Take Me Back To The Day

My husband recently sent me this picture that he had come across.

Instantly it took me back to 2001 when I met the love of my life. Wow, has it really been 13 years ago that we met? Looking at that picture I was thinking that was a whole life ago. It certainly seems that way.

Lordy, lordy—I’m turning 40!

In a couple of weeks, I hit a couple of big milestones. The first is that I turn 40. The second is the 10-year anniversary of the death of my younger brother Fred.

Give me a second and I’ll tell you what one has to do with the other.

My brother died unexpectedly of an aneurysm around the date of my 30th birthday. The two are forever linked. But my brother’s death is also tied to one of the happiest moments of my life: We discovered we were pregnant with T. a few hours before we received the dreaded phone call.

My brother was a great guy. He loved life and loved participating in things that made him happy. He was a great friend and sibling who was there for anyone who needed him. He could see the best in a situation and made sacrifices to become a better person. (Don’t get me wrong—the man was not a saint. But even Mother Theresa had bad days.)

Life Lessons: The pain of being a parent

As parents, we often think that we are the ones teaching the lessons to our children.  The truth is we are all learning together.  While it’s nice to stay one step ahead of the kids, sometimes that’s just not the case.

Last week, our family learned a couple of lessons the hard way.  Honestly, they weren’t new lessons, just re-iterated through an unfortunate accident.

45 and Pregnant

I was the lucky Mom of four great kids, finished with childbearing and enjoying my 40s.  I went back to school, became a registered nurse and was loving being a Labor and Delivery nurse.  That’s when I got the surprise of my life – 45 and Pregnant!!!

I found out on my oldest child’s 21st birthday when I took a pregnancy test to “rule it out.”  We knew the chance of miscarriage was very high, so we kept it to ourselves for some time.  All we could think about were projections of how old we would be when this baby went to kindergarten, graduated from high school, got married, etc.  We were terrified.

Knowledge is power

My Mom recently had a pretty significant health scare; one that resulted in a variety of machines around her once she got home. When visiting with her, I noticed that my kids were very intimidated by the whole thing. Here was their beloved Abuelita, who up to this point seemed healthy and strong, and suddenly she is bedridden with different tubes around her.

They couldn’t escape the room fast enough.

After a brief visit, the kids were leaving with my husband and I asked them to step in to say goodbye. I could tell that they weren’t excited about the prospect—and that they were a bit intimidated.

Learning the hard lessons

I always knew ‘sharing’ was a big thing for children, but our two boys have really brought that home for me. Literally.

When we had Jackson a year ago, my husband and I admittedly hadn’t worked on the sharing concept much with our oldest child, Max. It didn’t really impact us until Jack was old enough to play with some of his toys – at which point Max decided he needed to play with the baby toys too. Like any good parents, we made a rule: Max couldn’t play with the baby toys since he had plenty of his own big boy toys.

Less Commercialized Christmas

It’s Christmas Time which leads to reflection on what is Christmas really about. It had become so commercialized within our family. I wanted my children to understand the real meaning of the season so what should a Mother do?

A couple of years ago after watching the children open all the presents and hear them talking about what they didn’t get, I realized we needed a reality check. So, plans for the upcoming Christmas were looking a little different.

Curing the Gimmies?

Just like any parent, all FOUR of my big boys' parents worry about the kind of young men we're raising. We work hard to teach them responsibility, kindness, decency, compassion, etc. Most days, I feel we're on the right track. The boys are often praised by teachers, friends' parents, even complete strangers for their behavior. However, they are still kids. They have their "imperfect" moments. Right now, it's a case of the “gimmies" (pronounced GIM-meees).

Listen to your mothers

I’m not a big fan of help — never have been. I’ve been pouring my own milk in my cereal since I was about 3 years old, thank you very much. And if something’s wrong with the TV or any one of the half-dozen gaming and/or sound systems connected to it, don’t call my husband to fix it. I’ve got it under control.

Until it comes to being a mom. Then I need all the help I can get.

There is nothing like the joy, the challenge, the exasperation of preparing two tiny human beings to be contributing members of society. The longer I contemplate this, the more I realize that it truly does take a village. And (no surprise here) the villagers who’ve provided me the most help are mothers who have a few more years’ experience on me.

What I wish I knew as a pre-teen

Wishing for boobs. Figuring out how and where I wanted to fit in at school. Wanting to be older. Coping with the pressure to do and say the right things when I had no clue what those were. Sound familiar? Ah those pre-teen years. I, for one, don’t miss them and I don’t envy my friends whose daughters are approaching that critical stage of ages 9 to 12 years old.

A friend of mine recently turned 30 and we were talking about how 30 actually can be a blessing. Had you asked me at 12 I would have been HORRIFIED at the thought of being THAT old. But little did I know that 30 actually is a magical age where all that uncertainty seems to fade. Sure the hormones are still a treat occasionally, but it’s not the wild rollercoaster ride of the past, at least on the uncertainty front. Being comfortable in my own skin, for me, that is priceless.

The “30” discussion made me recall those letters to my 16-year-old self that were all the rage online a few years ago. There’s some benefit to that reflection I think. While I’m not going to do a full letter, this is what I would tell myself if I could beam a message back to the late 80s/early 90s.