This is 36

Today I inch (leap?) one step closer to 40. Last year, I posted that I liked being in my 30s. Now that I'm 36, I can say with confidence that I still do, though the closer I creep to that big hill, the less sure I am about aging.

Once you become a parent, especially a parent to kids in school, I feel like in kids' eyes, you kind of morph into adult person of indiscriminate age. It doesn't matter. You could be 29 or 49 - it's all the same to kids. Sometimes I like to fancy myself a young and hip mom, but I know that when my boys and their friends see me, I'm just another generic adult.

This realization is so odd to me. Somehow you never think you'll get there, and then suddenly there you are, and there you remain for the rest of your life. I think back on all my teachers, many of whom were the age I am now or younger. Yes, I suppose I recognized that some were younger and some older, but they were all on the other side of some enormous, invisible divide, one that I didn't give a lot of thought to crossing.

It's also strange because I don't feel old. I know it would be specious to claim that 36 is old - it's not. I guess I mean that I don't feel my age. I suppose this is the case for most people. I can easily see now how after a certain point, the years just pile on top of one another, how someone can wake up one morning and suddenly they're 50, and for the life of them, they can scarcely understand how they got there.

It's been illuminating, to say the least. I always had set ideas about when things were supposed to happen. The first gray hairs would arrive around 40. I would be in the prime of my life in my 30s. My skin would be luminous and wrinkle-free, and I'd no longer have to contend with acne. Here I sit with crow's feet around my eyes, probably more breakouts than I had as a teenager, and coarse gray hairs appearing regularly.

At my birthday facial yesterday, I cringed a bit when the aesthetician turned on her 300-times magnifying light and examined my skin. Freckles, age spots, dry patches and oily, broken capillaries, I had them all.

This age is a bit of a crossroads, and I have a hard time deciding which direction to go. Again and again, I find my vanity duking it out with my principles for control of my decision-making. Part of me wants to do all I can to look youthful, and part of me wants to embrace "aging gracefully."

I suppose there's a middle ground here, and that's what I'll take. Mark me down as a yes for hair dye and taking good care of my skin. As for things like Botox, ultra-expensive face creams, and even laser treatments the aesthetician said I could get to repair those capillaries, they're a no. At least at this point. Those are my choices, but I'm all for women doing what makes them feel best about themselves.

Everything is changing, there's no doubt. After Mark and I go for a run, you'll likely hear moans of, "oh, my knee!" (him) and "oh, my hip!" (me). Chalk those up as another inconvenience I thought was reserved for later in life.

On the whole, though, life is pretty great right now. We're in the sweet spot with our kids. They're young enough to still like to spend time with us but old enough to sleep through the night. I'm savoring it.

There's no fighting against aging. It's happening whether I like it or not. I try to keep in mind this quote from Tuck Everlasting, "Don't be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don't have to live forever, you just have to live."

As I cross the threshold into another year of life, this is my entirely unoriginal goal: live each day to the fullest.

Scared straight: middle school edition

I've got to say, this whole transitioning to middle school thing is throwing me for a loop. Last Tuesday night, Mark and I attended a parent meeting at the middle school. Little did I know that we were walking into something akin to Scared Straight: Middle School Edition.

OK, so the guidance counselors and administrators didn't exactly get right up in our faces and scream things like, "You think you know your child? You think he's all sweet and innocent? Well, you're wrong, you little maggot!" All the same though, by the end of it, I was ready to assume the fetal position and beg for leniency  - another year of elementary school for Ben.

I guess I figured that along with practical information about lockers and schedules, the middle school gang would slip in some topics like internet safety and bullying. However, I was not fully prepared for the onslaught that we received. Sexting, cyber-bullying, drugs, underage drinking. You name the scary issue, we were schooled on it.

The meeting kicked off with some helpful information on middle school emotional development. The guidance counselors detailed some of the primary motivators in kids' decision-making at this age: peer acceptance, embarrassment. Yes and yes. We're there already. I tried mightily to persuade Ben to audition for his school talent show. He's getting really good at piano, and I know he'd do fantastic. But no, that one didn't make it past the embarrassment test.

The counselors went on to say that we as parents would be wise to adopt a "hummingbird" approach to raising our tweens, stealthily offering encouragement and guidance rather than taking a heavy-handed approach, hovering around our older kids like helicopters. Yes, this was all useful information so far.

The evening took a stark turn when Officer Amy, the school's police liaison officer, took the stage. I dubbed her Officer Awesome for two reasons. She's kind of hilarious, and I dug her honest, frank approach. Also, I can tell that she'd be pretty great with kids in this age group.

