April was a crazy month. I think I’m still trying to recover from it. (Note last blog post was from April 13th.)
We went camping for spring break, Chandler had to decide which college to go to (so glad that’s over with), Marley had daily after-school lacrosse practices and two to three games a week, Chandler had every other-day after school runs and one to two track meets a week, I went to the Stagecoach Music Festival. I took seven days off work and left early at least four or five times. (I assured my bosses several times, that yes, I did still work there!) It took the skill and ingenuity of a $100K/year executive assistant to pull of the coordination needed to get everyone where they needed to be when they needed to be there. (Yet, I did it for free.)
What’s that you ask? It’s a show that has been showcasing people sharing their stories about motherhood onstage since 2008. And last month I got to share mine on a stage in a Downtown Los Angeles theater. I felt honored that over two dozen people came to see me. The other people in the show were amazing. I can’t believe I was chosen to stand among them and share my story.
Hanging backstage before my big stage debut.
And even though it will possibly mortify my children (like I’ve never done that before here), you can watch it below if you like. But only if you promise to focus on how great my hair looked and my awesome comedic timing rather than how the harsh stage lighting makes me look 1,000 years old and the dress I’m wearing makes me appear a little fat. (I swear when I looked in the mirror I looked awesome.)
Most people who know me (even a little bit) know that I wrote a book.
Like forever ago.
And I’ve been editing it, and editing it, (and effing editing it) and querying it and querying it (and effing querying it) off and on for years.
It’s chick lit (with a heavy emphasis on chick and not so much lit). It’s not groundbreaking or earth shattering or maybe even that original (girl’s life crumbles when she loses fiancé and loses job and has to pick up the pieces and start all over again), but it’s funny. It would make a hilarious romantic comedy. (In my humble opinion.)
But I digress…
This post is not about that book. It’s about thisbook:
One that I co-wrote and you can actually click this link and buy!
I know what you’re thinking… How in the heck did that happen?
Well, I’ll tell you how.
I met this really cool woman named Beth Robeson at the 2013 Middle Sister Wine Gathering. (Which I was lucky enough to attend because I won a contest on Pinterest.) Beth contacted me after the gathering and asked if I’d be interested in adding a bit of humor to a book she’d written about picky eaters being made and not born.
I told her she sure didn’t need me because that was the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. My kids are picky eaters. They were totally born that way. (Or were they?) I mean, I certainly didn’t have anything to do with them being picky. (Or did I?)
She convinced me to take a look at the book and see if maybe I’d change my mind.
I have to tell you that the book was quite eye-opening. Turns out that perhaps I did have a thing or two quite a lot to do with my kids’ semi-picky palates. And by using some of the methods discussed in the book I’ve actually seen some changes in my kids’ eating habits. Admittedly they are small changes, but my kids are teenagers. If I had read this book when my kids were little I have no doubt that they’d be eating a much wider range of foods and I would have spent a lot less time in the kitchen being a short order cook.
So I did my best to add a little humor to the book. And I think I succeeded. (I hope I did anyway.)
If you’ve got picky kids you might want to pick it up. Even if you’ve tried everything. It might help you see “pickyness” in a whole new light. (And maybe even hang up that short order cook apron forever.)
Last Saturday we were still waiting for news.We hadn’t heard from any colleges yet and we knew that admissions decisions had been mailed on Tuesday from one of the schools Chandler is most hopeful about.
“Call me if the letter comes today,” I said as I was walking out the door on my way to a lacrosse tournament with Marley, happy for the distraction. Our mail comes late, sometimes not until five o’clock. I had an image of myself perched on the couch by the front window with my laptop, obsessively refreshing the search for the school’s “accepted” hashtag on Twitter to see how many kids were taking my son’s potential spot, looking up every time I heard a car even though I know the difference of the sound of a passing car and the stop-start of the mail truck.
Chandler called a little after three.
“Mom, a box came in the mail addressed to Dad. Can I open it?”
“Why do you want to open a box for Dad?” I asked my heart sinking that the news hadn’t come.
“I want to see if it has my…”
“You’re acceptance letter wouldn’t come in a box for Dad,” I said cutting him off. It would come in a big envelope addressed to you.”
