Learning to Stand

Senior year is supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be the end of one great thing and the beginning of the next great thing.

So why was Lyss crying last weekend?

She’s stressed. Track meets were about to start and the thought of having two meets a week for the next six weeks was weighing on her. She works three days a week (four or so hours two nights during the week and 8 hours on Sunday) as well as has track practice every day that there isn’t a meet. She’s also maintaining her straight As and doing things for National Honor Society.

Let’s not forget hanging out with friends. Remember when that was a priority? Yeah, neither do I. But when you’re 18, it’s incredibly important. I’m not even being sarcastic here, it really is important. I get it.

The more she talked, the more stressed she got and then she cried.

I asked her if it was worth it.

She sighed and said that she just hated running. She loves the high jump. If she could just high jump the meets wouldn’t stress her out.

I suggested her talk to her coach. She sniffled and said she would have to text him because talking to him face to face would be awful.

I laughed and told her that she needs to NOT be like her mother. She needs to grow a little self-righteousness and stop taking on other people’s emotions. And if it was best for her, just quit track.

We hugged, she got to spend some time with N, which made everything better and she texted her coach the next day (a Sunday.) He replied back that he’d like to talk to her the next day. She wasn’t getting out of the face to face after all.

When I saw her next (at the dentist, a post all its own) she grinned and said she got her way.

She’d talked to the coach, cried at him a little, he hugged her twice and agreed to let her do just high jump. He did, however, reserve the right to put her in a relay or two at districts and/or the BBC (a conference meet here in northwest Ohio.) She agreed with that and felt much better about everything.

Well, she admitted, she felt better because she got her way. But honestly, is that such a bad thing every now and then? I mean, we spend our lives doing things that other people want us to do. It’s okay to put ourselves first once in a while. It’s okay to NOT feel guilty about other people’s feelings.

Good advice, Mom. The pot called and said you’re guilty.

First Last

On the morning of the first day of school, I was taking pictures of the girls, as one does.

I took pictures of them alone and together as we’ve done since the beginning of this schooling journey.

As I took one of Alyssa, I lamented in a tone of exaggerated despair, “This is your last first day of school.”

She rolled her eyes at me.

I laughed and said, “Just kidding. I’m not (mom who’d two kids graduated last year and the year before and who now posts all kinds of ‘empty nest’ posts on FB. She wails that her kids have left and she doesn’t know what to do with herself. Her kids went to the local university. They’re all of a half hour away from her house so…yeah.)”

Alyssa gave me a look of relief that I took as gratitude that I’m not going to embarrass her…yet.

See, it is a little bit sad. I mean, it’s gone so fast. It feels like last year she was the one in 7th grade. I remember thinking during her freshman year that it was all going to fly by and I was right. Sure, the last twenty two weeks of 2020 have crawled by but I can feel the momentum speeding up. I can feel her slipping away. I know this is what we want for her.

When one becomes a parent, the best thing you can hope for is that your child grows up and becomes an independent, well-adjusted adult doing things that make them happy while not being a menace to society.

I think we’ve managed that with Lyss. I mean, we still have a year to really mess her up if we want to but for the most part, she’s pretty much already molded into the model of responsibility and decorum. We’ve done our best and she’s pretty amazing.

But each of these ‘last firsts’ will be bittersweet. Already, because of Covid-19 she missed her last parade, the Kickoff Dance (which I don’t even think she attended last year) has been canceled for this year. She missed her entire junior year track season. So…we’ll cherish each ‘last first’ we get this year as they come and we won’t count on any of them until they happen.

I know I’m echoing what every parent before me has endured as they watched their chickens fly the coop. How lucky are we all that our kids are so amazing that they want to fly and they get to fly and that, if we’re lucky, they’ll come home sometimes and hang out with us, sharing their glories, their failures, their tears and their laughter. We’ve done what we can and now it’s up to them. But it’s nice to know that we can be a safe place to land if things ever get tough and they need to come home.

I’m just going to say it. Home is where your mom is.

Homecoming Spirit Week (Alternate Title: Kill Me Now)

Know what Homecoming week means? It means SPIRIT WEEK. Which, in turn, means work for Mom.

Because, duh.

