no matter what I do or how hard I try to be "cool," my attempts will be met with rolling eyes or "Stop, Mom!" While I do try to dress in style, when Robby's friend asked, "Why does your mom dress like she's in our grade?" I took that into consideration and adjusted my wardrobe accordingly.

Recently I got my dream car. Well, it's one of three dream cars, but a dream car no less. Tom and I happened upon a 1979 VW Super Beetle convertible.

We decided not to let this one go by and took the plunge. I was so excited! And to me and almost everyone I told, the response was the same -- "Cool!"

Of course "cool" is relative, generationally speaking.

When we brought the car home the boys both said that they wanted to learn to drive a stick so they could also drive it. Ah, success. They thought it was cool, too! While being cool in my sons' eyes isn't on the top of my priority list, it is a nice validation from time to time.

Tom got to work on making some necessary mechanical upgrades as I waited out the rain in order to drive the car.

The week after we got it, we were getting ready for church and when I was barking my usual Sunday morning orders to get in the car, I heard Sammy say, "We aren't taking that goofy Bug, are we?"

Wait a minute. Goofy?


Is my adorable little car not cool in the eyes of my teenagers after all? How could we have gotten this wrong? They want to learn to drive it, so wouldn't that make it cool in their eyes?

So while I've come to accept that for now I am just a huge geek in their eyes, there will still be a small part of me which hangs on to the notion that someday I'll hear those four magical words -- "Wow mom. That's cool!"

Rethinking the Appeal of Empty Nest Syndrome

This is one of Robby's senior pictures.

A few days after Christmas our oldest son, Robby turned 18. I remember the day he was born like it was yesterday. I can see the day when he leaves the nest rapidly approaching and it makes me kind of sad. But that feeling hasn’t always been there. When our kids were in the years of early adolescence when the arguing and defiance were at an all-time high, my husband and I questioned whether Empty Nest Syndrome actually existed and why anyone would consider it a syndrome. Aren’t syndromes supposed to be bad things? We would go to open houses and chuckle on the way home saying “Those lucky dogs! We can’t wait for Empty Nest Syndrome!” We could see the days of no children in the house as refreshing and relaxing. We fantasized about packing boxes and turning bedrooms into craft rooms. The frustrations that go along with raising teens seem to be as endless as the eye-rolling and sarcastic remarks. Our longing for the elusive “Empty Nest Syndrome” continued until our oldest son became a senior. An amazing thing happens when a kid gets to be around 17 years old. He seemed to turn this mystical corner of maturity. He still thinks he is of a highly superior intelligence than his dad and I, but he has also become much more agreeable. He doesn’t seem to get mad at us nearly as often or stay mad as long. We actually like having him around and find ourselves saying stuff like “Don’t you want to hang out with us tonight?” We are feeling our sentiments change from “Don’t let the door hit you in the…” to “Sure, you can live at home and go to community college.” We breathe a sigh of relief because although he’s graduating in June, he’s not leaving for at least another 2 ½ years. We find ourselves re-thinking our fascination with Empty Nest Syndrome as we tell our younger son, a high school freshman, that there’s no reason for him to go away to school right after graduation. He is welcome to stay home after high school and attend North Central Michigan College like his older brother. We say it’s because of the money but we know deep down that we don’t want to let him go either. We remind ourselves that when he is at his most frustrating, that it is just a phase and we survived it with Robby.  Visiting my friend in the hospital as she welcomed her new baby boy in early December brought tears to my eyes as I remembered friends saying “You’ll blink and they’ll be teenagers.” That is exactly what has happened to us and we wonder where the time has gone. We still joke out loud that we’ll claim their rooms the moment they pull out of the driveway, but secretly know that we won’t. Not for a while anyway. I’m here to verify that yes, there is an Empty Nest Syndrome and yes, we will have it too. However we no longer welcome it and we are desperately trying to stop blinking.

Published January 28, 2012

You Can't go Back...or Can You?

