speaking of age (as usual)

 You see why this had to be a separate post. Although he is also not as cute as he seems. He's actually much cuter.
 It was his idea a few weeks ago to wear the flower to church so he would look like "a getting married guy." All part of his plan to win over the red-headed girl. I am not making this up. She kissed his hand as they walked down the aisle when dismissed for children's church. I've also had to tell Romeo here that no arms around the waist in church but I didn't have the heart to ban the hand holding. The hand kissing I haven't tackled yet.
  What I was thinking about today as I watched the other mom's picking kids up in the school cafeteria was how we're defined as mothers by the age of our youngest. Mothers' of infants, mothers' of toddlers then preschoolers, mother's of "school-age" children -which I don't believe includes teens since they have their own category. This means that there is this big jump from the preschool to school-age mothers. I might as well have a 12 year old. I've left forever the ranks of  "young mothers"- even if I hadn't really ever quite rejoined them. I could pretend, after all there has always been a little ambiguity about who the young referred to, mother or child. Now I'm afraid even my baby has figured out I'm not a young mother anymore. He knows I'm not quite like the other moms. When he recently saw an older, but not gray haired, woman with 2 probably grand-babies he eagerly asked her how old she was. She didn't answer, or look too happy and how could I explain he was hoping he'd found a mom who was also over 50 like his mom?     No longer the mother of a toddler, or even a preschooler but a full blown school-age child.
  So why I wonder do we spend so much time (and money) and attention, defining ourselves by it even - on this brief period in parenthood when all the rest goes on and on and on and on after that? Are we crazy? Is it marketing? Is it just because babies are cutest? Because if that's it I'm not so sure school-age can't give them a run for their money. On the other hand there's no denying there's nothing cute about what comes next. Been there done that.

Just plain guilt

See this cute little old lady? You know when my eldest was little he was pretty cute. Cute little crutches and before those a really cute teensy little walker. So maybe when he's old he'll be cute again. And who can be mad at little crippled children or white haired old ladies?
 So 2 days ago I called my mom a bad word. She actually often uses this word as an adjective as in, "I'm itchy." Only with the bad word. And I did not use it as an adjective. No, I said to my pain riddled, miserable, 94 year old mother, "You are an itch." Well, not exactly those words. As a friend said, I am so going to ell. It even took me a while to be sorry and I'm still not sure I'm as sorry as I should be. At the time it seemed appropriate. We made up of course and I apologized and she came as close as ever to apologizing -she is always sorry "things got out of hand," or some such thing which leaves it wide open as to whether she actually did anything wrong. I had not as a matter of fact said the bad word out of the blue. By which I mean she is not always as cute as she looks. She has in fact never been someone anyone (at least her daughters) would call cute. She has never wanted to run anyone's life but her own -and now she can't. I guess that makes you itchy.
   But, here's the rub. If I try so hard to feel for her I find myself a bit itchy too. A few months ago I had to remind myself that my life was not almost over and as much as 50 was not 20 (amen and amen) it still wasn't 94 -or 84. Even between here and 74 there is a whole lot of living that can happen. So I have had to pull away and I think she knows it. I have to watch from the shore and I see her a little differently from a distance. So I reminded her that we were neither of us going to be saved by being good, that we just can't do it, and, although she has never been a big fan of grace (runs her own life, remember?), she owned this was true. She said she was glad "Jesus came". Now since it worked out so well I'm off the hook for the bad word, right?

Guilty pleasures

We let the 1st grader play hookie Friday so we could go to the Andrews AFB airshow. To make up for it we took Flat Stanley. If you do not know about Flat Stanley you do not have a child currently in elementary school. Here is Flat Stanley holding an Osprey up at the airshow.
 Neither my first born nor my mother were with us. I didn't actually give Grandma the option. I did give the bearded one (did I ever mention shaving is hard when you can't really stand unassisted for long, or see very well, or that shunts cause puberty to hit years earlier so he's been hairy for a long time? Clealry this is a tangent but it does relate to my guilt because I fuss at him for not shaving) a choice. But then I offered to pay him for staying home with Grandma and I knew he was short on cash. And I also knew I still can't find the handicapped parking permit and the DMV never sent the replacement and it would be a lot of walking and we already had Flat Stanley to worry about.
  And the 25 year old wanted to come but to get in he'd have to come with us for the DOD entrance and he had a committment way back home from Andrews at 5pm and I didn't want to be that rushed and we were invited to dinner nearby. So I didn't make that work. And I always try to make these things work. I did happily take the daughter, home from college, and with whom the 7 year old wants to be with every minute. And I let him.
   In theory I don't think I should feel badly about the 3 adults I didn't include or the one I took advantage of. I think. On the other hand one is my mother and the rest, I'm theirs. It's hard to let go either way. It's hard to know what is theirs and what is mine. I can't even tell where I begin and they end -or when they begin and I end or...
  Or why when I was so good about putting sunscreen on everyone else I forgot my low (but only by Presbyterian standards) neckline? I haven't had this bad a burn in years. It helps with the guilt.

