This is 40...Well...Me at 40

I’m 40.  When did that happen?  I mean, I know the date of my birthday.  I know it happened, I just cannot figure out when I got to be so old. 

When I was a kid, I remember having to go to bed at 9 p.m.  I remember having to be home before dark.  I remember wishing time would pass faster so I could have my driver’s license, and today, my daughter was driving ME around.  Granted, I was telling her to stay in her lines like she was coloring and to remember the brake, but still, she was driving me, and not the other way around.

I used to dream of the day when I would leave home.  I would go to Chicago, live in the big city, and never come home again.  I would be very chic and I would have lots of friends and ride in taxis.  When I was a teenager, I don’t think I ever aged in my imagination past twenty I didn’t dream of turning 21 because I was never interested in drinking.  Up until the second semester of my senior year, I didn’t fantasize of having a husband and children either, but that changed when I met my future husband. Then I did dream of being married.  (The children part came shortly after we got married when he looked at me crosswise and I got pregnant.)

I don’t think anyone dreams of what life will be like at forty.  Teenagers don’t think, “When I’m forty, I’m going to … sail around the world.” Or “When I’m forty I’m going to learn how to play backgammon.” It’s just not done. 

This is forty.  My hair is short.  My hair has been short for a while now, but in my family when we women get old, we cut our hair.  I have now been every size between a size 3 to a 16.  There are parts of my body that have fallen and need extra support to stay up.  There is a side of my hair that grows faster and thicker than the other and the opposite side the back tends to flip up.  I wonder if my freckles are still considered freckles, or if they will become age spots.  My eyebrows no longer grow like they used to; only random strays here and there that I can pluck out myself.  Spandex is my friend.  I use Clinique but wonder if I shouldn’t be using Oil of Olay (AKA, Oil of Old Lady) instead. 

I say the phrase “Well, how ‘bout that!” all the time now.  I have surpassed sounding like my mother and have gone straight to sounding like my grandmother.  I think that makes me an overachiever, doesn’t it? 

My daughter, had she had a less dramatic mother, should have her license by now.  She doesn’t, because I have been too afraid to let her drive me around.  I’m getting a little better about it.  Maybe when she is seventeen, I will even let her drive at night or when it rains… or maybe not.  I may need a little longer.  She may need a little longer.  My middle child is right behind her; she will have driver’s ed next summer.  And she was just learning how to ride a bike last week.  OK, I know it was a minute ago. 

My baby?  My baby is going to be in double digits.  DOUBLE DIGITS!  He’s my baby.  I know I was rocking him to sleep just yesterday.  Today I turn around and I am only a head taller than he is.  Granted I’m not especially tall, but still. 

In the blink of an eye, it’s not me learning to drive, and it isn’t me dreaming of leaving home and going off to college, or even just driving to the mall alone.

My dreams are more along the lines of going up the stairs without my knees creaking.  Wondering how long I can go between coloring my hair.  If I don’t color my hair, how long until my entire head is grey?  Will I be 45?  50? 60?  Will I be doing commercials for urinary incontinence?  If I work at the school long enough, will it be “grandma hugs” I give the children, or will I still be able to give mommy hugs when I’m old enough to be a grandma?    

If that isn’t enough when I take the kids out for recess at school I yell at them to stay off the grass and stay on the sidewalk till we get onto the playground.  I ask my children if they were born in barns.  I have said to them to close the door I don’t want to heat/air condition the outdoors.  I have become one of the biggest cliché’s in motherhood.  This last weekend I went on a date with my husband and I reached over with a napkin to wipe his face.  (This did not earn me any favors.  He was a bit put out with me for that one.)

Where did the time go?  When I was younger the time seemed to pass so slowly.  I thought I would never get grown.  Now I’m grown and all I want is for time to slow down.  It seems to pass so quickly.  Days run over each other.  Weeks are suddenly months that are gone and years are gone in a blink.  I look in the mirror and I see wrinkles that weren’t there before.  I look at my children and I am looking up instead of down to look into their eyes.  Even the cats seem to be aging rapidly. 

