Outgrowing My Comfortable Jeans

I love when conversation goes beyond the shallow, surface-y stuff, when it delves into deeper more meaningful subjects, beyond the weather into what moves you and makes you think. It happens so very rarely. People are afraid to ask deeper questions, to really know another person on a level beyond the one they present to the general public.That's why I love my friend, Mary McCall (Look! You made the blog!). She's only 17, but she isn't the least bit afraid to ask those deeper questions.

"What do you love about your husband now?" We had been talking about relationships and what "love" really is, and how people can stay married. I had mentioned how different my relationship with my husband was compared to when we started dating way back in the stone ages.

There are many reasons I love my husband, even after almost 22 years of marriage. However, the one that stands out the most is our family.

Together we have created this wonderful, beautiful life together. It is a home and a family that, when I stop and think about it, blows my mind. We are tight knit and easy-going, living a life full of running inside jokes, supportive and protective of one another to a degree I've honestly not witnessed anywhere else. Of course we have our problems. We tend to chug along vacillating between smooth harmony and the bumpiness of hurt feelings and misunderstandings. There are three teenagers living in this house and one extremely moody 12 year-old, after all. Some days we are drowning in sarcasm and angst and eye rolls.

But most days we are orbiting in between and around each other with something very akin to harmony. It's beautiful this dance of balance and love and intelligent conversation. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. (except when they are arguing about who is going to eat the last cookie or who last took out the garbage. That's not at all warm and fuzzy). But when we are laughing around the dinner table or all singing along to the radio, that is sheer bliss (especially when someone jumps in and adds harmony).

Some days it hits me that this beautiful thing I call family won't always look this way. It's a thing in constant motion, ever changing. It's already so very different from how it looked when the kids were little, but I don't like to think about that, about the kids leaving home, venturing out to build their own homes and seek their own fortunes and adventure. This family feels too complete. Too perfect. Too comfortable. Like a favorite pair of jeans. Just exactly right. The six of us, whole and perfect. No one can leave. No one can rip this fabulously comfortable pair of jeans.

Of course, that's not how any of this works. Children grow up and they leave their mothers. It's the law of nature. Children grow out of our comfortable pair of jeans. Those jeans just aren't strong enough to contain them. Children become adults and burst out of our homes and into the world, ready to make lives of their own.

Sometimes the Universe has a way of reminding us mothers.  It throws strange symbolic coincidences our way, coincidences that twist our hearts into tormented shapes we didn't think were possible.

On Tuesday night, I was folding a never-ending stream of laundry. In that never-ending stream, I found one of the Universe's cruel little coincidences: an old outfit that had been my oldest son's. It was his first set of camouflage, size 12 months OshKosh-style cammies with a coordinating shirt that said "Camo Adventure Team" up the sleeve. His Nana had given it to him, and he wore it constantly. I loved that outfit.

How it had landed itself in the laundry when it hadn't been worn in over 18 years is rather odd, but probably due to a recent ambitious attic purge that I attempted but abandoned. I was rather surprised to find it and even more surprised by the wave of nostalgia and ache I felt over it. How did my 6'2" son ever fit into those tiny overalls? Where did the time go? Why was I not paying better attention?

My firstborn took his first steps in that outfit, tottering Frankenstein-style into my open arms. We were both so proud. If I had realized that every step he took after that would take him farther away from me, perhaps I would have held him just a little longer. Perhaps I would have held him there just one moment more as he pushed and struggled to get down and try it again. Maybe I would have breathed him in. It bothers me that I can't recall how he smelled that day. I can't remember what he smelled like when he snuggled against me, his head fitting just right in the crook of my neck. Now he smells like man sweat and Axe deodorant (apparently the ladies love it... whatever). When did that change? Why wasn't I paying attention.

On Wednesday, I rode shotgun in my son's truck as he drove to talk to an Army recruiter. He will be walking out of my arms soon, out into the world to make his own way. How strangely appropriate that he took his first steps into my arms wearing his cammies, and he'll take his first steps out of them wearing a different set. We will both be proud. This time I will remember to hold him just a little longer, until he mutters, "Uh... Mom? This is getting kind of weird." But I won't care.