The weekend before spirit week, we were trying to figure out what the girls would wear on each designated Spirit Day.

Monday was declared Royalty day.

Tuesday was Decade day.

Wednesday meant Class Color Day which meant red for Olivia and green for Alyssa.

Thursday brought us Farmer Day (we ARE in the middle of the corn fields and dairy farms, don’t you know?)

And Friday was good old Bomber Blue and Gray day.

So…there we were, at the Walmarts, trying to figure out Royalty Day and Decade Day.

I suggested that Alyssa dress as a ‘modern day’ royal. AKA How would Duchess Kate dress if she were heading to afternoon tea with the Queen?

We decided she’d wear a dress we’d bought the previous spring, it was royal (ha) blue with white polka dots. It was a nice, conservative length and had a cinched waist. It’s a lovely dress, which is why we bought it. She bought a small crown at Hobby Lobby that is attached to a hair comb.

She was set.

Olivia, on the other hand, was not set. I ended up making her a ‘deconstructed Elsa Dress’. Which means I bought a $4 long sleeved T-shirt to which I sewed sheer fabric on the back for a cape and another sheer, sparkly fabric to the front to reflect the sweetheart neckline of Elsa’s dress. She wore shorts that were the same blue and I braided her hair into an ‘Elsa braid.’

For Decade Day, I suggested I make the girls ‘circle’ skirts.

My mom told me that those kinds of skirts aren’t nearly as easy to make as I might think they are.

For what it’s worth, she’s right, though I don’t know that for sure since I didn’t make either skirt. My mom made both of them. Because she’s awesome and a lifesaver and my total hero.

But! I did dye the fabric that was used to make Alyssa’s skirt.

And that, my friend(s?) was a process unto itself. And quite honestly? It deserves its own post.

On Wednesday, Olivia wore a red t-shirt she borrowed from her sister. Thanks Lyss!! I braided O’s hair and used red hair ties and I polished her fingernails in a lovely sparkly red. Done and done.

Alyssa dressed herself in a lovely green T-shirt and a green hoodie. She’s quite the teenager, I must say.

Thursday, or Fucking FARMER day (gag), Olivia once again borrowed from her sister. This time it was a plaid shirt. She wore that with shorts she could wear to gym. I braided her hair into two braids down the side because, farmer girl, right?

Alyssa donned one of her own flannel shirts, a pair of jeans and cowboy boots. Cowboy and farmer are basically the same thing, right? Right.

Bomber Blue and Gray day, whee! Blue shirts with the school mascot (a bomber plane, duh) and jeans.

And then there was the game…which I attended because I’m a music booster mom. Can you even stand it?

Three?

When I got home from work one day last week, we had about an hour before we had to go to the football field and ‘meet the teams’. More on ‘meet the teams’ below.

During the hour between getting home and leaving to meet the teams, I started a load of laundry and made Olivia change her shirt because the one she’d been wearing had Spaghetti-O stains on it. Apparently, she STILL doesn’t really understand that napkins are for wiping mouths as well as hands.

Sigh.

I also brushed her hair because it had probably been three days since she’d had her hair brushed because it’s summer and no one else seems to think daily hair brushing is necessary. Ahem. After brushing the mess, I braided it because, well, she asked me to.

So…meet the teams…yeah, it’s as fun as you can imagine. The high school and junior high football teams, cross country teams, cheerleaders, marching band, golf team and volleyball teams were there.

The stands were actually pretty full. The parking lot was VERY full. We left with two minutes to spare because Tom had declared earlier in the evening that there wasn’t going to be any problems with parking. He was WRONG.

We perched on the bleachers in the front row and before the dude announcing the athletes even started Olivia asked, “When are we gonna leave?”

I rolled my eyes and whispered to her, “This is your own personal hell, isn’t it?”

She giggled at my use of the word ‘hell.’

Then she asked me again when we could leave.

We met all the teams, the marching band (the whole reason we were there, hi Lyss!!) played three songs.

Then, and only then, was it time to leave.

But because we’re MEAN parents, Tom and I stayed with Olivia in the bleachers and waited for the traffic jam taking place in the parking lot to let up before we finally left.

When we got home, it was about 7:15 but Liv needed dinner. So that happened.