“Shhh, Mom,” he said clearly frustrated to be cut off. “I got the acceptance letter, but first I want to know if this is the hat Dad got me on eBay.
“Really, Chandler? You got in?” I said tears coming to my eyes.
“We’ll talk about that in a minute. Can you please ask Dad about the box?”
Now I was the one who was frustrated. But also really, really happy.
I put the phone to my chest and looked at Dave. “Your son got in, but he’s more interested in a box that’s addressed to you. Can he open it to see if it’s his hat?”
“Tell him to go ahead,” Dave said rolling his eyes.
“Dad says go ahead, Chandler,”
“Oh good, it’s my hat,” he said. “Yeah, Mom. I got in. Isn’t that great?”
“Yes, Chandler. That’s really great. I’m so proud of you,” I said the tears welling up in my eyes again. If I wasn’t so happy I might have had to kill that kid..
My firstborn will be graduating high school in a little less than three months and two months after that he’ll be out the door and off to college. (Which in mom-time is even less than the blink of an eye.) He’s got so much to do in that short amount of time and has so many important decisions to make. He needs to decide which college he’ll choose, where he’s going to get a summer job, who he’s going to ask to prom.
Of course I have a lot of important decisions to make too. How many people should I invite to his graduation party? What is the proper amount of time to wait before turning his bedroom into my office? What is the best brand of waterproof mascara to wear to this graduation ceremony?
And I have to choose his graduation announcements. They’ve come a long way since I graduated high school. My graduation announcement was a generic “Class of 83” fold-over card that you stuck a smaller card with your name on it into a little slot. They were pretty boring.
Thanks to minted.com the generic graduation announcement is a thing of the past. So if you’re looking for a place to find a graduation card that is as unique as your high school senior click here.
Take a look at some of minted’s awesome selection below:
Whether your looking for an announcement or an invitation, if classic designs are your thing, you can’t go wrong with this card.
Classic and classy!
If you like something more modern showing off your son or daughter’s cute mug you might prefer a card like this.
So handsome!
If you’re a braggy type of parent you have a high achiever you might like a card that showcases your graduate’s many accomplishments with a card like this.
That’s one fantastic senior year!
And if you really want to show your faraway family that your kid’s got the goods you can even order an announcement that’s a book!
Great for kids with extended families that live far away.
One of the many things I love about minted.com is the fact that they give you different colors to choose from for most types of announcements or invitations. (Like in this whimsical one.)
Both are so cute! Which one would you choose?
Speaking of whimsical, I love this graduation party invitation. (So cute!)
And of course you can get matching thank you cards
and fancy envelopes.
So what will I be choosing for my graduate? Hmmm… I don’t know.
As the mother of an athlete, I have to admit I really love this card.
I especially like the way it looks when I plug Chandler in there.
No, Chandler’s not going to UCONN (but maybe after seeing this announcement they’ll want him to)!
Did I mention that you can preview your cards before buying them? See the little exclamation point on Chandler’s picture above? That’s an alert from minted telling me the picture will not print well due to its low resolution, so I’ll need to choose another photo. I feel confident that when I place an order with minted it will turn out perfectly.
Of course I’ll have to get a better picture. (Something a bit crisper without a messy kitchen counter in the background.) And it would also probably help if we knew where Chandler was going to school. (Nope, sorry, Awesome U in Not California is not a real school!)
He may be traveling when he goes to college but he’s leaving his heart in California. (I hope.)
It’s going to be tough to pick which one I like best. But the good news is, all the cards at minted.com are so great, it’s impossible to go wrong.
If you haven’t ordered your graduation announcements and invitations yet, I highly suggest you give minted.com a look. It takes about two weeks to get your order with standard shipping, so there’s still time. But you’d better hurry – you know that time will be gone in the blink of an eye!
Disclosure: I was given a credit by minted.com to facilitate this review, but the opinions of the awesomeness of Minted expressed are 100% my own. (But you don’t have to trust me – you have eyes don’t you?)
Tom Petty said it best, “The waiting is the hardest part.”
