And Then She Was Thirteen

 

Dear Daughter, 

Well, it’s official. I officially have two teenagers officially living under my roof. Because…have you heard? You are thirteen years old now. Which makes you….a teenager. Officially. 

I have been trying and failing to sit and write this letter to you. It’s not that I don’t have the words for you, it’s that I have too many words for you. A big, jumbled up love bomb just rolling around in my brain, bumping into stuff. Because when I think of you, I think of a thousand things that make you perfect to me. I think of a million moments I would give anything to have for just one more second all while trying to live in this moment because one day I’m going to write you a letter and you’ll be 20, 25, 30 and I’ll be crying, wishing I could be sitting here again, trying to find the words for my 13 year old daughter. 

So for future me, I’ll try and find some words and hope they do you justice. 

I admire you so much, Daughter. I really do. I know you’re a mere thirteen years old but you’ve already taught me so much about who I would like to be when I grow up. I hope I’m as curious as you, each thought that pops in my head a reason to explore. I hope I’m as kind as you, never forgetting a birthday and always buying the most thoughtful gifts. I hope I’m as confident as you, as self assured even when I feel different. I pray that one day I can work a room as well as you; that your gift of gab will grace my lips when I’d rather hide in the corner. I would like to be as brave as you, not afraid to ask questions. I wish to be as pure as you, your goodness spilling out, your heart so big it makes mine burst. And I hope I never bump into a tree I don’t try to climb. 

I told you it was a love bomb. 

But there are hard things, too, Daughter, because we are human. Challenges we face, tantrums we conquer. You can be a bit bossy. A tad stubborn. And you’ve made it very clear that a morning person you are not. Never has the push and pull of motherhood been greater as we circle one another, deciding to duel or duet. One of the relentless, perplexing problems of parenting is this lesson we must always keep learning: I am not you and you are not me. Just as I am not my mother and my mother is not my grandmother. We are bits and pieces of one another but we have whole parts that belong only to us. Mysterious parts even that we spend a lifetime trying to know and understand. I want to tell you so many things about us, Daughter, but I can’t because you must find them for yourself. Find them and then tell me all about it. Please don’t ever stop telling me all about it. 

When I pick you up from places, I like to arrive a few minutes early and watch you with your friends or just with yourself. I like to see you in a moment when you’re not aware of my eyes on you. I like to see who you are, all the bits and pieces, the whole parts and the mysterious ones. I watch you and I am filled with the most precious gratitude. Gratitude that I get to be your mom, that I get to be a part of you. Gratitude that I get to witness the totality of you, a big jumbled up love bomb just walking around, bumping into stuff. Gratitude that I happen to know that you are the best person I’ve ever met. But I do NOT have favorites, okay? We all know I worship your brother equally. 

But your light is different, Daughter. Even your brother cannot deny your shine. 

Keep lighting the way for the rest of us. 

You are my sunshine.

Forever.

Happy Birthday.

Love,

Mama 

And Then He Was Fifteen

 Dear Son,

Well this is just getting ridiculous. 

You’re thisclose to being the tallest in the family.

You’re in high school.

I had to buy you special man soap because football pads bring out a…special smell.

And the other day you shaved off your mustache. A very faint, baby mustache but still. You used a razor. On your face. 

Oh, Son. Another year has passed and you are now 15 years old and my 41 year old heart is heavy. 

Heavy with gratitude for your continued health. 

Heavy with tenderness for the secrets I know you hold from me.

Heavy with sadness as your little boy fingers slip from mine.

Heavy with the pressing of time, the ticking reverberating louder and louder; each goodnight more precious than the last for it has never felt more true, that tired old tale we can never fully accept:

It goes too fast. 

Something about you becoming a high schooler has had the seemingly impossible effect of making me an even weepier person than I am already tasked with. Case in point: out on a walk with the dog the other day, I witnessed a toddler having a tantrum, a complete meltdown, and I teared up. I watched this very gracious mother kneel down and wipe his snot tears and try to gratify somehow his surely insane requests and I cried. Because HIS LITTLE VOICE BROKE ME. 

Let me reiterate: A toddler. Having a TANTRUM. Made me miss toddlers. 