So this version of family, my own metaphorical comfortable jeans, is about to be outgrown, just like those tiny overall cammies. We aren't losing a member, but things won't ever be quite the same. I will certainly feel the presence of his empty bed, his empty chair, his empty room (which won't be empty long. His sister has already called dibs.), his empty spot in this little family nest.

Things change. That kind of sucks. And yet it doesn't.

I'm sure I will cry the day he leaves for basic training, just like I cried that day he took his first chubby toddler steps. But will they be tears of joy, or tears of loss?

They will be both.

As for my comfortable jeans. I almost wish they were real jeans so I could pack them away, so they could mysteriously make it into the laundry some 18 years in the future. Because we will certainly find another, just as beautiful, yet very different way of existing as a family.

It might take a while to break it in, but I'm sure it will be just as comfortable, just as warmly beautiful, once we get the feel of it.

4 Reasons My Family Shouldn't Play the Board Game Risk

Last night, winter storm Octavia came raging across the South like premenstrual hormones through adolescent veins, leaving us all chilled and confused and cowering from Mother Nature's wrath. (Much like the family members who regularly experience adolescent PMS. Quick tip: keep chocolate bars on hand for emergency situations, both of the weather and hormonal varieties.)

Photo by Jeremy Pharo via Flickr

Like any good snow day, we spent it mostly huddled indoors battling boredom. What better way to defeat boredom than family board games? (Or should they be called "bored" games since we only ever play them when we're bored?) How about a good rousing game of Risk? It seemed like a good idea at the time. Family bonding coupled with the development of higher-level thinking skills, sprinkle on some good sportsmanship and top it with a heaping spoonful of fun and we should have had the makings of a successful afternoon.

Except it didn't turn out exactly how I had envisioned. It all fell apart rather quickly, and while it probably did develop some higher-level thinking skills it probably also left a few emotional scars in the process.

I learned a few things about my dear, sweet family. I'm not certain exactly what they all mean, but here they are:

1. Strategy be damned, the kids are going to wipe Mom off the face of the planet first. Every time. I will not be allowed to control even the weakest of strategical points (like Argentina or the Northwest Territory). Mom must not have power. They will force even the tiniest flicker of power from my frail and failing grasp, even though we all know that Dad is the real threat. No... don't let Mom have anything. At all cost. (This frightens me just a little... I will probably sleep with one eye open from now until the last one moves out.)

2. Risk may not be the best game to play with easily amused teenage boys. There are too many inappropriate jokes to be made about "domination" and "pulling out" and "using your cannon". And the jokes will be made... and made again... and again.

3. Sibling rivalry should probably not be played out on the battlefield. It's too violent and bloody. Why is the youngest amassing a huge army of 80 plus troops in Western Africa? Perhaps it's because she feels she never has any privacy, that her sister is forever in her space and in her business. Her brothers might steal her dignity and self-respect, but they will NOT have West Africa, damn it. She will cling to that tired piece of dirt with just her flimsy fingernails if she has to. I did hear her shout at one point, "If I'm going down, you're going down with me!" (Perhaps this game is taken a tad too seriously... nah.)

4. No mercy. It doesn't matter if a clear winner was obvious 27 rounds ago, my family will play to the bitter end. This is about world domination, not diplomacy or compassion or filthy little peace treaties. No one is allowed to just admit defeat and leave. No... the oldest has spent hours carefully scheming his way to victory and by God you are all going to sit here and patiently lose like you are supposed to. Suck it up, Buttercups. This is victory by torture. It doesn't matter that the game ceased to be fun for anyone but the victor after the first 45 minutes of the game. This isn't about having fun. It's about world domination! Make sure you keep your priorities straight.

Now we are moving on to Apples to Apples... this can't possibly go wrong.

Right?

What My Children Hear - Am I Secretly Speaking Klingon?

I say a lot of things, and not all of it is pointless and silly (only most of it), but sometimes I have to wonder if I am speaking some foreign language...something obscure like ancient Latin (although I'm secretly hoping it's Klingon because wouldn't that be like totally cool?).  I wonder because I say things that to me seem like simple directives, but the meaning is somehow lost on my children.  It must get filtered through childhood distractions and built up ear wax and morphed into something almost completely different than my intentions.  (So it must be Klingon, right?  Please say, "Yes.")

Just to prove my point, here is a list of recent things I have said and what my children apparently heard.  There is apparently a real problem here...