We start out and we think we have so much time to do so many things.  The fact is we don’t know how much time we have and the older we get the less we have left.  We have to decide how we are going to spend what we have.  I think I will spend mine enjoying the teenagers telling me I’m old.   I will love it when I get to repay the favor someday.  I will keep searching for the perfect hair color, refuse to grow my hair out to wear buns, avoid skirts, skorts, and dresses that go well with aprons.  I will keep blowing bubbles when I chew gum and enjoy every jam session when I’m home alone.  Maybe I will need depends someday but doesn’t that just mean I get to dance longer without stopping to go “gotta go gotta go gotta go right now.”?  The sun shines brighter when you look at every day as a gift. 

Maybe forty won’t be so bad, after all I have a new haircut, I am narrowing in on the best hair color, and I can make big bubbles even with Trident gum.  The upside is I’m old enough I don’t have to apologize for enjoying it.

Mow the Yard, Maybe

I really love the song Call Me Maybe.  I feel better about that fact now that I know that I am not actually old enough to be the artist’s mother.  (Thanks to Wikipedia)  The song’s lyrics don’t really apply to me, so I thought it would be fun to try a rewrite of the catchy hit.  This way it applies to my life and makes a little bit more sense for me to sing it.  I also added a few notes and rewrites of my rewrites for your amusement.

Mow the Yard, Maybe

I threw a ball and it fell                       (Of course it fell, have you seen me throw a ball?)   

Where it landed I can’t tell                  (Tall grass?  Nearsightedness?  Combination?)

I looked to my kid as it fell                  (He should have been watching)

And now it’s in my way                       (Kind of like the swings on the swing set)

I might find it in a ditch                         (Which wouldn’t be so bad because I’m scared to mow the ditch.)

With small toys and trash scattered amiss      (What?)

I didn’t want to look for this                        (You got that right!)

But now it’s in my way

The ball’s bounce wasn’t holdin                  (Hello, I’m Heather and I’m not sporty.)

The tall grass is all that’s showin                  (Good news!  No dandelions!)

Hot day wind was blowin                           (It was dusty) 

Where do you think it went don’t be lazy      (Get over here and help me!)

Hey it rained this morning and this is crazy   (Is it?  Is it really?)

But I’ll get my mower and mow already        (You are welcome neighborhood watch dogs.)

It’s hard to look right at my yard I’ve been lazy        (Nearsighted, remember?)      

But I’ll get my mower and mow it maybe            (I wonder if we have gas?)

Hey it rained this morning and this is crazy

But here’s my mower, so mow the yard maybe      (You volunteered right?)

And all the other neighbors mowed already          (Of course they did.  Overachievers!)

So I’ll get my mower and mow maybe                (I’ll do it myself.)

You took your time helping to find the ball          (Slow poke)

It took no time to mow at all                          (I was singing and dancing so it was fun.)

You gave me no help at all                 (Was it my singing or the dancing that deterred you?)

So still it’s in my way                               (I’ll just mow around it.)

My skin got sun burned and pealed            (Aloe please?)

In the sun and the pain is real                         (Ouch!)

I didn’t know I would feel it                          (I’m quick)

But now the pain is in my way                       (Again aloe?)

The ball’s bounce wasn’t holdin                     (yeah yeah)

The tall grass is all that’s showin

Hot day wind was blowin

Where do you think it went I’ve been so lazy?

Hey it rained this morning and this is crazy

But I’ll get my mower and mow already

It’s hard to look right at my yard I’ve been so lazy

But I’ll get my mower and mow it maybe

Hey it rained this morning and this is crazy

But here’s my mower, so mow the yard maybe

And all the other neighbors mowed already

So I’ll get my mower and mow maybe

Before I mowed my yard                               Before I mowed my yard

The grass was so tall                                       It looked so bad

The grass was so tall                                       It looked so bad

The grass was so so tall                                   It looked so so bad

Before I mowed my yard                               Before I mowed my yard

The grass was so tall                                       It looked so bad

And you should know that                             And you should know that

It was so so tall                                               It looked so so bad

Tall tall tall                                                      Bad, bad, bad

It’s hard to look right at my yard I’ve been so lazy

But here’s my mower, so mow the yard maybe

Hey it rained this morning and this is crazy

But I’ll get my mower and mow already

And all the other neighbors mowed already

So I’ll get my mower and mow maybe

Before I mowed my yard

The grass was so tall

The grass was so tall

The grass was so so tall

Before I mowed my yard

The grass was so tall

And you should know that

So mow my yard, maybe

So much fun to write, I would like to insert that this week we mowed first.  We felt like rock stars for an entire four hours.  Then the neighbors came home and went to work on their yards.  Those four hours were AWESOME!  We celebrated our small victory with ice cream.