Finally, it was 9:15 and time for bed. Yes, I’m old.

Olivia and I went about our routine and I noticed that the shirt she’d had on for THREE hours was filthy.

I asked her, “What are you, three?”

She laughed and looked down at herself, finding the mashed potatoes she’d dropped down her shirt and into her bra hilarious.

For the rest of the evening (our bedtime routine can sometimes take an hour, thanks 5p- syndrome) she quoted me, saying with a laugh, “What are you, three?”

She probably laughed over that one sentence at least five times.

It’s a good thing her feelings aren’t easily hurt, because damn, sometimes, I’m a really insensitive mother.

Snob?

When I graduated from high school, I worked for a year and then headed to college. I was home for maybe three months after college before moving to Indianapolis for a year and then to Chicago for four years.

So, after high school, I lived in the area of my childhood home for a maximum of a year and a half before I was thirty.

At work the other day, a woman stopped in from a fork lift repair company. When I got up to greet her, she immediately said, “Tommie?”

I narrowed my eyes at her, as if trying to recognize her face and said, “Yes?”

She laughed and said, “We went to school together!”

Really?

She did not look AT ALL familiar. She said her name. Yeah, still not ringing any bells.

She said she’d been in the same class as my brother.

Let me remind you that my closest-in-age brother was FIVE years behind me in school. (My next closet-in-age brother was thirteen years behind me in school but he went to a different school and so no one from his class EVER recognizes me, thank goodness.)

You know how teenagers are. I had no freaking clue who was in his class. Why would I?

She then said that her brother had been in my class.

Oh.

Well then.

Yeah, I didn’t remember him either. He was one of the three Jasons in my class. I was besties with one of them.

That one was not her brother.

So…I vaguely remember his last name but not him. Not at all.

Was I a snob in high school?

Does it even really matter if I was?

I see people out and about all the time who stop me, ask me if I am me and then talk to me like we’re long lost best friends.

After chatting for a bit, ‘catching up’ if you will, we’ll part ways and Alyssa will whisper, “Who was that?”

And I’ll whisper back, “I have no idea.”

She always laughs at me because I never recognize people I went to school with.

I’m sorry but I was away for over a decade. I didn’t hang out with the people in my twenties or even my thirties. We’ve all changed (though, maybe I haven’t that much, except that I’ve ‘swelled’ as Joan Cusack’s character from Grosse Pointe Blank so brilliantly put it.)

I’ve made ‘friends’ with a lot of these people in social media but I don’t stalk their feeds or check out their lives. I have my own life to live over here.

After this woman spent about ten minutes gossiping about people she thought I knew from high school, including my high school boyfriend who I broke up with over thirty years ago (boy did she dish on that creep, not that I cared one way or the other), she left her contact information for our maintenance manager and exited the building. A co-worker who was waiting to use the bathroom asked me if I’d known that woman.

Nope, I said. I then explained about how I was apparently a snob in high school.

Bless her, this co-worker said, “Maybe you were, but then again, maybe you’ve moved beyond high school and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

I think I like that woman a lot. I’m grateful to be beyond high school and all that entailed.

Being Friends and Ending Relationships

During our four years of high school R and I were best friends with two guys, J and D. J and D were great fun and R and I spent as much time with them as possible. We ate lunch together every day.

One September lunch period, we were sitting around talking about prom, which obviously, was months and months away.

Someone (probably R, she was the idea gal) suggested that the four of us go together. This was before I started dating JLC by at least a month, maybe two.

The rest of us thought it was a rad idea and so it was a date. I would officially be going with D and R would go with J but it was totally a foursome thing and definitely a FRIEND thing.

So when I started dating JLC a month or so later, I didn’t even thing about prom. My plans were set, and I wasn’t going to change them.

As prom loomed ever closer, JLC started making comments about us going.

I informed him that he wouldn’t be attending prom that year, at least not with me. He was a sophomore, so unless he found a junior or a senior to take him, he wasn’t going.

I told him about the plans R and I had made with J and D and how I had no intention of breaking those plans.