This was the point at which I started to get a little freaked out. Officer Awesome asked that young kids leave the room and then launched right into it. "I've seen it all," she said. "I've seen pictures of boobies and penises texted." She went on to show a PSA about sexting, saying that kids this age see it as a "safe" way to flirt.

The liaison officer asked the assembled how many of their kids had cell phones. Several hands shot up. She asked how many had Facebook pages: a handful. Ben has neither of these. I know there are practical uses for a phone for a child Ben's age; we just have chosen not to go down that path yet. I'm not here to judge, but the Facebook thing surprised me a little bit, since the minimum age is 13. I can't help but think that allowing a 10- or 11-year-old to violate that guideline kind of, you know, sends the wrong message. Stepping off the soapbox.

Officer A. said that if she were giving her child a smartphone, the first thing she'd do was take a sharp object and scratch out the camera lens, rendering it useless. After all I heard, I can understand the impulse.

On the subject of dress code, the assistant principal informed us that girls represent more than 90 percent of the school's violations, with boundary-pushing tops and bottoms. This, he told us, can make it pretty difficult for the boys to focus on school work. Add Ben staring at a 12-year-old girl's decolletage to the list of subjects I didn't want to contemplate.

The guidance counselors and liaison officer strongly encouraged us to try to resist allowing our kids a Facebook page at any age. This took us to the cyber-bullying portion of the night. When I was a seventh- and eighth-grader, I endured the humiliation of my peers chanting "Ceman spreads AIDS" (my last name was pronounced "semen" - lucky me!) when I walked past. Let me tell you, it was awful. But at least when I went home at night, I could escape it. In today's society, this is not the case for many kids that age. Cyber-bullying follows kids day and night, weekday and weekend.

It's not that I didn't realize these issues existed for kids. I just didn't spend much time contemplating that they could become a problem for my kid. Ben still seems so young to me. Yes, he's showing some definite tendencies of a middle-schooler, but on the whole, he still seems more little boy than big boy. I'm more than a little weirded out trying to match my sports- and video-game-loving and, yes, seemingly innocent kid to one who might dabble in sexting or become a victim of cyber-bullying.

I happened to be volunteering in Paul's class on Thursday when his teacher was reviewing this year's guidance "cool tools." Some of the topics they covered were "how to work through anger" and "the proper way to sneeze and cough so as not to spread germs." I want those days back for Ben. I don't want him to have to hear about kids being bullied to the point of wanting to die, about sexting, about underage drinking and drugs. Alas, I have no choice.

At this point, I'm feeling a little bit of an urge to bury my head in the sand. I'd been wanting to see the documentary, Bully ever since it was released. Finally, my hold copy came in at the library this past week. After contemplating all that lies ahead, I found my desire to see the film evaporate. I checked the "cancel hold" box and let it lapse into the ether. It's simply too close to my reality right now. I think the topic is incredibly important. I just don't think I can handle it emotionally at this point in time. The thought of someone hurting Ben is something I can hardly bear.

My anxious mind can conjure all sorts of outlandish scenarios, and lately, it's been doing that a lot for Ben. What might he face in the coming years? It's impossible to predict. I suppose that the best Mark and I can do is educate ourselves as much as we can. We're a strong family unit, and I hope that will go a long way toward insulating Ben from many troubles.

I'm going to try to enjoy these last months before my son is sent into the den of iniquity. In the meantime, I'll be practicing my hummingbird skills.

I don't sail through the changing ocean tides

After my recent post about anxiety, perhaps it would come as no big surprise that I don't do well with change. I don't simply sail through the changing ocean tides. And in some cases, I don't handle the seasons of my life particularly well, either. If all of this sounds familiar, it's because I'm blatantly stealing lyrics from the Fleetwood Mac song, "Landslide." I mean, why should I come up with my own words when Stevie Nicks expresses them so soulfully?

I guess I've known this about myself for a long time, but it really became clear after I had kids. When Ben was born, I was so freaked out for a while that sometimes I wished I could have him climb back into the womb to gestate, you know, just a little longer, until I felt really ready for him to be on the outside.

Sometimes in the beginning, I thought, gosh, I'd really like to just go back to work where everything is predictable. Only, of course, I didn't really want to go back to work at all. I'd known that all along, so soon I spent my entire 12-week maternity leave fretting about the fact that I'd soon have to leave my baby.

Yes, I can take a really wonderful experience, like the birth of a first child, and turn it into a stress fest. When I quit my job to stay home with the boys after Paul was born, that should have been the best time of my life, right? Finally, I'd gotten everything I'd ever wanted. The thing is, there's a strangeness that comes with having your dream realized. Suddenly, I got a little panicky. OK, we're all home together, now what the heck are we supposed to do all day?

Of course, after a little while, I took to motherhood, to staying home, even to going back to work when I had to return to my job. All my experiences don't mean that I handle the new challenges any better, however.