I may need professional help at some point. 

Days with toddlers are long and loud, a parent’s ears pleading for silence.

Days with teenagers are short and quiet, a parent’s ears pleading for chatty connection. You’re at the age now where this comes and goes for no apparent reason. At one moment, a cacophony of words spilling from your tongue, the next a closed door with just a grunt of acknowledgement. I never take for granted the momentary overflowing conversation with you as I sometimes do with Daughter. (My only defense is that she speaks approximately 37,000 words a day so I might zone out for a few hundred here and there.) 

I just don’t want to miss anything, Son. I have only four more years of being able to not miss anything and I really really really don’t want to miss anything. I know before I blink my eye you will be off on your next chapter, your next adventure, leaving behind my crumpled, conflicted heart. But my mother always let me fly, even when she was scared, even when she wanted nothing more than to hold me tighter. And I promise you, dear son, that I will do the same, even when I am scared, even when I just want to hold you tighter. 

Motherhood is not for the faint of heart. We are strong and soft. We are brave and terrified. We raise you each day to only then watch you go. So please just be gentle with me as I crowd your sidelines. I know you don’t want or need me to bear witness to each and endeavor you encounter. But try to remember that when I look at you, I can’t help but see my baby boy hiding in the shadow of my young man. Try to remember that even when you are taller than me, smell really nice, grow adequate facial hair and become a grown man, you can always come to me and I will kneel down and wipe your snot tears then lift you up so you can fly. 

Happy 15th Birthday, Baby Mine.

I love you forever.

Mama 

And Then He Will Be Off To High School

Dear Son,

It feels appropriate as we celebrate your 8th grade promotion to remind you of the 24 hours of labor, followed by a cesarean section, that I endured to bring you into this world. I mention this because I know that as we navigate your high school years together, we both might have some…moments…that maybe we don’t like one another and I just want to let you know preemptively that, yes, I will continue to refresh your memory of how it was, exactly, your birth was born and you should always remember to just give me a hug and say thank you. 

I also mention this because the day you were born was the most special day of my life. I can recall almost every detail. I can still feel the rush of emotion released when I heard your first cry. I can still see your face for the first time. I can still remember what it felt like the first moment your flesh touched mine. I remember the darkened nights in the hospital room, awaiting the nurse to bring you to me to feed because you had to be under the blue lights in the nursery. I missed you so much when they had to take you back. Even though I knew it was only a matter of a few hours before I would see you again, all I wanted was to be with you every minute. It already felt like it was going too fast. 

And it was in one of those quiet, darkened moments that you were handed to me silently, all swaddled up, face squirming with signs of hunger, that I looked down at you and wondered how it was that I could ever love you more than I did at that moment. That I wondered if I would ever have another moment of such pure love again. If I could have frozen time in that moment and stayed with you forever all swaddled up and tiny and perfect, I would have. I will never forget that moment, Son. It lives in me and I try to always parent you from the spot it shines from. 

Of course, I’ve failed many times as a parent. I’m sure I’ll fail many more. But what I didn’t realize in that moment, that perfect moment of absolute love that I wanted to be frozen in for eternity, was that I had already failed. Failed to understand that my love for you could only grow. Failed to realize that in surrendering to that one perfect moment, I would have sacrificed the million more to come. 

So as you stubbornly insist on getting older and bigger and manlier and we ride the bumpy years of high school together, I want you to know that that perfect moment of love was just the beginning of what I know now has no end to it’s capacity. Please just give me a proper hug now and then, please don’t get mad at me when I cry because we both know I can’t help it, and please please please….don’t ever stop calling me Mama. 

Remember: 24 hours. Plus surgery.

Worth every second and then some. 

I love you endlessly, Babymine.

Love,

Mama 

And Then She Was 12

 Dear Daughter,

Your 11th birthday marked the beginning of our pandemic journey through this vast landscape named COVID. Our plans to celebrate at a bakery with your friends decorating cakes evaporated so instead we stood in our driveway waving to your friends parading by as your birthday became one of the first casualties of life gone awry. I promised you that even if it took a few months, we would properly celebrate your birthday, at the bakery with your friends.

Twelve months later, I have not been able to fulfill that promise.