He wasn’t happy but what could he do? He did insist that I PROMISE to go with him the next year, even if we weren’t together. Because obviously, I was a woman of my word. Ugh. Whatever. I’m going to say right here to anyone and everyone, teenager, pre-teen, adult, elderly, EVERYONE, if you make a promise to someone while in a relationship with that someone for a future event and you break up before that event happens? Guess what? You CAN BREAK THAT PROMISE. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do or go anywhere you don’t want to go with someone you’re no longer in a relationship with even if you promised to do that thing or go to that place while you in the relationship.

I mean, come on! Why would you want to go to prom with your now EX-boy/girlfriend? Why?!?

My junior prom was so much fun. J, R, D and I had a blast. There were no romantic expectations, there was no pressure, it was just friends having a blast with each other. We went from prom to R’s house where we watched horror movies until 4am and crashed on her parents’ living room furniture.

Senior prom? Was not so much fun. I went with JLC because at that time we were still officially dating but we were on the brink of breaking up.

The weeks before prom were fraught with tension because I refused to ride to prom in his mom’s station wagon and his Ranchero had bitten the dust months before. Not that I’d have consented to riding in that beast to prom either.

I knew I was being a bitch about it and maybe I was trying to get him to break up with me over the whole car thing but I dug my heels in and was ready to die on that hill.

I offered to borrow my mom’s car and pick him up but he was a chauvinist pig and wouldn’t have anything to do with that. So I offered to just meet him at prom. I’d drive myself in my mom’s car (she had a Zephyr, it was a neat car) and he could drive his mom’s stupid station wagon and we could meet at the door.

He didn’t go for that either. I think he ended up borrowing a car from someone he went to church with.

I didn’t care. I just knew I’d won that battle and it meant that when it came time to break up with him, I’d win that one too.

When you’re relationship denigrates to the point that there are battles to be won…it’s time to just let it go. Break up and move on. Everyone will be happier, eventually.

Promise.

All The Wrong Reasons or More Memories

I went out with my high school boyfriend (JLC) because he liked me.

Let that sink in.

I didn’t actually like him all that much. I definitely wasn’t attracted to him. Okay, to be fair, he wasn’t exactly gross but he also wasn’t at all someone I found romantically attractive.

I dated him for a year and a half.

That’s so sad, isn’t it?

I thought I was such a badass feminist in high school and there I was, dating a guy I didn’t even really like but he liked me so…

We finally broke up after he kissed another girl. I was so relieved to finally have an excuse to break up with him. The REASON I wanted to break up with him was because I didn’t want to be in a relationship with him anymore.

And that’s reason enough. But when you’re eighteen, you think you have to have a REAL reason and just wanting someone to go away didn’t seem like real enough.

Obviously, I know better now.

My best friend (R) in high school hated JLC. She thought he was a tool and a loser.

She wasn’t wrong.

JLC wasn’t R’s biggest fan either but his ambivalence toward her turned to a white hot hatred the summer before our (R’s and my) senior year. JLC was a year behind us.

I worked at the Dairy Treat in our town. It was a tiny little establishment with both table inside people could use and be served by waitresses as well as a window at which people could place their orders and wait to pick them up.

One day that summer, R had shown up as my shift at work ended. I don’t know what we were going to do but as we waited at a picnic table outside the Dairy Treat, JC pulled up in his new-to-him car.

This car was ridiculous.

It was a Ranchero, which was the Ford version of the El Camino.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about the Ranchero:

The Ford Ranchero is a coupe utility that was produced by Ford between 1957 and 1979. Unlike a pickup truck, the Ranchero was adapted from a two-door station wagon platform that integrated the cab and cargo bed into the body. A total of 508,355 units were produced during the model's production run.

JC’s Ranchero looked very much like this:

Except his was in much worse shape. In fact, it was hideous. As he drove up the road toward the dairy treat, where RO and I were sitting, the hood on his car came unlatched and flew up, obstructing his view of the road.

Smoke and dust billowed from the engine and JC was hanging his head out the window trying to see where he was going.

Obviously, this was hysterically funny and while I tried to contain my mirth, R did nothing to stifle her laughter. She laughed until she cried.

JLC was pissed.

He loved that stupid, horrible car and her laughter at the awfulness of that car just fueled his anger.

