to lose a grandmother …

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grandma mac 2012

The other day we learned Grandma Mac had passed away, our girls have lost one of their loving Grandmas and Tim and I have lost a wonderful woman who treated and loved us like one of her own.

We became part of their clan when our oldest was entrusted to us at her birth. I will miss the calls I would get from Grandma Mac just to talk and pass on some parenting advice, we will ALL miss her terribly.

Telling our girls was the hardest part of this day.  This is the second grandparent to die in their young lifetime.

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This poem helps our girls know that they have not lost their Grandma forever that she lives in our hearts and when she is thinking of us you might find a penny from her letting you know she is around.

 

MOMMY you are all sweaty!

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Sweating at Night-2

That is a direct quote from my girls today while sitting in an after school program for my third grader.  It’s like they really ratted me out pointing out to everyone within their voice range (which as children is not quiet) that I was all sweaty,

That is the marked difference between me and most of the other mothers at school.  I think it is likely that I am one of the oldest moms there with the mid-range being in their 30s.  I am as old as a lot of the grandparents that help their families and get their students at school at pickup.

I’m starting to realize as I am closer to turning 51 that my sweating has become very profound.  I think they are flashes of sorts without the red face.  I glisten from head to toe during one of these moments and it’s all the more embarrassing when your children point out to you the obvious with the whole world listening in.

It’s one of the things I had not planned ahead or thought about during our journey to parenthood.  I got married at 36 and our first daughter was entrusted into our family when I was 41 years old.  I don’t feel old in the sense of whatever old should feel like.  I am, however, starting to feel the difference in these instances how I stand apart from the other moms.

Being a mid-life mother has pluses and minuses.

The pluses being I can be a stay at home mom and be able to be there for our girls, assist as needed at their school and be the one who takes them to their extra activities.  The plus is I am older and wiser.  I was pretty narcissistic in my late 20s and 30s.  I’m not sure I’d be the same mother if I was that young.  The other plus is we were married for 7 years before becoming parents.  That’s longer than most before children start arriving, but for us it is what it was and it gave us a solid foundation for the trials and tribulations that were our family building pathways.

The minuses start with the symptoms that are becoming more profound in this last year including and not limited to these sweating flashes, insomnia, headaches and not always feeling like myself.  Being the older mom is not obvious on the outside due to the blessing of my genes but I do feel the gap in age when talking with some of the moms.

When do I start to tell my girls what causes all this sweat or do I?  We’ve been talking to them about what will be happening for them in the next few years as they reach puberty through some great books – The Care and Keeping of You 2 and It’s not the Stork.  Do we start reading them books on menopause just as they are learning about puberty?  There are no parenting books about this I’m sure,  at least not yet!

So for now I ponder this sweaty balance I am in, and I am sure I first will ask my girls to not shout out the obvious especially while we are in public and then I will give them some info on why Mommy is so sweaty now and again.

 

the life of a mommies group …

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9-28-2006

When our first daughter was born and entrusted to us, I joined a local mommies group.  The group I joined was not necessarily adoption focused, but it was a mommies group.  I talked to the facilitator about my journey and she allowed me to “try out” a meeting to see if it would be a good fit.

That was 8 years ago and we still see each other as best we can with multiple kids, school & sport schedules and life!

It turned out the day I sat in on this particular mommies group would be life changing/life saving for me!  I was the only mom there through adoption, but no one cared!  The way I connected to these 10 women in just one session was amazing to me!  We were all struggling with the demands of a newborn as first-time moms, that is what connected me to them!

We met every Tuesday with facilitated meetings and after about 6 meetings we were to go and meet on our own.  The meetings did go on and went from more formal get togethers to meeting at the park, or meeting for coffee.  Most of us would become stay-at-home moms which gave each of us the want/need to keep on meeting.  We made outings to the pumpkin patch, we celebrated the holidays as a group including the daddies!

As our babies grew we took the time for mommy time and met for dinner, drinks and movie night!  Then before we knew it second babies were adding to the group.  This, however, was a time for me that I had to take a small step back.  Since I was not getting pregnant to add to our family I could not always be part of the constant pregnancy talk when 6 of them were pregnant at the same time.  My mommy friends understood.  They knew I was happy for them, but they knew it was hard for me.  We did not leave the group I enjoyed our social times together and so did my daughter.  I just had to pick and choose more closely when we would meet up.

And then our second daughter was entrusted to us and she fell in the middle of all their second births.  This was a tough time for us with our daughter being a last minute placement to our family (another story at another time).  These mommy friends rallied around us now having a better understanding of how our journey to parenthood worked.  They cooked us meals, offered helping hands and were there to support us during this time.

You see somewhere during the first 2 years these women went from just my Mommy Group friends to friends.  We shared our daily struggles as new parents first with infants and then onto toddlers.  All of us adding to our families around the same time.

Today we are getting together has become our custom, to celebrate our first babies turning 8 years old.  Our girls are as excited as us to see everyone!

13 year anniversary …

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02026r

Today is the 13th anniversary of the terror attacks on New York City, the Pentagon and Flight 93 that went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

I have been living in California now for 20 years but I was born and grew up on Long Island in New York and lived in Manhattan for 6 years … Growing up the Twin Towers were just part of our life, you could see them from the Wantagh Parkway on the drive to and from Jones Beach … living in NYC they were my landmark for which way I was facing when coming out of the subway … now a resident of California I had stayed at the Soho Grand with a clear view of the towers out of my hotel window in the summer of 2001 …

I can remember that day and where we were when we learned of what was happening … my husband and I were sleeping … our phone rang around 5:55 AM PDT… it was my mother … why was she calling so freakin’ early … and then we heard her message … we shot up out of bed and turned our television on …. started watching the news and as we watched, we like everyone else, saw the second plane hit the south tower of the WTC …

Here we were in bed sitting there in shock … we had originally planned to be in Boston during that week but in the end decided to put our money into sod for the backyard of our home that we had bought the year before.

For days we were like zombies keeping the news channel on hungry for more information wanting to comprehend what was happening in our world … My sister still living on Long Island and my mother having moved to Maryland the year before was having a hard time reaching her … our friend and neighbor had a dry cleaners in one of the towers in the mall area … my mom was desperately trying to reach his wife …

We were really only observers here from the West Coast … at that time I worked for Coach Handbags and like other companies in NY employees were sent home and the offices stayed closed for a few days … I did not have work here on the West as there were credible threats at Malls where I would be … so we were home and to break away from the news we spent full days in our yard prepping then rolling it out with sod … the physical work was soothing … the days outside a way to stop hearing the news and re-watching the images … at night we would fall into bed … our insomnia from the days before from the news now at bay from the physicalness of laying out the sod …

My husband and I returned to the East Coast in October of that year to celebrate our anniversary … landing into JFK was surreal … the skyline forever changed … meeting up with friends in NYC we made our way to an artists loft in the Village where amateur photos of the day were on display, the walls of Penn Station were lined with ‘missing person’ flyers, the streets of the city where walls were plywood still had flyers too … it was heartbreaking to see all this up close after being so far away …

At home we went out right away to get an American Flag to stand with our fellow Americans and wear our pride outside … an American Flag still hangs outside our home since 9/11 in memory of that day and those who lost their lives on that day and those who serve our country! In fact this year I replaced our weathered flag with a new one before the anniversary.

We had learned of classmates and distant family who were lost on that terrible day … we mourn with those who lost fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, partners, family, friends …

Our girls now 8 and 6 years old are still too young to fully comprehend the events of that day, but we talk about how thankful we are for first responders and the risks they take every day to protect us no matter the circumstances.