Twelve months later we still feel the weight of the year of COVID. Twelve months later, you’ve barely stepped foot into a classroom and when you do, it’s with chrome books and headphones. Twelve months later we stand at the edge of your 12th birthday, reflecting on what we’ve lost, still somewhat shell shocked.

It hasn’t been easy for you; I can see that. One of your great superpowers is friendship; the ease of your curiosity translates so effortlessly to making new friends. People are naturally drawn to you; your openness and silliness beckoning them, impossible to resist. A chorus of hello’s and goodbyes seemed to follow us as I would pick you up from school, your name echoed by so many. Yet you would privately struggle, confiding to me that you often felt left out; that you weren’t included, that she was mean to you today, that he called you a name, that you weren’t invited. I felt the pain it caused you; I shed quiet tears for you. But you always recovered so quickly, much of your anguish being the typical ups and downs of adolescence; whatever happened yesterday would be healed with today. But this pandemic has been relentless in it’s quest for loneliness leaving so many of us stuck in the yesterday, stuck in the pain of seclusion. A novelty for the first few weeks, even months, we isolated with Netflix and board games and bike rides, yet a year later, this loneliness sticks to us like an unwanted dinner guest, patronizing us with his persistent presence. 

I see that that loneliness is still stubbornly clinging to you as our days are still long, even with the trickling flow of normality. I fear what’s been stolen from you is too great a burden to bear some days. But then I remind myself of life’s oft repeated lesson that this too shall pass and I wish I could let you peek into the future, just for a moment or two. Just so you could catch a glimpse of yourself, however brief, back at the life we shed a year ago, letting it’s skin grow on us again. Just one moment so you could know that it’s all going to be okay. 

You, my beautiful daughter, are such a great feeler of emotion. All of the emotions. No discrimination. Sometimes you experiment with feeling them all at the same time and that’s when I go to my room and hide. It’s such a strange realization as I watch my kids grow when I recognize that they have always been exactly who they are. That from day one, you, Daughter, were intent on always showing me how you felt. With gusto.  You cried. A lot. You smirked. A lot. You laughed. A lot. You have racked up multiple academy awards with performances big and small, door slamming and body crumpling always ensuring that you take home the gold. But we can’t forget the impromptu fart jokes, the demand to cut your hair off, your penchant for using your body as a canvas and that phase where you insisted on being topless. As much as possible. Usually in public. I have  always envisioned your spirit as a wild, beautiful horse, not meant to be tamed; a magnificent, feeling spirit. I love all your big feelings. I have big feelings, too.  And while sometimes these giant emotions can be overwhelming, it is always better to have them than to hide from them. Now I’m not suggesting that we don’t continue to work on our….expression…of these feelings, but always remember that how you feel is valid. That what you have to say is important. That you bring meaning and joy to so many lives. Big feelings can carry a heavy toll; we experience the world differently. It’s brighter and darker so always remember to hold on to the light. 

While I wish for you to glimpse the future, I wish for one moment to live in a glimpse of your dwindling childhood. To once again hear that tiny voice with it’s big demands; to feel all four of your limbs clinging to me, wrapping me in a cocoon of love in it’s purest form. I will never, not for one second, ever, take for granted the gift it is to be a mother. To be your mama. 

Happy 12th Birthday, my sunshine.

I love you more.

Mama 

Enough is Enough

 To Whom It May Concern,

And let me start by saying it does concern you. 

I write to you today as a parent who yes, is frustrated. Who yes, is angry. Who yes, constantly questions the decisions coming down from the top with regards to getting our kids back in school. I write to you today with the full intention of admitting that I am not educated in all the ins and the outs; I cannot spew scientific stats; I am not going to yell and call you names. 

I write to you today as a parent who feels as though the only choice she has is take pen to paper and hope at the very least your eyes have not glazed over these words. I write to you with sole intention of being heard. It’s the very least I deserve.