Our senior year was rife with JC’s distain for R and her ‘haughty’ attitude. For her part, R thought JLC was a schmuck and didn’t care even a little that he didn’t like her. She also didn’t understand why I was dating him. She was never mean to me about it but she didn’t hide the fact that she thought I was WAY too good for him.

I don’t know why I’m telling this story, except maybe to remind everyone out there that sometimes (most times even) we should listen to our friends. They are a little removed from romantic relationships and they see things we don’t always see or that we ignore.

RO was so right about JLC. He’s been married three times, divorced twice, has five kids and has been arrested for domestic violence.

I was lucky to get away when I did.

Track - Sophomore Year - Week 1

Whew. I’m tired.

Track season started with a bang on Saturday, April 6. The weather was lovely, the teams were kind, both the boys and the girls of Edon won the meet.

The next meet was on Tuesday, 4/9. The weather was much yuckier that day. The sun was out and the temps were in the 50s but it was so windy that it felt more like the 30s. Ugh. Being cold makes me tired.

The next meet was Friday, 4/12. It was at a school that was a full hour drive from our school. That meant I had to leave work two hours early since I work a half hour away in the wrong direction. And I always swing by and pick up my mom so she can endure these meets with me. She’s a lucky woman.

But even though the meets were only on Tuesday and Friday, none of the other days were ‘normal’ that week.

I went to work at 7:00 on Monday and worked until 4:30 so I could bank time for Friday’s early exit from work. I went in at 7:00 on Tuesday and left at 3:30 for the meet. In at 7:30 and out at 4:30 on Wednesday and Thursday.

Let’s add in the fact that I had to take Liv’s glasses to the eye doctor on Tuesday, run to the grocery store for turkey (Alyssa eats A LOT of turkey) on Wednesday and back to the eye doctor on Thursday with Olivia so we can get her glasses adjusted by a professional and…you guessed, I’m tired.

Lucky for me, I slept very well on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights. I slept very badly on Sunday, night, but who’s counting?

We only have four more weeks of track meets. Let’s do this.

Drama

I need a t-shirt that reads:

Band Mom
Track Mom
Drama Mama

We just wrapped this year’s musical. The school put on Little Shop of Horrors. It was really fun. There are some seriously talented kids at that school. There are also some less talented kids but I won’t name names because that’s just mean and they’re kids, for Pete’s sake. (I started to type Pete Sakes but figured that joke is old at this point…) sigh.

I helped with hair and makeup again this year for the musical. That was an adventure. There was one other mom. ONE. OTHER. MOM. She did most of the hair, I did most of the makeup.

Guess what? That other mom also works full time. I know for a fact that there were kids in this play who have parents (usually moms) who do not work. Were they there at 5pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday afternoons until after 9pm each night doing hair and makeup?

Nope.

You want something done? Ask a working mom.

I made several ‘bump-its’ for the girls to wear in their hair. The other mom, let’s call her Dani, made four wigs for the four ‘street urchins’. Sure, her daughter was one of the urchins but it was still really freaking nice of her to cut and color three MORE wigs for the other three girls.

I did the makeup for the boy who played The Dentist. He was very nice but had only bothered to audition for the play because his girlfriend was cast as Audrey (the lead) and she’d lamented that not enough guys were going out for the play. He hadn’t expected to get the part and so was totally unprepared for what was asked of him.

I did Alyssa’s hair because, duh, she’s my kid. I also did the hair of one of her besties, Simone. That was kind of fun.

Now that musical is over, I get to move on from being a drama mama back to being a band mom. Now we start pep band at basketball games. I’ll probably go to one game, just to watch the band. It’s what I do.

Come March, April and May, I’ll go back to being a track mom. I am not looking forward to the snow, rain, wind, freezing temperatures that lead blistering sun and increasing humidity that come with track season.

One funny moment in my drama mama life was when the show was over on Saturday night, I was waiting for Alyssa to finish changing out of her costume so I could help her take her hair down. There were only a few of us in the room.

The girl who voiced the plant, Audrey II, came into the room, looked around a bit frantically and then walked up to me. She said, “Everyone I know well is already in the cafeteria at the after-party. Will you smell me and tell me if I stink?”

I laughed. Then, being the good drama mama I am, I sniffed her and told her she was fine.

She thanked me and said, “I didn’t know who to ask but then I saw a mom and knew I could trust you to tell me the truth.”

