Becoming Mama

On Sunday morning, Valentine's Day, the phone rang and it was Megan (I love caller ID!). Awww, I thought, she's calling to wish me Happy Valentine's Day.

I pick up the phone and here's what she says: "I'm just calling to let you know that I'm becoming my mother." All said with a slight smile ... and an obvious tinge of disdain.

"Oh, really?" I asked cautiously. Could it be that she's beating the hell out of Bubby with a hanger? Feeding him crushed glass for breakfast? Zipping up his tummy in his sleeper or dislocating his elbow as she put on his clothes? All things I did to the girls, of course, warranting the tinge of disdain in her voice.

(Okay, yeah, I really did do the last two but it was so totally by accident ... and left me horrified at the time, guilt-ridden for years ... and afraid of dressing my children during cold-weather months when the clothing is bulky, tight and zipper laden.)

"I'm making pink heart pancakes for Valentine's Day breakfast," Megan replied.

Oh, THAT horrible kind of thing that I did on a regular basis. It's crystal clear now and I can so understand her disdain and fear of becoming her mother.

Ha, ha, ha. We laughed about it. And we laughed about the ways we're both a little concerned about becoming our mothers.

Which is fairly common, of course. I remember my mom telling me and my sisters, "If I ever become like my mother, you better tell me." It's something I now say to my own girls after doing the spider hands gesture or the "If I Were A Rich Man" jig. (Not that I don't love ya, Mom! But you know how it is ... !)

Nothing new there. We've all read it, heard it, said it countless times before.

The thing that I find interesting about every woman's fear of becoming her mother, though, is that there's also the desire to do everything just like grandma. Books, blogs, newscasts and more mention doing this and that "just like Grandma" or following the sage advice that "Grandma used to always say ...".

Our grandmas are the wise women of the clan; our mothers are those wacky women rife with idiosyncricies that we'd rather die than imitate.

But I'm both. I'm a grandma ... and I'm a mother.

So which is it?

And at what point do our crazy mothers become our venerated sage-meisters, the women we want to cook like, clean like, love like? And not just on a personal level, but on a societal level, as a collective?

I don't get it. And I don't know whether to just bite my tongue and bide my time until I reach the sage-meister stage of life. This part of motherhood vs. grandmahood has me flummoxed.

You go ahead and ponder that and let me know your thoughts. In the meantime, the homemade heart-shaped muffin I was warming in the microwave just dinged and I'm ready to dig in to my leftover Valentine's Day breakfast.*

Today's question:

What's one way you're like your mother? And is that a good thing or a bad thing?

My answer: When I'm in a group of strangers or people I don't know very well, I talk ... way too much. And say stupid things. My mom is a talker, which is fine and good and ensures there are never any uncomfortable silences at any point ... ever. But I'm generally a much more introverted person who appreciates silence a whole lot more than I appreciate babbling just to fill conversational gaps, so I internally kick myself each and every time I do it. Which means, I guess, that, for me, it's a bad thing.

*I didn't really make heart-shaped muffins for Valentine's Day breakfast -- but only because I realized at the last minute that I didn't have any cupcake/muffin liners and the festive suggestion from Grandma Lizzie wouldn't work without liners. There's always next year!

Signs you're not yet used to an empty nest

My nest is empty once again, now that Brianna has moved into her new house. Jim and I were here once before, for a very brief period of time when Andrea and Megan were away at college and Brianna lived with some girlfriends.

Then Brianna moved home. And Andrea needed time to figure out her next move after college graduation.

But now with Megan married, Andrea fully ensconced in the life of a single, independent woman and Brianna settled into her new place, the nest is once again empty.

And this time I think it's for good.

And I'm having a little trouble getting used to it. Not emotionally -- I'm thrilled the girls are out on their own and succeeding as adults. It's the smaller habits of a full household that I've not yet been able to break, little things here and there that as I do them, I realize I'm not yet used to an empty nest.

