Monday Madness- A Great Way To Say It

My kids are growing up. We're beginning to hit some of those moments that make parents a little nervous. (Just wait until you read the Friday Funny this week. I nearly drove off the road!)

I was talking with a fellow parent whose child recently became interested in a subject that let her mom know that she was growing up a little bit. She was relaying the story to me and I said,"Oh my goodness! What did you say?!" And she replied:

If you are interested in something, ask me about it. I'm happy to talk about it with you no matter what it is. I know you are going to ask your friends, but they may have the wrong information and it might cause you to get hurt. They're just finding out about things too so they don't always have it right. I don't want to see you get hurt. So just ask me and we'll talk about it. 

Wow. Simple. To the point. No pressure, no judgement, no boundaries. I went home and found my own Z2. I said the same thing to her. (I did add, "It might take me a minute, but just stay with me and we'll get through it. :)   But what a great way to explain to your kids that you want them to come to you- for their safety. Don't be embarrassed, don't feel ashamed... it's all normal and we'll get through it. 

Yours, working through those growing up questions,

Melisssa

THE TWINS ARE SEPARATING!

It’s time. We knew this day would come. We naively thought it would be later. But it’s here. At the age of 10. The twins have decided they want separate rooms. **Sigh** We have a four bedroom home and have really enjoyed spreading ourselves out! We have the master bedroom, the twins’ room, the office, and the sewing (HE sews, not me)/eBay/junk room.

Now what?

I’ll tell you what. Now we have to clean up the junk and sell all the eBay crap that I’ve been putting off selling for years so we can consolidate two rooms into one. Ugh!

Oh yeah, wait, this is about them, not me. Okay, refocus here. So the boys are 10 years old and have decided they need their own space. Why do boys need their own space? I mean, if they were girls I would understand. Or if they were boys hitting puberty, I would get it (yuk!). But 10 year old boys? I guess they just need time apart. Separating everything is going to be tough, though. They share everything: clothes, books, toys, you-name-it. (Even down to their undies!) But this is important to them, so we’ll figure it all out.

This is one of those “growing up” events, isn’t it? Damn, I hate those!

Karen

LAST "9" DAY HERE, TOO!

Who knew, when Melissa and I met, that our boys' birthdays would only be 2 days apart? So her son's last day of being 9 was on Monday, and my twins' last day is today. Tomorrow they will be 10. Double digits. 20 if you add them together, as one of my friends pointed out! (No, I can't even think of that.)

Part of me is weepy over the seemingly fast rate at which they are growing. But part of me is loving how they are becoming more independent and more mature. I love watching the process and imagining the men that they will become.

And yes, part of me is longing for the days when I can actually leave the house and not have to worry about being home for the bus! Or planning a night out with the hubby without (gasp!) hiring a babysitter. But I realize that with those privledges for me come all new problems of the pre-teen and teenage years. Ugh!

So for now, I'll just be wistful, remembering the 1-digit years of my boys' lives. **Sigh**

Karen

I JUST WANNA HAVE FUN!

The other day, Melissa and I were working, checking out templates for our new, and hopefully improved, website. I started playing around on one of them (you know how when you run your arrow over a menu selection, it makes a funny noise and gets bigger or something?) and she looked at me (with love in her eyes!) and said “You’re such a child!”

I took that as a huge compliment, but I’m really pretty sure she didn’t mean it completely like that!

Let me share one very important fact with you: Melissa is still in that Thirty-something stage (youngster!), while I am deep into my Forty-something stage. I only mention that because here is one thing I have observed about how we age:

• When we are in our teens, we think we know everything and we can’t wait to grow up.
• When we are in our twenties, we realize we knew NOTHING while in our teens. We are feeling very grown up now because we have real jobs and our own apartments and pay our own taxes now. However, we actually feel we have some insight, perhaps because we work with older (ahem – in their thirties!) people who are much more tied down, so we realize that now is the time to have fun. And we do!
• Suddenly, we are the ones in our thirties, and realize that we knew NOTHING in our twenties. We have families and mortgages and pets and mini-vans. We chide ourselves for wasting time by having had TOO much fun in our twenties, and try to compensate by being VERY grown up. Sometimes it seems that the word FUN is rarely in our vocabulary anymore. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but there are times that it seems as though we are so busy trying make something of ourselves, that we tend to have tunnel-vision.
• Then we’re in our forties. Maybe our kids are older, maybe we waited to have families until we were older ourselves, maybe life just threw us a curve ball or two. But by now our life experiences have taught us that we need to have more fun! We know that we don’t know everything, and we know that we never will. We’re learning (hopefully) how to prioritize the big things in life, and how not to “sweat the small stuff.”

As my brilliant (she made me say that!) sister said, “We are not childish, we are child-like.” And I think that’s a great way to be!

Karen