I have two middle schoolers; one who began her journey to middle school in distance learning and one who will finish his. One who finds it harder and harder to get out of her bed each morning and one who simply goes through the motions of his “school” day. One who roams the house with her school issued device because to be still for four hours is too much to bear; the other concentrated solely at his desk, his body stiffening each hour that passes as he stares at the blue light radiating always. When this school year began, we all lived with hope that soon….very soon…our kids would be granted the right to go back to the classroom, even if just for a few hours a week. We breathed that hope letting it suffocate us. Parents furiously texted and chatted back and forth, some of us optimistic, others proven rightly to be not as much. We rearranged our lives believing that surely if one could Soul Cycle, kids could go back to school. Believing that surely if one could dine out, kids could back to school. Believing that surely if they can open Disneyland, kids could go back to school. That if schools across the nation can open their campuses back up safely, surely our school would stand up to those who deny us this right. Surely our school would think outside the box; take advantage of large outdoor spaces and year round warm temperatures. Surely there is something…anything…that can be done. 

Instead here we are almost a year later feeling as hopeless as ever. I watch as the spirit slips from my daughter, as the motivation falls from my son, and I grieve for them each day. What can heal them is forbidden to them. What can help them is being rejected by those whom it seems self interest forever trumps the greater good.  

I watch each day as kids gather together, roaming the streets, unmasked, unprotected. I do not blame them. We have stolen everything from them. Everything. Yet doesn’t it seem so silly that the idea you’re selling us is that they’re safer away from school? Away from regulations and safety precautions? That they’re safer away from the very thing that can save them? There is only so much we can ask these kids to sacrifice yet they keep being asked over and over and over and over and over. We’re losing kids to suicide, to depression. To the confines of isolation. Kids have forgotten the very things they used to love; the activities and hobbies that kept them engaged and boosted their mentality. Not all of our kids have an escape with expensive club sports or second homes in the mountains. Not all of our families can even entertain the option of private school. And they shouldn’t have to. THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE TO. 

I know nothing will be done because of the words I write to you today. As I stated, my sole intention is simply to be heard. But as you read this, I want you to understand that the kids are wilting. They are regressing. They’ve lost hope in you. The domino effect this will have on them in years to come is too terrifying to ponder. There are no easy answers. I am assured that you care about these kids and that you are working harder than ever to maintain this unmaintainable learning model. But the fact remains that there are questions as to whether or not our kids will even be back on campus come September 2021 and that is absolutely unacceptable. Yes we must protect our teachers and staff at our schools but why are we all being asked to continue day by day with these unreasonable circumstances for almost a year now while union demands that seem unattainable, unreachable and unrealistic dictate the future of our children? Why are our kids the forced sacrificial lambs? They’re not blind to the world marching on as we trample over their discarded potential. They’re not blind to the gross mismanagement of their education. You owe them, at the very least, an explanation as to why their well being falls below so many others. 

So I write to you today because it’s all I have. Just pen to paper. One of a million tired, worn out, deflated voices.

I hope you heard me. 

And Then He Was 14

 Dear Son,

There are so many things I can’t believe about 2020. 

For example, you haven’t stepped foot into a classroom since March 13th. 

You’ve played exactly…three baseball games since March 13th. 

You’ve been in your room playing Minecraft since March 13th.

On March 13th, you were a 13 year old seventh grader, anticipating your final little league season, getting itchy for a summer of long-planned adventures and a kid who was exploring newfound independence that comes with age and not yet having broken the trust of your mother. On March 13th, you and Daughter hopped into the back of my Jeep after the final bell rang and I silently prayed I had enough toilet paper (wine) Trader Joe’s frozen orange chicken (wine) and strength (wine) to get us through the next three weeks of our stay at home order. Three weeks had never stretched so long; endless, empty days waited for us, only an hour or two of schoolwork each morning to occupy the parts of your brain that wanted to work. Three weeks to three months to three more months and yet..here we are. Desperate still for an end to this pandemic chapter entitled 2020: Go F*#k Yourself. 

But what’s most unbelievable personally for me in this year of 2020 that we all anxiously await to be rid of, is that it began with a boy of 13, face still clinging to boyhood, voice still ringing of youth and it is ending with a young man of 14, face hinting of manhood, voice leaving no question of it. It is your birthday. You are now 14 years old and I can no longer deny that the years are closing in confusingly quickly; I can no longer deny that I am a mother of Older Kids; I can no longer deny that while you still gift me with hugs and snuggles, not to mention a body slam here and there when you mistake me for an NFL player, our time together is precious. I can no longer deny that we are closing in on the final years of your childhood. 

