Memories

Looking at all of these Facebook posts with all the fun places people take their toddlers and cute traditions they have make me miss my kids when they were little. It also got me to thinking about the memories I have of their childhood and the things my kids actually remember.

I took my kids to Disney World when they were about 6 and 2.5. And they remember nothing. The youngest swears she had never been there, but I tell her I have pictures to prove it. I am not a Disney fan (hold back the gasps). I think it's cool and magical, but just too crowded and expensive for me. So, when I travelled there recently and tried to give my kids that experience since they couldn't remember it the first time, I wondered why I even bothered the first time around. Was it for them or for me? Since they couldn't remember any of it, was it just a waste? It was fun to see their eyes light up at the sight of Cinderella and wonder how great it must be to live in her beautiful castle. But when they were older, the magic was definitely gone. As I was walking through the happiest place on earth, I saw so many screaming, tired toddlers and so many stressed out parents trying to keep their kids happy (and quiet) while waiting on line for 40 minutes.

I'm not knocking Disney. This seems the case for all of these cool things we do for our kids when they are little. Sesame Street Live, the county fair, apple (or pumpkin or Christmas tree) picking, the zoo, the train show at the botanical gardens, the polar express. All of these fun things that we enjoy while we are doing them, but then can't remember 10 years later. Have I failed as a parent because I didn't make them enjoyable enough for them to remain a part of their memory?

Why is it that my youngest can't remember her first time meeting Mickey Mouse, but she can remember the color of the shirt she was wearing when someone took her crayon off the desk in her kindergarten class?

I think we are so lucky in these modern times to have the technology to document our children's lives at every turn. I have done my best to keep photos and videos and even have journals for both girls so they can look back and see how much I kept track of as they grew up. I kept art projects and ticket stubs and stuffed animals (okay, so maybe I have hoarding tendencies) just so they will know that those things were once very important to them.

When I see something beautiful and show it to my children, their first instinct is to take a picture of it and I balk. I tell them to just enjoy the moment. Enjoy the sunset. Enjoy watching the waves crash on the beach. Enjoy the snowfall. Enjoy the lit Christmas tree. Not everything needs to be photographed and shared on social media. Sometimes it's more beautiful to just look at.

With that logic, I answered my own question. Even if they don't remember the trip, it was worth it. It was worth it at that moment. And that's what I will remember.

The music in me

Sitting at work yesterday with my earbuds in, trying to listen to some good music from my phone. First song, Adele. Okay. Second song. Big Time Rush. Skip. Next song. Ariana Grande. Skip. Next song. Justin Bieber. Skip. You get the picture.

As I scroll through the hundreds of songs on my phone, it seems that there are very few that I actually purchased and fewer that I actually like. Smartphones are awesome in that I can buy a song the second I hear it, but I realize that those purchases were mostly made by my children.

Some of the stuff on there is so old - like those one time buys you made for a Halloween party or the time you bought a Wiggles song just you could annoy your children and play it over and over. But, the non-tech savvy person that I am doesn't ever seem to know how to delete songs so I am stuck with every High School Musical soundtrack ever made.

Sometimes a song will come on the playlist and not one of us remembers who bought it or why. So we laugh about it. We laugh about it the second time it happens too. But by the third time my kids are like "Dude, can you delete the song or what?"

And while we sometimes (rarely) agree on what music to play on a long car trip, it is clear to me that my daughters and I do not share the same taste in music.

I guess that is my fault. I guess I didn't play enough good music all the time for them to listen to and really get a good taste. My mother introduced me to The Rolling Stones and Cat Stevens. My dad is the reason I enjoy old Motown. But, what the heck have I given my children? My taste in music is so broad that I can pretty much listen to anything. So where do they find their musical home? A lot of kids will say "my parents love country music." I do too, but I don't listen to it all of the time. I like country and Christian and pop and hip-hop and rock. I shy away from jazz, opera, hard-core rap and serious metal. If you looked at my CD collection, you would not be able to figure anything out about me. Yes, it includes Garth Brooks, but also Eminem and Luciano Pavarotti.