I've started a list of those little things I've noticed myself and other empty nesters I know doing, the signs that we've not yet adjusted to the kids being gone. If you have an empty nest, let me know the signs you've noticed, the habits you're trying to break. And you younger folks -- you whippersnappers whose parents are still trying to get used to life without you (no matter how long it's been!) -- now's your chance to vent about the wacky ways of your empty-nesting mom and dad.

SIGNS YOU'RE NOT YET USED TO AN EMPTY NEST

• You still lock the bathroom door because it's always been the only place you could get a little privacy.

• You have stacks of empty shoe boxes you can't get rid of because you never know when one of the kids may need one for a school project.

• You throw away lots of fruit and vegetables each week, as you're unable to eat all the apples, oranges, kiwi, carrots and bananas that have been a staple of your weekly shopping trip for years.

• Or your freezer is overfilled with frozen black bananas you've saved for making banana bread instead of throwing them away.

• Your freezer is also packed with loaves of frozen banana bread because you have used some of the bananas already.

• You still have a file folder of crafts and recipes you've torn out of magazines that you never got around to doing with the kids. But you keep the folder -- and continue adding to it -- because now your plan is to eventually use them with the grandkids.

• You still buy the same number of rolls of toilet paper you have for the past 20 years and now have enough on hand to stock the bathrooms of all your kids ... and your neighbors ... and their kids.

• Same goes for tampons.

• You find yourself dumping out gallons of spoiled milk on a regular basis because it just doesn't feel right to buy the half-gallon containers.

• You catch yourself saying, "Keep it down ... the kids will hear you" in the middle of arguments.

• And in the bedroom.

• You make three times the amount of dinner you and your spouse will eat.

• Which means you have quart-size baggies of  comfort foods -- chili, crockpot soup and sausage gravy -- stacked in between the mountains of bananas in the freezer.

• Which also means you have very little room left for the frozen pizzas, burritos, Hot Pockets and other favorites of the kids that you still habitually fill your shopping your cart with.

• You've found you kind of like the taste of Cocoa Puffs and Fruit Snacks since the cupboard looks bare without them.

• You pull curtains, sheets off unused beds, rugs, throws and more to wash each week as the three loads of laundry created by you and your husband don't a laundry day make.

• Once you settle into bed at night you realize you forgot to shut off the hall light, the light you always left on so the kids would get safely to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

• Same goes for the porch light, but you decide to leave it on ... just in case one of the kids decides to come home in the middle of the night. In need of some comfort food. Which they know they'll find in the freezer. Right next to the bananas.

The Saturday Post

Today is the day Brianna finally makes the official move into her new home!

We think it's a pretty good one, as I wrote about here. It seems structurally sound, she got it for a good price, and there have been no horror stories as of yet.

But when purchasing a new (old) home, you really just never know ...

(Ignore the subtitles; it's in English but the only clips I could find of this specific scene were uploaded by folks in other countries.)

(SORRY... THIS VIDEO LOST IN BLOG MAKEOVER)

Congratulations and best wishes on owning your very first home, Brianna! Here's to hoping you never, ever, EVER experience any scenes even remotely similar to the one above!

Today's question from the Zobmondo "Would You Rather?" board game:

Would you rather have your grandmother's first name -- OR -- her haircut? (If she's passed away, think of the haircut you most remember her having.)

Basing this on my maternal grandmother, I'd rather have her first name, Mae. She always wore a wig, as far back as I can remember, so if she so desired to cover up her natural look, I don't really think it's one I want to sport.

The fun begins

Frankly, I'm not sure I believe Megan's claims. How can my Bubby be anything but absolutely precious all the time!?There are so many challenges that come with parenting, beginning from the moment the baby arrives. Most of those early challenges are related to the fact the baby can't talk, can't say what's going on. Is he hungry or hurt? Sick or sleepy?

Moms (and dads) muddle through the best they can, anxiously awaiting the day their little one can talk.

Little do they know that it's once their sweet snookums can talk that the real work fun begins.

Seems Megan is just now learning that.

Bubby is nearly 19 months old. And he's learned how to communicate -- sometimes in real words, sometimes in real whines, and sometimes in all-out, throw-myself-on-the-floor, I-want-what-I-want-and-I-want-it-now-dammit tantrums.