So much of this year has felt exactly the same. So many days passed that we didn’t even bother to label. But in all that perpetual monotony, I watched as you changed, Son. I watched as the inches grew upon you, as your feet began to outsize mine. I watched, and sometimes cried, as your need for me dwindled. I know it’s what we want. I know it’s what it is supposed to be. I know that as a young mom with two toddlers clinging to me, I dreamed about what it would feel like one day to not always be so needed; to not always be so wanted. 

And now I know. 

Now I know it feels equally exhilarating and excruciating to watch you break away bit by bit to become your own man. To watch as you slip into your next skin, trailing the bits as they shed and me following behind, collecting them. I don’t want to ever forget any part of you, Son. I don’t want to ever forget any age. I don’t want to ever wish a moment away. Such a stubborn lesson we must keep learning; a lesson so often learned in retrospect that this too shall pass. Whether we beg for it stay, or beg for it to go, pass it will and we are simply left with the ghost of it. 

I think your aunt, who has three grown boys, said it best, Son, when she told me that raising boys is like enduring the longest, most devastating break up you’ve ever experienced. But I would have to add that it’s also the most beautiful gift I could ever hope to receive. Because if this year, this god-awful, please let it end, soul sucking year has taught me anything, it’s that even as the clock ticks molasses and the days are only groundhog, your childhood is racing, sprinting to the finish line and I’m right there, clicking your heels, grabbing your shirttails, desperate to slow you down but amazed to watch you run. 

I hope you never stop calling me Mama, baby mine.

Happy Birthday.

I love you.

Mama 

Schoolhouse Diaries 6

Listen, Target.

We’re going to need you to go ahead and open up the other entrance. 

You know…the good entrance. 

The entrance that greets you with Starbucks and the dollar section. 

The entrance that welcomes you with charming backpacks you feel overwhelmingly compelled to buy even though you can’t even remember the last time you used a backpack.

The entrance that blinds you with seasonal throw pillows that really make you contemplate your life choices. 

We know that you know why any of that crap sells.  We know that you know your main customers are moms who just want to get away from their families for an hour and forget about their lives. We know that you know that all we want is a coffee and a throw pillow with cheery lemons on it because that really does seem like the answer to eternal happiness at that moment. 

So now what we want to know is why you’ve kept the good entrance closed for an impossibly long eight months and instead have directed us to the entrance that leads us NOT to a cornucopia of cheap, colorful earrings and display of v-neck t-shirts I must have or I will die, but to a wall of garbage bags and Tupperware. 

Garbage bags.

And Tupperware.

Do you think that when I walk in to your store, Target, I want to remember that I’m out of garbage bags? 

No. 

Do you think that when I walk in to your store, Target, I want to remember that I don’t need Tupperware anymore because I don’t pack lunches anymore because MY CHILDREN DON’T GO TO SCHOOL ANYMORE? 

No. Absolutely not. 

When I walk in to your store, Target, all I want is to be ambushed with my god-given right to waste my money on four different flavors of La Croix and also that sweater that yes, I might only wear for one season and then completely forget about but that’s what makes me happy, Target. Sipping sparkling water in my new sweater I got for $20. 

So please, I beg of you, for the sake of weary mothers everywhere who have spent enough quality time with their children in the last eight months to last eight lifetimes….open the good entrance. Let us delay indefinitely the things we actually need in favor of wandering your Magnolia dreamscape and Nate Berkus linens. Confront us immediately with the useless crap that makes our lives feel worthy, if only until we get home and realize that the only thing that lemon printed throw pillow goes with is our secret fantasy life we’re living in Greece with our boyfriend Adonis. 

And lest we forget, Target…’tis the holiday season. Your time to shine. And if you still don’t open the good entrance and I forget to wander over to the fun part of the store because I’m busy being distracted with shelves filled with the banal needs of domesticated life and I don’t get a fucking Christmas door mat with a reindeer on it, you’re dead to me. 

Save Christmas, Target. 

Save 2020.

There’s still time.