Robby and I at the Homecoming football game at half-time

I recently found out that you can live vicariously through your children. I came home from work one day to my son Robby, a senior at Charlevoix High School, calling me up to his room because he needed to tell me something. Actually he needed to tell me three things. I have no idea what the first two things were because the third thing sent me skyward. He was on homecoming court. I jumped up and down and babbled a bunch of nonsense with a few “Oh my gosh’s!” thrown in. I bolted downstairs trying to figure out if I was going to text everyone I knew, call my mom, or post it on facebook as he sat there dumbfounded. My son obviously was not as excited to be thrust into the limelight as I was for him to be. My high school dream of being nominated for homecoming was being realized by my own flesh and blood. Back in high school I literally had more than 8 chances to be nominated and never once was my be-nice-to-everyone way of life rewarded with that one announcement that just about every girl waits with baited breath for “and the nominees for homecoming queen of 1986 are…” When I say I had numerous chances it’s because my high school did things a little differently. Each grade elected a king and queen for both football and basketball seasons. And that really wasn’t all. There was also a school-wide king and queen who were seniors and got elected during basketball season. And if you didn’t manage to get on any of those courts (or even if you did), there was always “King and Queen of The Ledge.” That’s right; Grand Ledge’s own yearbook royalty. Back in the 80’s the homecoming nominations were much more of a popularity contest than they are now. You had to be popular. Not just friends with a lot of people; friends with a lot of popular people. You had to be the envy of roughly 90% of your class and although I was nice to everyone, I was not popular in the “getting nominated for homecoming queen” sense of the word. I am happy to see that things have changed. The nice kids do get nominated right along-side the popular crowd. Oh that’s not to say that our homecoming court didn’t consist of nice people, many of my dearest friends held those coveted seats on the Kleenex flowered floats, waving at their adoring fans. I have come to terms with my past but it doesn’t mean I couldn’t share in the excitement of having a son on his senior class court. I may not get to buy a beautiful Cinderella dress with matching satin shoes, but I was be the proudest mom screaming from the stands in my jeans and sweatshirt as my husband took picture after picture and feeling just as elated as if I were out on the field myself. I guess that with the help of your kids, maybe you can go back.

Published October, 2011

The Eternal Challenge of Feeding Boys

“We need milk,” my husband said. “Again?” I asked, “How much milk do we go through in a week?” His reply was “About a gallon a day.” I find that unbelievable. How in the world can a family of four consume a gallon of milk everyday? That’s 30 gallons of milk per month! At approximately $3.00 a gallon, we’re spending about $90 a month on milk alone. I don’t know why I’m surprised. I have two teenage sons. The amount of cereal we go through is equally staggering.  Growing boys eat an incredible amount of food. The term “hollow leg” comes to mind. My boys would probably eat 3-4 bowls of cereal as their after school snack if we’d let them. I don’t buy much in the way of snack foods, so if they want a snack they immediately reach for the cereal. Box macaroni and cheese and Ramen noodles run a close second to cereal as the snack foods of choice for my guys. I understand that my kids are hungry when they get home. The eat breakfast at about 6:45 am and lunch at around 11:00. That leaves about 6 hours between lunch and dinner.  I literally have to race them to the kitchen and then smack their knuckles with a wooden spoon to keep them from eating while I am cooking. There are weeks when I get groceries on Saturday and the cereal is completely gone by Tuesday. And I’m not talking about those small boxes either. I’m talking about those big bags and the biggest “family size” boxes. When I talk to my friends I realize that my problem isn’t uncommon. I remember my older brother sitting down and eating an entire box of cereal after school and still having dinner. That makes me wonder if I could ever keep up. Some days I think if I only bought cereal I would kill 2 birds with one stone. They could eat as much cereal as they wanted after school and I wouldn’t have to cook dinner. I recently analyzed our budget and was astonished at how much money we spend in groceries each month. As the boys get bigger, the budget gets higher. I remember being so happy when I didn’t have to buy diapers or pay for daycare anymore. What could I do with all of that extra money? It turns out I use it to buy food, and of course, milk.

Published March of 2011