An Overly Dramatic Teen and a Sermon on the Bed

My first book’s subtitle is “And Other Observations from an Overly Dramatic Mom,” so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that my teenage girls are overly dramatic as well.  The most recent instance happened with my middle child, as she was upset about someone who had answered a question for her.  She had been to youth group and someone asked a question.  She didn’t respond quickly enough so someone answered for her to the best of their ability.  Because the answer was not fully correct, she felt it wasn’t that person’s place to answer for her. 

It’s partly her fault, anyway. She has a bad habit of not answering direct questions.  Don’t expect a response from her unless she is in the mood to talk.  If she isn’t in the mood, she tends to stare at you like you just dropped down from another planet, like she thinks 1) you are stupid for not calling ahead to ask her a question or 2) for showing up to talk to her in the first place.  Imagine how this goes over when she is in trouble and I am disciplining her.  I have explained to her many times that she needs to be quicker with her answers.  I also explained that she was being excessively dramatic about the situation, and it wasn’t really that big of a deal. 

High school is punishment enough for a quiet kid.  In my effort to get my quiet girls to open up and blossom into the lovely ladies I know they must be (deep down where only God and I can see), I have them go to Youth Group.  They are put into small groups and are really expected to open up and share with others.  In my mind, which is really just a playground for all sorts of mayhem, I think this is good. 

When I am giving my sermons on the bed, I tend to tell stories about my own experiences and I also like to give a math lesson.  Although math is not my strong suit, I am delighted when I am able to do quick math on the fly.  I have explained to my children that high school is only 180 days per year. There are 365 days in a year total, and really in the greater scheme of things, high school isn’t that long of a time in your life. So they shouldn’t get so worked up about things.  One day they will blink, and it will be over. At that point, they will look in the mirror and try to figure out how they got to be so old as to have teenagers themselves. (Something I do daily.) 

I started a new job this year, so in trying to explain that it’s OK to talk to new or different people, I told her about my job.  How I didn’t know what I was getting into necessarily, but I had heard different things, so I had a starting point.  Truth be told, I knew names, but only the names of a few of the people in the building.  It can be just as hard for an adult as it is for a young person to make new friends.  The secret, I told her, was that you have to understand just one key point about all people.  ALL people are just trying to find their way in the world.  Some are better at it than others, but the fact is that we are all alike in our humanness, and in our humanness none of us is perfect.  As soon as you get that part of reality, it makes it a lot easier to talk to people.

I also shared that I was given a bag of Hershey Hugs from the teacher I work with, and that I often walk down the hallway on my way to make copies and hand some out to people.  Some of them I know better than others, but I think that everyone can use a hug now and then.  Why not go up to people and hand them a chocolate hug, and wish them a good day?  If I arrive at my building early,  I go room to room and drop a hug on everyone’s desk.  When I’m not early, I pass them out to those I pass in the hall. 

I may or may not ever be a part of the group that is already there, as some of them have worked together for years. But even so, how much better is it to smile and say hello or hand someone a chocolate hug, than to go through the halls worrying about fitting in?  I don’t concern myself with that stuff anymore. 

I explained to my daughter that it doesn’t matter if I fit in. What matters is if I’m doing a good job and I’m bringing glory to God.  The way I figure it, if she goes to school and she smiles and talks to whomever she comes in contact with, and she is right with God, everything else will fall into place. 

She said that if the Mayans were correct and the end of the world comes this year, high school isn’t going to matter much.  I told her that I don’t believe that the Mayans were privy to when Jesus was going to come back and take us to heaven, but even if they were, it’s a much better use of her time to live each day as God has intended, than to worry about what anyone else thinks of her. 

And if the Mayans were correct (and not just tired of writing and counting as I suspect), then what a great day it will be when we do get to go to heaven and be at home with our Father at last.

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