So, what the heck can I do? My kids like the weirdest stuff in my opinion. I don't mind Post Malone for like one song a day, but an album? Um no. My kids will listen to good music when it's on, but it's not what they pick as their first choice. The first choice is usually some crap currently playing on the radio or something their favorite YouTuber likes. Most of the garbage on the radio today is the most fake, auto-tuned nonsense. It's sad that there is so much talent in the world, but marketing is the thing that makes you famous. Why should Selena Gomez or Camila Cabello get my money? They should really give all their money to their sound engineers because those are the people that actually make that stuff!

Anyway, I have to find a way to get my kids to know good music in their soul. To reach for it the first time and not just when I play it. I'm thinking I could just take their phones and delete all the junk and replace it with good tunes. But, that would require a person who knows how to do that. You think the guy at the Genius bar would do it for me? With my luck, he would do it for a fee and then give me a playlist made up of Panic at the Disco and My Chemical Romance. Ick.

Grocery bills

Have you ever seen a movie where the dad puts too much detergent in the washer (or dishwasher) and then a few minutes later, the room is full of suds? That's what my shower looks like every time my 13-year-old goes in there. I don't know what she's doing in there, but it requires a lot of time and product and produces a lot of suds.

Yes, I'm sure she would be mortified by this, but I need to make it public to prove a point. Teenage girls consume just as much as teenage boys. They just consume differently.

I don't have any sons, but judging from the number of times the moms of teenage boys do a
Facebook check-in at the grocery store each week, it is safe to say that most of that food shopping is being done to satisfy the ravenous male teens and their friends. I've got to say, as fun as it must be to have those kids hanging out at your house all the time, there have to be days when you want to just lie and say "the carpets are being cleaned" or "we're fumigating for termites" so all of them have to go to someone else's house and raid their fridge.

I may be wrong, but one good thing about boys' appetites is that they are not too picky. Sure, they have their likes and dislikes but I bet, if they are really hungry, they will eat just about anything and much of it requires little more than opening a package or 3 minutes in the microwave. So you don't have to slave over the stove for them or pick out the most expensive snacks in the store.

This is where the difference comes in. What girls consume is usually more expensive and requires much more time to pick out. Beauty products. I'm not kidding when I tell you that my kids use more product in a month than I use in a year. Of course, I use soap and shampoo and moisturizer, but that's pretty much where it ends. I don't need four kinds of face wash and special water and wipes that remove makeup. I don't need foams, creams, gels, pomades or sprays. Seriously, just soap. And fewer than five minutes in the shower. How long does it take? What are you doing in there? And why do you need so much?

I think when I was a kid, my mom bought shampoo (the cheap kind), soap (not body wash) and deodorant (again, the cheap kind) like every other month. If I asked her to spend $12.99 on face wash or get bath fizzies and body wash in a specialty store, she probably would have just told me to put it on my Christmas list and hoped I forgot about it. Her biggest splurge was Nivea.

Maybe it's because I grew up in an apartment building where there were five other families that also needed hot water. I just think you go in, wash, and get out. My kids think it's time to listen to a new playlist and produce so much steam you would think there was a sauna in operation.

My favorite is when they use all the shampoo and don't bother to tell me. I love that. I think moms of boys experience that regularly when they reach for the milk for their morning coffee and find half a drop left in the almost empty container. And you can't put water in and shake up the milk to get the last bit out like you can with shampoo!

So, here's to all us grocery shoppers - living the life as we fill up our carts and put dents in our wallets and stock our shelves. May we always have enough to satisfy the teen hunger.