After posting about my desire to explore wading back into the job market, a seemingly ideal opportunity presented itself. In the fall, Gus's preschool will host a 4K class for Appleton Area School District's new program. His teacher was looking for an assistant. The hours couldn't be better: three and a half hours a day. Gus could be in school while I was working, I'd have summers off, all I'd ever wanted in a part-time job.

I went for the position with gusto, expressing interest early on, the first to get in my application. I didn't think twice about it. All that changed when the school's board contacted me for an interview. I'm not sure if interview angst is what altered my feelings. I hate, HATE interviewing. I don't know if it's my shyness, the fact that I don't know what will be asked and subsequent fear of saying something stupid, or my discomfort with being the center of attention that set me off on my descent into a dread spiral. Probably all of the above.

Anyhoo, suddenly I was ambivalent, weepy about the last seven years passing so quickly. Waaah ... I mean, can you blame me for being afraid of changing? I've built my life around them. (There I go again. Sorry, Stevie.)

My interview was set for last Thursday, and I spent all last week with my intestines tied in knots. Even though I was very familiar with everyone who would sit on the interview committee, knew they were not intimidating people, I was a complete wreck. Granted, I calculated that it's been nearly 12 years, since I've sat down for an interview. Still, get a grip, woman!

In the end, the interview was fine, quite informal really. In the days after, doubt remained. Was this really the job for me? Was it really time yet? I became convinced that not getting it would be something of a relief. All of that changed when I learned today that they offered the job to another candidate, one with classroom experience. Relief was not my initial emotion, the sting of rejection was. I wanted to say no, dammit, not be told no.

It's mere hours later now, and I think I'm going to be fine. In fact, maybe this was for the best. I can take next year and really explore what I want to do. I'm grateful I had the experience of interviewing. Maybe it'll help me be less afraid next time. Let's be serious, though. I doubt it.

I know change is coming for me, sooner or later, whether I like it or not. I'll try to take comfort in the fact that time makes you bolder. Children get older. And I'm getting older, too.

Routine meeting turns into unexpected gift

First day of kindergarten

First day of fifth grade

When Mark and I stepped into Ben's middle school conference last Tuesday, I thought the experience would be fairly routine. Maybe we'd hear about test scores and class placements, discuss the logistics of the transition.

What we got instead was completely unexpected. Ben met us in the office at the appointed time and escorted us to the guidance counselor's office. Clearly these fifth-graders are beginning to hone their people skills, which is great.

Working from a script, Ben led the first part of the meeting. First, he shared with us a name poem he'd created: Brainy, Energetic, Nice, and he invited Mark and me to share other words that describe him. I chose curious, citing his insatiable hunger for knowledge.

Ben shared some self-reflection and goals he'd been working on throughout the year. I was impressed with his insight into himself. Among his goals were improving his performance in art class (check) and trying to become more outgoing (not check - he's still so shy). Turns out our oldest is a kinesthetic - or hands-on - learner. That fits for the kid who can't watch a TV show without pacing or bouncing a ball, who chews pencils to bits, who gets frustrated having to wait to listen to instructions that he already understands.

We learned that Ben's class has already begun to do career assessments. It was fascinating to see that (at this extremely early stage) his career interests include writer (me!) and chemist (Mark with the science/health care background).

Watching Ben take the lead, it was funny to observe his mannerisms: keep working on that eye contact, buddy, and less yawning definitely is advisable. Though the experience clearly was a little uncomfortable for him, he pushed through it, and that's a lesson he can take forward in life.

The whole experience really was a gift to me. I treasured the opportunity to reflect on Ben's elementary school years. I appreciated the chance to look my boy in the eye and tell him exactly why he's special to me.

At the end of the meeting, the guidance counselor left us stars on which we could write a message that she would deliver to Ben. This was the point at which my eyes began to well up and I had to struggle to maintain composure. Let me tell you, parents of young ones, you will not believe how quickly these milestones arrive.

I came away from all of this with renewed appreciation for my unique, exceptional boy. I love every bit of him, from his messy handwriting to his tipping over his chair when he gets excited to his unbridled enthusiasm and determination to his amazingly bright mind.

I would say that I cannot wait to see what Ben will become, but that's not exactly accurate. Let's take it nice and slow for the next seven years or so.

Note to self: fun should be the goal of all kid sporting events

In my 10-plus years of motherhood, I've taken in my share of kid sporting events. Now I'm here to say that I can sort of understand how acrimony breaks out at these things. It's unjustified and unfortunate, but I can see how it happens.

Let me say right away that I cannot understand how parents can get angry with their own child for making mistakes or with other kids on their child's team for doing so. Similarly, I don't think it's fair to begrudge an opposing team doing well. What I can see is how resentment and irritation starts to build among the cheering parents.