Strength

 This is not a recent picure but it flashed up on my desktop background the other day (set to random picutres in the "critters" file) and it's hard not to love. The eldest wanted to get near the burros but the crutches freaked them out. Oddly enough neither the old guy nor the 4 year old freaked them out.
 Anyway the point of this entry (OK not really a sharp point) is that I was watching a "viral" video on the web with pediatric cancer patients lip syncing to the song "Stronger" -"What ever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger..." and I tried to tell the family members at the table why I had tears running down my face. Unfortunately the members present were my very literal first born and my 94-year-old-not killed-yet mother. The former started laughing and the latter snorted. I tried to correct them. The former insisted it was really ironic and the latter said, "Yes dear. You really should show it to me sometime." (As if after 51 years I don't know a head pat when I get one). My point is not that the video isn't incredible -it really is. But, just maybe, the former and the latter have some points.
                    After all they earned them.

Snakes

Now don't you think that is triangular little head headed for me? He didn't make it to me. He went through a crack and under the house. Which explains less signs of mice. And thanks to the internet I now know not only that I am hosting a Eastern Black rat snake -but he has a bacterial infection -you can't quite see it in this picture but there were several brown lesions on him and apparently it's  pseudomonas. Really.
  I watched this snake wiggle towards me and my 7 year old and I could see the rough brown patches on him and I wondered but I was suprised when ther they were on a snake pictured at a wildlife center. So see I don't only keep up with the Edwards family on the internet. There are many snakes to watch. OH. Sorry. Cheap shot (and possibly obscure).
  Now the winner of the college kids say the darnedest things award for this semester is the email I got after posting a take home exam -12 days in advance of its due date -asking if I could help the student find the answer in their notes because (and I quote -hence the quotation marks) "I have already spent quite a few minutes combing through my notes." I think I spent 3 days walking around foaming at the mouth repeating "Quite a few minutes" over and over again.  Fortunately when I responded that frankly I'd expected "quite a few hours" the student (helpfully) clarified that they only meant on that "particular question" and the entire test had taken (again the quotation marks) "several hours". That took several more days of foaming and repeating.
  And Grandma is back with us which is wonderful and not of course. The little guy loves his captive audience. But then I feel like a captive as she explains to the eldest that we can't teach table manners since we don't stay at the table with her -really we don't stay at the table with our eldest. I mean we start off there but he eats for a long time and it's not just little brothers who don't have the patience for this sort of thing. So we had another mother daughter moment. Or did I already write about this? It's all beginning to blur together. Even the snakes -I thought I'd get better at telling them apart but then I stare at the pictures and the juvenile versions and they all start to look scary.  Was that a rattle? Was that a hiss? You tell me.

Contrasts

 So does anyone know how to handle these kind of color contrasts? All my cameras when left to their own devices seem to lose their little electronic minds trying to capture the red azaleas. This one for instance is intense but it doesn't actually hurt your eyes as it appears here. An excellent metaphor for my life (you could see that coming right?).
 Grandma is back after a little less than a month and she still wants her coffee really hot. And she still wants silverware with her food -which is more understadable but as often forgotten. And I know she is here as I sit down to start grading and I feel guilty for not being with her and a little annoyed for the comment about "having done my duty" as I leave her. Not mind you that I was going to go do my duty when I do my work but as if having had breakfast with her now I am free.
  When my daughter called the other day to tell me about some really weird thing a professor had done and how she now had an extra 20 points "towards her final" every "uh hunh" or "wow" or yeah" I said she was sure had some tone and she declared she would not tell me another story. I declare I had no tone - or at least if I  did it was more about what I had for dinner andbeing past my bedtime. I remind myself that as my mother sounds to me I sound to my daughter. It's not that I'm like my mother, or even that my daughter is like me -it's just that special filter between every mother and daughter. Whatever the mother says is criticism, and whatever the daughter says is rebellion. Or maybe it's not a filter. Maybe that's just the truth.
  So at least the 7 year old is very happy to have Grandma back because she listens to his stories no matter how long they are (and sometimes her eyes are even open). He has saved up a month's worth.