The wonders of technology

I think that you can easily say technology is a blessing and a curse. Yesterday, my oldest daughter was traveling home from a school trip to New York City and, thanks to an app, I could see exactly where that bus was and time my departure from work so I would pick her up at exactly the right time. It was a good feeling of safety and security. Had I been tracking her doing something else, someone may say it's more like stalking.
Do you track your kids online and know where they are 24/7? Is that intrusive? I mean, they are your kids. They live under your roof and may be a driving a car that you pay for so is it really an invasion of privacy or more like you checking up on them to see that they are doing okay. I'd like to equate it to old-school neighborhoods. If you were out on the street chasing a cat and your mom wasn't there to see it but your neighbor was, you could be darn sure the neighbor would yell at you. So, if I'm not there to watch my kids, I don't mind that app being the neighbor who smacks my kid in the back of the head when she is screwing up.
I have eased up on monitoring my children's use of technology because I don't want them to think I'm too strict and then hide things from me and be deceitful. But, I've noticed that my easing up has allowed them to feel freedom that I'm not really willing to give them. To me, that freedom seems to come with some stupidity.
Teenagers, of course, know everything. They think they don't need to be told what is right or what is wrong. Unfortunately, that "wisdom" doesn't always include them making the best decisions in life or saying the smartest things in the world. Kids say and do stupid stuff all the time. But now they do that stupid stuff while their friends record it. And then their friends post it online. And all of a sudden, something really stupid is now something that is really stupid forever.
Even if a kid knows they are being recorded, I'm sure they don't think about the consequences of it. They don't think that the fight they had in the middle school locker room might affect a college application or job interview.
So, the blessing and the curse. And I have to say this - I am SO glad I am the age I am. I did all my stupid stuff before the Internet and my mother could never track me with GPS.

Lines of Communication

The other day, I was telling a young man I know that the phone will soon be ringing off the hook with girls calling to talk to him. When his sister said "That won't happen," I started to argue with her about how adorable her brother was and how he will have the girls swooning some day and she said "No one calls your house."
Ouch.
No one calls your house.

Instead you will get a text or a Snapchat request or some other impersonal form of communication.
Now I'm about to sound REALLY old, but these kids today will never know what it is like to talk to someone at the beginning of a relationship. They won't know what it's like to pick up the phone just to make sure there is a dial tone. They won't ever stretch the cord of the kitchen phone into their room or get yelled at for being on the phone for hours. They won't know what it's like to feel rich when your parents got call waiting or, better yet, a second phone line. Their phone won't ring at 2 in the morning and their father won't answer it and tell the boy on the other end that if he ever calls again he will hunt him down and rip his ears off. They won't ever feel the power of slamming a phone down after an argument. (I mean, how tough can you feel pressing a screen with your pointer finger?)
I don't really know what I used to talk about when I was on the phone for hours. It's funny, teenagers have nothing to say to their parents or teachers, but they can yammer on and on with their friends. But, I definitely did talk for hours - I guess because there was no other option. There was no TV in my room. There was no media at my fingertips.

I honestly feel that technology is a blessing and a curse - especially to teenagers. When I see toddlers using iPads and phones like experts, I realize that children today don't know anything else. This is their life now. They don't understand having to look something up in a library - you know, in a card catalog. They don't have to take a bus or wait for someone to give them a ride and make sure the library is open. They just have information right there.
They don't have to write each other letters or pass notes in class. They hit a few keys and they are done. They don't have to figure out words to express their emotions because they have emojis. They can decide if they want to take a call or even video chat with someone and won't ever know the complete anonymity of not having caller ID. And I'm sure most of them wouldn't even know what a busy signal sounds like.

It's bad enough that so many of our younger generation don't know how to write a letter or a thank you note or how to address an adult or what to say in a job interview. But, when they don't even know how to have an actual conversation? What is going on here?