It seems everyone I know with a high school senior has been accepted somewhere. All of my friends’ kids. All of Chandler’s friends. Accepted. Somewhere. Hell, one of my friends just put the deposit down. Her daughter has made her decision.
But Chandler? No acceptance letters yet. He’s still waiting. We’re still waiting.
To be clear, he hasn’t gotten any rejection letters yet either.
Every time I run into someone or talk to someone on the phone (yes, I still talk on the phone) they ask me, “Has Chandler made any decisions yet?” It’s hard to make a decision when you don’t know your choices. Trust me people, when Chandler finally gets his acceptance letters I will be posting it on Facebook just like every other obnoxious STFU proud mom.
Of course it doesn’t help matters that I’m hyper-obsessing on it. I check Chandler’s email ten times a day to see if any notifications have come in from the admissions departments telling him to check his student portal even though I know it’s too early. Yes, I have his email password because he is terrible at checking emails and helicopter mom I need to keep him on track. But I don’t have his student portal passwords (though I’m sure I could figure them out) so I can’t find out before he does. I don’t want to find out before he does. I would never take that away from him. I just want to find out.
I don’t like to wish away time, especially now when Chandler will be leaving so soon, but if there were ever a week to wish away, make it go warp speed squared instead of just plain old oh-my-god-my-son-is-going-away-to-college-in-five-months-wasn’t-he-just-a-baby-five-seconds-ago warp speed, it would be this week. Because next week we’ll know something.
The UC he applied to will be sending notifications to last names beginning with O-S on Sunday, March 15 at 4AM. I suspect my eyes will pop open at 4:01. It’s a good thing he’s an early bird like me. Not 4AM early, but he should be up by 7:00. (Oops, I’m sorry, Chandler. Was I being too loud in the kitchen. *clang clang clang)
On Friday, February 13 the school in Ohio that is a top contender will be snail mailing out its notifications. (Friday, the 13th, really? Is that a good idea?) I’m an optimist so I’m hopeful we’ll receive that letter on Monday the 16th. (Look, I just mailed something to Little Rock, AR on a Friday and it got there the following Monday, it could happen!)
After that the other four should come trailing in somewhere between the 15th and the 31st.
Until then… we’re just waiting.
“The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you get one more yard
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part”
Saturday morning I had a dream that Chandler was five years-old. Even in the dream I knew Chandler wasn’t really five. “What’s five year-old Chandler doing here,” I thought to myself.
We were getting out of the car. I came around to his side and he hugged me tight, like he used to hug me. All in. He still hugs me now, but only when I ask for one. He’s so tall and skinny. His hugs are boney. He’ll hug me as long as I want, but his hugs are dutiful. The perfunctory hug of a good son.
“I love you so much, Mommy,” he said as he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me tight. Like his life depended on it.
“I love you too, Chandler,” I said as I hugged him back with equal ferocity.
We held hands as we walked inside the house and once we crossed the threshold he was eighteen year-old Chandler again.
I told him about my dream as I drove him to school to drop him off at the bus for a track meet. “I love you, Mommy,” he said sweetly. Then he said, “I had a dream the other night that Coach H told me I had a five percent chance of getting in.” He was referring to the coach at his top-choice college. Not his reach school, but the school he thinks he’d most like to attend.
“That’s just a stress dream because the decisions are coming in in the next few weeks. It’s probably why I’m dreaming of you being five. Because you’re leaving me soon.” I hadn’t realized the significance of the dream until the words left my mouth.
He’s leaving me soon.
It’s March. Chandler has applied to six colleges. The reach (where he likely won’t get in) is an hour’s drive; the rest of them are far away. Four are out of state. The decisions will all be in by March 30th.
And then he’ll have to decide where he’s going when he leaves me.
A couple of weeks ago I took Marley and her friend to the California Science Center. We’ve been there countless times, but Marley loves it and wanted to go. And when your fourteen year old daughter requests a visit to the science museum over the weekend, you take her. (Especially when the request comes in on a Monday and not Friday night when your weekend is already planned.)
I had considered bringing my book and hanging out in the cafe while we were there (me, my book and a cup of coffee for three hours – heaven!) but instead I walked around with the girls. I can’t imagine she’ll let me hang out with her much longer.