After devoting his young life to baseball, Ben decided this past winter that he'd like to switch to playing soccer. Last night, Ben had his first recreational league soccer game of the season. The team had never practiced together, and it was a rough one. Ben's team didn't score a single goal, and I lost count of how many the other team netted. Ben put it at 17.

I took in the slaughter with pity for Ben's poor team. As I was watching, I'm sorry to say that anger began to bubble up in me, too. The opposing team's parents cheered vociferously for each goal. After the fifth or sixth, I began to think, "Really? This big show of enthusiasm for every goal. These people are classless."

One mom in front of me laughed each time her son's team scored a goal. Is she really laughing at how poorly my son's team is performing? Of course, in reality I have no idea her motivation for laughing. My point is, I was becoming a little petty and overly sensitive.

I've been on both sides of this scenario. Ben's YMCA indoor soccer team dominated this past spring. I cheered every goal - loudly. His flag football team is undefeated, and the parents aren't keeping their joy to themselves. Sitting in that seat, I know it's just my excitement over the team's success that's propelling my enthusiasm. It's not meant to hurt the opposing team's kids or parents. So why is it so hard to remember that when Ben or Paul's team is on the losing end?

When it comes to kids and sports, I suppose the key point, the one I sometimes lose sight of, is to remember to keep it about the kids. I'm going to go into this season of many games trying to keep that in perspective. If an opposing team mom sitting next to me wants to cheer her son or daughter's success, I'm going to have to try to suck it up and just let her enjoy that moment.

As Ben and I were walking to the car after the pulverizing match last night, I took an empathetic tone: "Sorry, buddy." But you know what? Ben wasn't overly bummed. "I still had fun," he told me. And he did. Ben got to run around doing something he loves. In the end, that's all that really matters. But maybe if your child's team has just scored, say, 10 unanswered goals, consider tamping down on the celebration. Just a little bit. ;)

The boy who was never wrong

Mark and I have wandered into the time period of a million eye rolls. Our firstborn is our leader into this foray, but seeing that two more like him are in line, I think we'll be in this period for a long while.

Yes, Ben is slowly evolving into a sullen preteen. I don't know if this is a Ben thing or a tween thing, but we had a classic showdown on Friday night. Ben and Paul were "play fighting" with Gus in the living room. I rebuked them that they're old enough to know better than to rough house (that's right, I said rough house) upstairs. I reminded them that they're older, and I expect them to set an example for Gus.

Ben, all cockiness, looked at me and said, "That's fine, we'll just go do it downstairs then!"

The whole thing left me feeling dissed in every way. Disrespected. Disregarded. Ben offered no apology, no acknowledgement of wrongdoing. We tend to think of our oldest as the kid who can do no wrong. That is, he has a pathological refusal to accept culpability. Ben's motto is, "It's not my fault!"

Ben's shunning of personal responsibility isn't what gets under my skin the most, though. In fact, I'd guess that Ben's tendencies are pretty common among kids. No, all I'd like is for him to at least seem sorry, you know go through the motions, even if he still thinks he's right and I'm wrong. Instead of doing that, my boy tends to go the defiant route.

After things had settled, Mark and I had a talk with Ben. I asked him to look up the word, "conciliatory" in the dictionary. Here's what he found: "Conciliatory: to regain or try to regain goodwill by pleasant behavior." That's what I want. When the kids screw up, I'd like them to be conciliatory, to admit that they've erred and try to do better.

Our heart-to-heart with Ben was met with an invisible, if not overt, eye roll. The unspoken implication was along the lines of fine, whatever. There was to be no great reconciliation.

I know I was probably silly to expect any grand resolution. I really should know better. We are embarking on uncharted waters, with an often-irrational being who is under the influence of emotions that are somewhat beyond his control.

I've often heard parents of older kids warn that if you think parenting babies and toddlers is hard, you should try teenagers. I'm sure that's true to a greater extent than I'm capable of understanding at present. I'm also sure that they've probably forgotten exactly what it feels like to bring up a young one.

Right now, Mark and I are in both worlds: parenting younger kids and an older one. (Though I'm sure we haven't seen anything yet when it comes to Ben.) Yes, the young ones wear you down with their unending barrage of requests and needs. I'm starting to see, though, how the older ones can vex in a whole different way. You somehow expect them to become more reasonable and rational, and yet they're so not.

Some of us may be losing sleep raising a baby. Others are staying up at night worrying about the choices a teen is making, wondering where their child is and what he or she is doing. Still others may be making their way through the challenging world of toddlers and preschoolers (3-year-olds - need I say more?). Whether you're raising a 4-year-old or a 14-year-old, there's no doubt about it, they take it out of you emotionally.