In other words, he's hitting the terrible twos.

"What happened to my sweet boy?" Megan asked me yesterday.

"Sounds like he's definitely his mama's son," I told her.

"Yeah, that's all I can think about," she replied.

She remembers the screaming, crying, whining, door-slamming, "I hate yous!" and running to her room. Wait ... those were the teen years.

No, it's the pictures she's thinking about, she says. All the pictures we have of her as a toddler and little girl, crying because life was so absolutely horrible when she didn't get her way. Or get all the attention -- from the dog, her mom, her dad, her little sister, her big sister, anyone daring enough to visit the house.

Full disclosure: In all honesty, Megan didn't cry and throw fits because she was a brat; she cried all the damn time because she was truly heartbroken, my hypersensitive little Meggie. She regularly handed over her heart to anyone within arm's length, then suffered utter devastation when they didn't accept -- or understand -- the gift they were being given.

And now, with Bubby using all his emotions and communication skills to his full advantage, all Megan can think about are the pictures.

All I can think about is that it's payback time.

(And that she's pretty darn lucky her first child is a boy because the hell fun will really begin when she has a hormone-raging, mama-testing little girl!)

Today's question from "If ... (Questions for the Game of Life)":

If you had to choose the worst song ever composed, which one would you pick?

I'm sure there are others but as of right now, just because it's still fresh in my mind with the recent holidays, it's that absolutely stupid, sickening, ear worm of a Christmas tune (if you can call it that) by Paul McCartney that goes ... "Sim-ply hav-ing a WONderful Christmas time." AACK! I hate that song and turned off the radio or changed the channel every time it came on.

Past predictions

2009 - What a year!

When the girls were in high school, we started a new tradition: When we took down the Christmas tree, we all wrote predictions for the coming year. The plan was that each person would write their prediction for each family member and we'd seal the predictions -- without anyone reading anyone else's -- and open the envelope when it came time to put up the tree the following Christmas.

We did this for eight years, starting with 1999. Here are a few of my favorite predictions from the past:

Predictions for 1999:

"I predict that technology will be more advanced because everyone is scared that the world is going to end in 2000. I also predict that I will get in shape." ~ Megan (Okay, so it was the first year and my overachieving, overthinking middle daughter didn't really get the idea of the new tradition.)

For 2000:

I cannot find the envelope for this year. I've searched high and low and in all the "Year 2000" memorabilia we have saved and can't find it.

For 2001:

"Dad will own [his former employer] or at least be number two, unless someone kills him because he won't quit talking about the election!" ~ Brianna

For 2002:

"Megan will love Concordia [her college] and never want to come home. She will meet some of the greatest friends she ever had and possibly the love of her life." ~ Brianna (Megan DID meet the love of her life there!)

For 2003:

"Brianna will leave Eric's ass, finally recovering her brain." ~ Lisa (Thank God this prediction came true!)

For 2004:

"Jim will drive us all crazy with his political rants and raves!" ~ Lisa (Yep, this came true, too!)

For 2005:

"Megan: Preston will have proposed. She will be deciding where to live with the P-ster!" ~ Andrea (This one came true, too! Good call, Andie!)

For 2006 (the year Preston joined us in the tradition):

"Preston will be happily married to the most beautiful wife ever: Megan." ~ Preston

Then the tradition ended; the logistics of getting everyone's prediction in the same envelope and sealing it up to open together the next year no longer worked. It was fun while it lasted.

Now my prediction for 2010: It will be better than 2009! Can't go wrong there (I hope ... maybe I've just jinxed all of us!).

Today's question from "If ... (Questions for the Game of Life)":

If you could only keep one of your five senses, which would you save and why?

I'd keep my vision because I cannot imagine not seeing my beautiful children, grandchildren, husband ever again. And I can't imagine never reading again. I can do without loud, screeching noises (although missing out on music will be horribly difficult); I am okay with not tasting or smelling things; not being able to feel/touch stuff would be hard. But overall, I need to see, so that's what I choose.