We had a great time. I enjoyed watching the girls getting all science-y with the exhibits. They got their hands dirty as they sifted through sand and made dams and changed river courses in the river zone. They challenged each other to see who could keep their hand on the ice wall the longest. (I think it was a draw.) And they both liked the drunk driving simulator. (FYI, they didn’t do very well driving sober or drunk!)
Do not get in a car with these girls!
We were almost ready to go and the girls were doing something on a computer screen in the communication room when three guys in their twenties surrounded them and started talking to them. I was standing a couple of screens over and decided to watch to see what the guys were up to (no good) and what the girls would do. My first instinct was to tell the guys to get lost right away, but I wanted to see how the girls would handle themselves. The guys were definitely standing a bit too close and one of them lured Marley a few feet away from her computer and asked what she thought about his friend’s mustache. After about two minutes the girls walked away.
I followed close behind and Marley turned to me and said, “Mom, help.”
“I want you to know I had my eye on those guys the whole time,” I said. “I would have stepped in if they touched you or if they hung around too long, but I wanted to see how you’d handle yourselves. You were right to walk away.”
I asked them how they felt when the guys surrounded them and they said they didn’t like it. They felt boxed in but they didn’t want to be rude. I told them that it was okay to be rude if they felt unsafe. I said that if I hadn’t been there they could have told a guard that the guys were making them feel uncomfortable. The museum is not going to put up with that business.
As we were walking toward the exit we noticed the guys heading out too. I think it was a coincidence rather than them following us, but they looked at the girls in a way no men should look at fourteen year old girls and I’d had enough.
“You know these girls are children, right?” I said to them. “Children!”
One of them looked at me, “Well, I’m a child at heart.”
“But not legally,” I said.
“You have beautiful children,” he said.
“Yes, I do. But you need to move along. Now.”
And they did. Thankfully.
On our way home we talked about the situation some more. The girls said if they were leaving the museum and I wasn’t there they would have gone into the gift shop. If they men followed them in they would have told an employee. We talked about different scenarios in different locations.
I told them they needed to trust their instincts and if they ever felt uncomfortable in a situation they needed to find a way out of it.
I told Dave what happened later that night. I still wasn’t sure I handled the situation properly. Maybe I should have jumped in right away. I told the girls to trust their instinct, yet I hadn’t followed mine. When those guys first approached Marley and her friend, Mama Bear wanted to jump in and slash them with her claws. Dave told me he thought I handled it just right.
I wish that all Marley and her friend learned that day was about ecosystems and rivers and brain chemistry instead of how to trust your gut when you’re in an uncomfortable and potentially dangerous situation.
I wish that wasn’t a lesson that needed to be taught to my daughter. To anyone’s daughter. But we all know that’s not the world we live in. And sometimes the lessons we don’t want to teach our kids are the most important lessons of all.
Early Sunday morning we dropped Chandler off at the airport for an overnight trip to Washington D.C. Yep that’s right, 2700 miles across the country and back in 36 hours so he could check out a college that’s much too far from home in my opinion. (What if he meets a girl there. And marries her. And never comes home!) I watched him walk away then looked to see if he forgot anything and saw his phone on the backseat.
His phone.
Oops!
Dave hopped out of the car and called him before he went inside the terminal. As he handed over the phone Chandler said, “That would be bad.”
Yes it would.
Nobody was picking up Chandler at the airport in DC. He was taking the Metro to the university he was visiting and meeting the student whose dorm he was staying in. The student was going to text Chandler where to meet him. Without his phone that meeting would have been close to impossible.
It’s crazy how dependent we’ve become on our phones. Why look something up on a map when your phone is equipped with a high-tech GPS navigation system? Traffic on the freeway? No need to wait ten minutes for an update on news radio, just check out Waze for an alternate route. Your toddler bored in line at the market? Hand her your phone so she can play a game and stop whining about it. Email, Facebook, your camera, hell even a flashlight – all on your phone.
And when we need to get in touch with someone? Instead of calling them we text. Ironically our dependence on cellphones has made actually talking on the phone nearly obsolete.