So, how do kids communicate? How do they know what someone is feeling if they can't hear the sound of their voice? Admittedly, I think I come off better on paper than I do in person but sometimes it's hard to truly convey your intentions in an e-mail or a text. Do people really know what you are thinking and feeling or is it up to them to try and figure it out based on what they think you mean from your text message? Do you ever get a text from someone and can't tell if they are happy or angry or sarcastic or funny? I can't image what it's like to be a teenager and try to figure that out.
I guess it is our job as parents to teach our children how to talk to people. How to look up from a screen and look someone in the eye and actually talk to them. We shouldn't live in a world where families go out to dinner and sit at the table on their phones. We shouldn't have text conversations with a person in the same room. Granted, I would much rather text or e-mail than pick up a phone - probably because I'm lazy and anti-social - but not because I don't know how to have a conversation.

If we all work together, someday we may live in a world where people smile and speak to each other in public. I'd love to know what you think of that - but don't call to tell me. Send me a text.

Let them be little... or big

You know the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears - the girl tries everything until she finds the right fit. The porridge is too hot or too cold. The bed is too firm or too soft. But when she finds the one that is "just right" she is happy. I think that is like adolescence, but without the actual happy part.
When you are between the ages of 12 and 17, you are in this awkward area. You're too young to be considered an adult and you're too old to be considered a child. So where do you fit in?

Junior high and the first half of high school are probably the most difficult times in your life. Everything is changing in your world - your body, your friends, your education, your thoughts. And with all of this change, there is bound to be uncertainty and stress and questioning and insecurity. Some people handle it better than others. Some people just kind of ignore it. Some people give into it full on and can't make a decision about anything. (I know this is true because I am asked daily if a scrunchie matches a shirt or if black Vans are better with this outfit than black Nikes or if certain homework should be done in pencil or pen).

With all of these stressors, kids really don't have the experience or mindset yet to manage certain things. Life is hard right now and sometimes teenagers don't know which way is up. It's hard for adults to remember that age. Sure, we remember things that happened during that time period, but do we really remember how we felt about life? Do you remember how you got butterflies in your stomach every morning before school because a certain girl was in your first period class. Do you remember how scared you were the first time you drove a car or applied for a job? Do you remember feeling doofy because you were taller (or shorter) than every other kid 7th grade? Or that you cried the night before school pictures because you hated your smile with braces? Or that you wished you could drop out of school because you tripped up the steps in front of the entire student body? All stupid little things that seem like nothing in hindsight, but mean the world to a teenager.

How do you help a kid cope with that? How do you help a girl not care that her hair isn't curling exactly how she wants or tell a boy that the giant zit in the middle of his forehead is barely noticeable? How do you deal with a kid who one day doesn't mind watching cartoons but the next day wants to watch Fox News and talk to you about politics and the environment. How do you keep your son's mind pure when the girls at school are wearing next to nothing? How do you help your daughter understand that the popular kids at school are almost always the meanest kids at school?

And as hard as this time is for these kids, how about us parents? How the heck are we supposed to cope? I don't want to fast forward (because time passes by fast enough as it is) but I wish I had something that could show them the future. Just a glimpse of it. I would love for them to see that life gets easier and less awkward. Not all their questions will be answered, but it will definitely get better.

So until they are old enough to be considered an adult, I will still let them act like kids whenever they want. So if you see my 13-year-old trick or treating with her friends, give her a piece of candy. If she sits on the swings in the park, don't give her a nasty look as you walk by with your toddler. Let them be kids for as long as they can because they deserve to enjoy their youth.

Back in the Saddle

It's been a loooong time since I blogged - more than six years. In normal time, that is about 2200 days. In mom time, it's 22 seconds.

When it comes to being a parent, the days seem like years and the years seem like days. So not blogging for six years means I haven't done it since my kids were 7 and 10. And now I will start to think about how fast the time went since they were 7 and 10 and how one is driving and looking at colleges and the other is navigating life as an 8th grader and is asking about dating and I will start to get sad and choked up and wonder where all of that time went and why it flew by too quickly.

So, I'm now back in the saddle. I didn't think life would be as funny with teenagers as it was back when they were younger, but it's even funnier now. Hoping to keep this as a regular thing and hope you'll stick around for the ride.