I told her I have a huge fear of being stinky so I totally get it.

It was a moment.

There was one other moment that wasn’t so entertaining. When Alyssa and I got to the school on Friday evening to start getting ready for the play (two hours before it started, just so you know) we went to the back of the school where we always went for practice, rehearsal, what the heck ever. We got there just as Tessa, one of Lyss’s friends, arrived. The three of us made our way to the door.

The door was locked, which wasn’t unusual. We saw Audrey’s mom inside. We knocked. She moseyed on over and let us in.

Then, as she walked away, she said over her shoulder, “Future reference - these doors will be locked to people can’t just come and go during the performances.”

Yeah, okay, thanks for the info, Susan. You’re a big help. Future reference…we’re not the people you’re trying to lock out. I made the thing that made your daughter’s hair look amazing on Saturday night, so yeah, you can just shut your trap and keep your future references to yourself.

Yikes, I just reread that last paragraph. I didn’t mean for this to be a bitch session. But then, I also don’t always expect to be treated like a second class citizen just because my kid isn’t the freaking lead, so…yeah. There’s that.

And for what it’s worth, the next night, Audrey and her mom were locked out right along with the rest of us schmucks while we waited for the director to get there with the keys to the building. Ha. Hahahahaha.

Learning to Fly

This summer has been an adventure in all kinds of ways. First, it's been the first summer I've had off work ever since I've had the girls. We've taken two trips to Battle Creek, Michigan. Olivia and I have averaged at least one day at the pool each week, sometimes more (see last week when we went both Thursday AND Friday.)

It's also been the first summer that Alyssa has been gone more than home. She and N try to spend as much time together as possible, because, duh. N works, so they have to fit their time together between her work schedule.

And now...Lyss is learning to drive. She got her learner's permit yesterday (Saturday.) She's already logged over an hour of driving with me and today she's getting some time in with her dad.

She's pretty good, actually. I try hard to be calm and patient as I'm reminding her to come to a full stop at stop signs and to maybe slow down a little sooner when coming to an intersection. I also try not to grab the door handle when she's taking curves a little faster than I think she probably should.

She's growing up and I'm so glad for her. I want her to fly. I want her to soar as high as she can and do everything she wants to do. I want her to reach for the stars and follow her dreams. I want her to know she can always come home, she will always belong here, even as she's finding other places to belong.

This summer has been the start of the gradual pull away from the gravity of your family of origin for her. She's learning that she has a life that doesn't always include her parents. And that's okay. That's good. But yes, it's hard for me and Tom.

I remind Lyss often she she's still only fifteen.

She then reminds me that she's NOT twelve. She does this with respect and maybe a little exasperation. I get it. I get that she has to pull away a little now so that in a few years she'll be more ready, more confident as she pulls away, both figuratively and literally as she goes off to college.

The teenager years are years of growth, transition, learning to fly and learning to let go, for both the teen and the parents.

We've got this. We're helping her spread her wings even as we continue to pad the nest so if/when she falls, we're here to cushion the blow and let her try again.

Shrek The Musical

I feel bad that I didn't mention this earlier but well, we've had a lot going on so...that's life, right?

Alyssa participated in her school's musical this year. She was amazing. She had several roles and a couple of solos. The musical was Shrek.

Alyssa was Blue Bird (she got to pretend to explode on stage.) She was also Humpty Dumpty (she got to sing loud and proud.) She was a Dulok Dancer. She danced and sang so well in an awful yellow wig. And she was one of the Three Blind Mice, backing up Donkey during a song.

She worked so hard, as did the rest of the cast. They started rehearsing in January. They had so many songs to learn, so much choreography, so many lines.

My mom and I helped with costumes (I sort of helped, my mom did most of the work.) And I helped with makeup. That was great fun. Getting to see the behind-the-scenes of this amazing production made me appreciate it that much more.

I am so proud of Alyssa. She's really making the most of her freshman year of high school. She's taking part in so many things, from honors choirs to the musical, to track. She's gone to contest with the band, she's been in pep band, marching band, and just hung out with friends. She's enjoying life and that's what I want for her.

Now...if she could only find a rich benefactor to give her a new phone, her life would be perfect.