Dave and I tried to speculate what would have happened if I hadn’t seen the phone. When would Chandler have noticed and what would he have done? He’s really responsible and leaving his phone behind is out of character for him. I’m sure he was just distracted, maybe a bit nervous about his trip. But I worried, was this kid really ready to go away to school?
I don’t think I’m as dependent on my phone as most people seem to be. I rarely use it check my email or Facebook or Twitter status. I’m terrible at texting. In fact, I forget my phone all the time.
But I will admit that I am dependent on my kids having their phones. I like to keep tabs and keep them close. We used to have Chandler text us when he got to his destination when he first started driving. And we still ask him to text us when he’s on his way home.
When we got home from the airport I told Marley what happened and then said, “I think at dinner this week we’ll have to have a discussion about this and what you guys would do if you were traveling alone and didn’t have your phone.”
She rolled her eyes. “Really, Mom? I’d just find a mom or an an airport employee and tell them I was a lost little girl and could I please borrow their phone to call my mommy.”
I met her eye roll with a sigh. I suppose she would. That girl’s got some street smarts. (As most girls do.) But would Chandler? I wan’t so sure.
After he got home I did ask him what he would have done. He shrugged, “It depends when I noticed.”
“What if you noticed before you got on the plane?” I asked.
“I’d use someone’s phone to call you or call my phone.”
“What if you noticed after you were on the plane and it was too late to get your phone back?”
“I’d find a way to call you when I got to DC then take the metro to the school. He texted me. You could have read me his text.”
“But Chandler,” I said, “what if your phone wasn’t in the car? What if you lost your phone?”
He shrugged again. “But I didn’t, Mom.”
No, he didn’t. I don’t know why I was skeptical that he’d know what to do. He is eighteen. And he’s smart. (Plus, I am an awesome mom.) It would have been inconvenient for him not to have his phone. Perhaps even difficult. But like all of us when we forget our phones, he would have survived.
Chandler turns 18 today. My firstborn child. My son. My baby. My man.
And probably like every mother before and after me whose firstborn turns 18, I think to myself, “How did this happen so quickly?” Yet at the same time the day he came into this world seems so long ago. But whether it was a the blink of an eye (oh, it was, it was) or a lifetime (it was that too), it’s here, his first day of official adulthood and whatever I write about him, about the privilege of being his mother, will not nearly be worthy.
How do I express the love I feel for my firstborn? How wonderful and special and sublime he is? How he’s made me a better person? The words fall short. I am not a good enough writer to string together the proper words to articulate my undying love for this boy. (Or rather, this man.)
It is simply not enough to say that I love him for his uniqueness. I love him because he doesn’t follow the crowd. He stands up for the little man. He understands that the world is unfair, but it still often personally offends him. (Oh how I adore his bleeding liberal heart.)
He loves to hike and to run and to be outdoors. He wears a size 13 shoe, but strives to make his carbon footprint small, minuscule.
He’s quiet, but funny, so funny in the smartest way. He is thoughtful and kind, though his sister may tell you differently. But even with her, his greatest foe, I’ve witnessed acts of generosity and encouraging words when needed.
I believe Chandler’s best quality, and one that will serve him well in life, is his tenacity. The first time I really remember noticing this was on his 7th birthday. I took him roller skating after school with some friends. He fell and he fell and he fell and he fell. (I skated with him and considered it quite an accomplishment that he never pulled me down with him!) I thought he would cry and give up and say that skating was stupid. Instead he looked up at me and said, “That was so much fun! Can we have my birthday party here?” I see that same tenacity when he runs. When he studies. When he wants to play Monopoly over winter break and none of the rest of us do. He doesn’t give up. He’s all in.
He told me over the weekend that he’s not quite ready to turn 18. He wishes he could be 17 again. (Oh, I do too!) This surprised me because he’s been pushing away lately. He says he can’t wait to go away to college, the farther the better. (I really shouldn’t have taught him to do his laundry. I should have made him need me more.) But it also warmed my heart to know that as much as he wants to go, part of him very much wants to stay.