What I say:  "Make sure you save me some cookies."
What my children hear:  "Eat all the cookies you want as long as you save me exactly one half of a cookie surrounded by copious crumbs of varying sizes."

What I say:  "You need to clean up your room before your friends come over."
What my children hear:  "You need to clean your room by stuffing everything under your bed and inside of your closet.  Also, the only surface area that actually needs to be clean is the center of the floor, so it's okay to stack things on your dresser and nightstand and desk...as long as it's off the floor...Also be sure to leave dirty underwear where all of your friends can see it."

What I say:  "Wash your hands before dinner."
What my kids hear:  "Wash your hands before dinner, but only the palms because that's all that's going to touch your food anyway.  The backs of your hands don't even actually count as part of your hands."

What I say:  "You need to wipe your nose"
What my kids hear:  "You need to wipe your nose on the back of your hand...at the dinner table...as long as it's the back of your hand because that doesn't even count as your hand.  It's more like a portable napkin."

What I say:  "You need to take a shower."
What my kids hear:  "You need to stand in the shower and let the water run over your body for the next 20 minutes, but you can conveniently forget to use any soap or shampoo.  Also please leave the shower curtain open because the floor is kind of dirty and could use a shower, too."

What I say:  "Don't feed the dog chocolate.  It will make him sick."
What my kids hear:  "Don't feed the dog chocolate, but when he looks at you with those sad puppy dog eyes, it's okay to feed him half your grilled cheese sandwich, 7 potato chips, all of your carrot sticks, the last few swallows of your root beer, the napkin your sandwich sat on, and a breath mint, because I love cleaning up dog vomit off the dining room carpet."

What I say:  "Don't run in the house.  You might break something."
What my kids hear:  "Please jump off the furniture doing flips in the air while attempting to land on your brother's shoulders...because at least you won't be running in the house...and, by the way, you've got that future circus career in. the. bag."

What I say:  "Don't stand there with the refrigerator door open.  You're wasting electricity."
What my kids hear:  "If you're going to stand there with the refrigerator door open, just hold the light switch with your finger until you decide that there isn't anything in there worth eating.  That will save electricity."

See what I mean?  There is apparently a huge gap between what I say and what my children hear.  Do other parents have this problem or is it just me?  Are we all secretly speaking Klingon?  Or do we all need to pull out one of those bizarre ear wax vacuum cleaners?  Someone please help us!

You Expect Me To Be Insulted?

I was recently told that I'm weird...and while this could be interpreted as a compliment (usually by weird individuals like me), it was apparent that this person meant it as an insult.

It's probably weird that my first thought wasn't that I was offended, but that this person obviously doesn't know me very well.  I mean...of all of my many flaws, the best she could come up with was "weird"?  I'm also kinda lazy, incredibly grumpy, pretty damned cynical, I yell at my kids, and my socks don't match.  All of those would have been much better insults in my very unhumble opinion.  If you're going to try to insult me, at least do a good job of it.

It really doesn't bother me that people may find me weird.  Consider the alternative: boring, common, dull, ordinary...being called any one of those would REALLY be an insult.  But since I am none of those, it's kind of a moot point.

And just in case you might be contemplating my lack of weirdness, I offer this as proof:

Last night over dinner, my family discussed the best names and slogans for a septic tank service company...and we carried it on for several hours, each of us randomly shouting something we had recently thought rather funny.  Not that we are considering opening our own septic tank service company (because...ewwww), but if we were, we would be ready, perhaps even over-prepared.  Not with any expertise in the septic tank service business, although I'm assuming maybe it involves a big suction-y hose thingy, and maybe some hazmat suits, and a truck...definitely a truck...across which we would emblazon our awesomely creative company name and slogan.

"No Shit Sherlock"

Perhaps not so family friendly.  How about, "Get A Load Of That"?

This is the truck we need!

And for our slogan...

We're #1 in the #2 business
or
You doo our business
or
You dump.  We pump.
or
You flush our business down the drain.
or
Got Poo?
or
Waste not.  Want not
or
You think your job sucks...

I can not be held responsible for all of these.  Many of them came from my dear husband and super intelligent and incredibly witty children.

Yeah.  We're weird...but it would be pretty boring any other way.