And I think to myself, if I could freeze time, which part would I freeze? Would it be when he was a baby and I would hold him in my arms for hours on end unable to get enough of his baby smell? Or when he was a toddler and we would snuggle in his bed every night to read Shel Silverstein and Good Night Moon? Or that between stage of toddler and boy when he would kiss me like this:
This will forever be my favorite picture of us
Would I freeze the days we taught him to ride his bike or that first day roller skating or the first time I saw him perform with the band in middle school? The first time I watched him win a race. When we taught him to drive? (No, definitely not then!)
Which moments were the most precious? The most special? The best?
All of them of course. I couldn’t choose just one if I were able to, which of course I’m not. (Otherwise I’d be forever 36. Seriously, forget 29, 36 was my year!) All I can do is stand back and admire my son and the man he has become.
Thank you, Chandler for making my life so much better, richer, more meaningful. I am so proud of the man you have become. I am so humbled and honored to be your mother.
I woke up two Saturdays ago to a 4:30 alarm. Chandler had to be on the bus at 5AM for a cross country meet and asked the night before if I’d make him breakfast-to-go so he could sleep until 4:45. I made him a fried egg sandwich (making sure to poke the yolk and fry it hard so it wouldn’t make a mess) and a protein shake and drove him to the bus. I made some much-needed coffee, putzed around a bit, walked the dog, ate breakfast and Dave and I were out the door by 6:30 (okay, we always run late – 6:45). We drove through downtown Los Angeles just as the sun was rising. Watching the sun peek over the mountains and reflect on the high rises was breathtaking. I would have taken a picture, but I was driving. Plus my windows were filthy. It probably wouldn’t have turned out anyway.
We got to the meet, found our team in the maze of pop-ups, and wished Chandler luck just before he was called to line up for his race. He was running the JV National race with 16 schools and 111 runners competing. This was JV so I was hoping for a strong finish from Chandler, but it was an elite race, so I wasn’t sure how he’d do.Dave and I and my friend Debby (a mother of one of the other runners) found what we hoped was a good vantage point to watch the beginning of the race.
If you’ve never seen a cross country race they are both fun and difficult to watch. It’s a three mile course so you can never really see all -or sometimes even much- of the race and have to criss-cross and run ahead of the runners to different parts of the course. How much of the race you see depends on the sight lines of the course and how much you’re willing to run around. We saw the race start and then headed over to the one-mile mark. When the runners passed us they were still all close together and Chandler was in the middle of the pack.
This is one of the more difficult courses to see a lot of the race, especially if you want to see the finish because it’s such a large event and it’s difficult to navigate all the people. Debby and I decided to head right to the finish line so we wouldn’t miss the boys crossing. Dave decided to head down a little before the finish because they come out of a narrow chute and when you stand at the finish line that is literally all you can see.
As we were nearing the 15 minute mark we knew the boys would start crossing in the next minute or so and heard an announcement.
“Did he just say a runner from Agoura is in front?” Debby asked me.
It did sound like he said that, but it couldn’t be. Our school is a Division III school and we were running in a Division I & II race against bigger and better schools. The odds of one of our boys winning was slim.
“It sounded like it, but he must have said Great Oak,” I said. They’re the school that’s ranked #1 in California.
And then I heard my friend Marisa, who was standing across from us at the other side of the finish line yell, “Chandler, Chandler!”
And I screamed, “Whooooooooooo!” as I saw my son come up the chute and cross the finish line first.
I was in shock. These are schools we never run against, so I really didn’t know how Chandler would finish. Plus, he started off the season injured and this was his first race where he was back to feeling 100%. I know that he’s been disappointed this season not being able to run varsity, but there was no room for disappointment when he crossed that finish line with one of the biggest smiles I’ve ever seen. As proud as I was of him (and trust me I was), I was even happier for him.
I always love to see Chandler race, but I’m especially trying to hold onto these proud moments this year. If I could, I’d squeeze them tightly in my hands and never let go. He is so anxious for college, it seems he already has one foot out the door. A year from now Chandler will be far away, running in college at races that I won’t be able to watch.
I knew this time would come faster than I wanted it to, but not nearly as fast as it has.
Charlene Ross 