Happy 18th Birthday, Butterfly!

Because it was Butterfly’s Freshman Weekend at the college she’ll be attending this fall, we drove up to Ohio this weekend. Rock Star opted not to come along. He chose to devote the weekend to sailing about Lake Michigan on his friend’s boat, rather than spend a collective total of 10 hours with us in the car, sitting next to his little bro who’d call him a “Butt-head” and hit him with gummy worms. Go figure.

We left at 5am yesterday, and the 5 hour drive from our home in the Chicago ‘burbs to Ohio flew by, especially since I slept the first 3 hours, not waking up until we were well into Indiana. Poor Super Hubs. I don’t know how he did it, driving alone in the dark predawn, his family dozing away, and nothng but his thoughts to keep him company. He even kept the radio off so the kids and I could sleep. He wins as The Better Half. There is no doubt!

Our drive was smooth and with only one minor incident. Little Squirt announced he had to pee, and when my little boy declares his need to urinate, it generally means that his bladder is completely full to the brim and we have 32 seconds to find him a toilet before there’s a leakage of Geyser-iffic proportions. As it happened, we were in the middle of the freeway with nary a rest stop in sight. But fortunately, I had an empty plastic coffee cup with a lid, so.......I’ll spare you the personal details. Let me just point out that:
A.) I am nothing if not resourceful.
B.) Little boys have certain advantages over little girls. Just sayin’.

When were almost to the college campus, Butterfly transformed herself from a sleepy, ponty-tailed High School Grad in sweat pants, to a perfumed, lip-glossed College Coed in an Abercrombie ensemble. I don’t know how she did it. It was like Clark Kent becoming Super Man, only Butterfly didn’t even need a phone booth.

But with the transformation came Attitude. Super Hubs dropped the two of us off at the college while he went to park the car with Little Squirt. But Butterfly was distressed that I was walking into the Student Center to help get her checked in and settled. She didn’t want to be seen with me. I don’t know if it was because I was walking around with a coffee cup full of uine and asking where I could dump “Bio Waste” or if it was just because I was Her Mother. And Butterfly didn’t want to be seen with Her Mother at Freshman Weekend. “Mom!” she hissed. “Why are you coming with me??”

I had a flashback. She had just turned five years old and walked up the steps into the big yellow school bus, destined to take her to her first day of kindergarten. Head held high, she was full of cheerios and confidence and never looked back. I watched her find a seat somewhere in the middle of the bus, and I kept waving at her window. But she never looked back at me. Not once.

My little Independent Kindergartener was now an Independent College Student-To-Be, and did not want Her Mother to help her check in. But when she saw the students lined up to fill out paperwork, some with their parents, she grabbed me. “Mom, stay with me and help me check in.” My head spun from the mixed-message; The Borderline Dance that toddlers and children-turned-adults engage in: “Leave me. Don’t leave me.”

Another flashback. She was a pig-tailed baby, and I was holding her in a pool. She kept pushing me away from her, wanting to swim on her own. But the water was over her head, and I knew if I let her go, she’d drown. Still she kept pushing and I kept holding on.

As soon as she was all checked in yesterday, Butterfly turned into an adult again, caught sight of some friends, and then I was brusquely dismissed from the college campus. “Good-bye. I’m fine now. See you tomorrow,” and she turned to walk with her homies. Super Hubs, Little Squirt and I drove away, and went on to enjoy a train museum and a swim in the hotel pool. But I kept thinking about Butterfly.

Today is her birthday, ironically. She turned 18. We picked her up from the college this morning, and then headed back to Chicago. We’ll be back in another month when school offically starts. Butterfly is excited, and full of stories about her new friends and experiences. She cannot wait to return.

My Baby-Girl-Turned-Woman; walking across that bridge that is Child-To-Adult, where the boundatries are blurred and the destination is hazy. And I’m right next to her crossing the Parent Bridge and doing the Borderline Dance; part of me wanting to send her successfully off into the world, and the other part of me wanting to pull her back close and keep her safe. Our relationship will, over time, morph from Parent-To-Child to Adult-To-Adult. But we’ll have to learn this transition together.

Happy Birthday, Butterfly! This is a big year for you. Stretch those beautiful wings and enjoy flying into this next part of your journey! I couldn't love you more!

The Long Good-Bye

Nancy Reagan called Alzheimer’s Disease, “The Long Good-Bye.” And so it is. We’ve been saying farewell to Super Hubs’ father for a number of years now. We’ve watched him tragically deteriorate from an intelligent, high-energy gentleman to a shell of a person with the aptitude of less than an infant. He’s lived in a nursing home in Connecticut for about 5 years, being cared for by the nursing staff.

Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s shortly before Little Squirt was born, and the contrast between the two of them was heartbreaking to observe. As our baby’s brain developed, Dad’s deteriorated. As our baby reached milestones, Dad declined. Little Squirt began to use words while Dad began to lose words. Our child began to feed himself with a spoon while Dad forgot what the spoon was for. On one visit to their home when Little Squirt was a toddler, not wanting to take a nap, he jumped into Dad’s lap to escape from us. Dad clung to him, and they rocked together. I watched them for a bit. Grandfather and Grandson. They were peaceful, each comforting the other in a child-like way. They were 64 years apart, and yet about the same age mentally. They babbled, they toddled, they needed assistance with activities of daily living. But as one was embracing life, and the other leaked life.

Little Squirt calls him “The Grandpa Who Can’t Talk Or Walk,” and he’s never known him any other way. He accepts and embraces his grandfather, who has the abilities of an infant. He prays that God will “fix Grandpa’s voice” and “make his legs better.” But he's really okay with his grandpa as he is.

But The Teens know better. They recall Dad as being a kind, gentle man who knew everything about everything, and would take them on fabulous outings. They remember how he used to be. So when I told them at lunch today that Grandpa was forgetting how to eat and a feeding tube would not be in his future, which meant that death was impending, and possibly in the next few months, they cried. It was a miserable meal at a restaurant over chicken wings. Then they were mad at me for telling them when they’d been having fun. I got the Bad Timing Award. But when is a good time to remind them that Grandpa is dying? And begin to prepare them for his funeral? I don’t know that there would be a better time. It’s never easy. It’s hard on us all.

Want A Renewal? Got Kohler!

I have a friend who went to the Kohler Spa this very weekend, and I am tinglng with jealousy! (In a loving, happy-for-her way, of course.) I have never been to a Spa for a whole weekend, and I find myself wondering what it’s like.

Are there sugar scrubs and seaweed wraps? And what are they, anyway? It’s a tad confusing and I’d need instructions. But I’m fascinated with skin revitalizing techniques that double as afternoon snacks. They’re just the bomb!

I went to Kohler’s website to snoop a bit, and it all sounded so fabulous! So I’ve been imagining my friend doing Yoga on the lake to Zen music. And Body Toning with heated towels, which sounds way cooler than toning on my treadmill. And getting a Deep Tissue Massage by Helga The Spa Mistress while sipping a lemon-and-flax seed smoothie.

She’ll come back relaxed and refreshed, with complete balance of body and soul. (Whatever that means. I’ve never achieved it.) Ooohhh....I cannot wait to hear her stories and live vicariously!

Are You.....?

“I know who you are!” I was at a social gathering this week, and a woman approached me with excitement. “You’re....uh......”
“Kelly,” I answered, trying to be helpful.
“No, that’s not it,” she said with concentration. Huh??
“You’re.......Kathy.”
“No, I really am Kelly,” I persisted.
“No, that’s not right. “ This was interesting. She believed I was wrong about knowing my own name. I wanted to see where the conversation was going.
“Oh, I know!” she snapped her fingers as the light dawned across her face. “You’re Cindy! I knew I recognized you!!”
Ahhhh. The name of a character I played in a drama at church. Cindy. Not Kelly. She wasn’t interested in me. She preferred Cindy, my wacky, funny alter-ego. And she seemed a bit disappointed that I wasn’t eccentric and hair-brained in real life. (Well, I am to a degree. But I’m a lot normal-er than the woman I played on stage. Although, admittedly, it does take a certain amount of Real-Life Crazy to play High-Caliber Crazy.)

This has happened to me before. I’ve had other people approach me in public and think I’m really a character in a performance. One time I played a Marriage Therapist, and a few people actually wanted some quick freebie counseling. Another time I performed in a drama where the subject was Body Image, and strangers told me I did not need to lose any weight. Weird. It’s called acting, people!

It’s happened to fellow actors on my Drama Team as well. We all have stories about this. So it’s led me to ponder what it’s like for the professional actors on screen. Do people assume Matthew Perry is as as funny and witty as Chandler on “Friends"? Oh, the pressure! He had writers, folks! And do they ask Patrick Dempsey to look at their rash? Or expect Tobey Maguire to feel a Spidey Sense and scale buildings and fight crime?

Hmm....my experience has given me some empathy for them. It must be an odd kind of existence.

Somebody Please Help Me!

I went to a Graduation party this evening for one of the actors on my church Drama Team. We did a “Jeopardy" sketch together last weekend. The Graduate is our team’s “baby” at 17, and beyond sweet and adorable, with the most adorable parents and 7 adorable siblings. Honestly, they are all so cute they make the Brady Bunch Kids look like rodents! I fell in love with this family, and if I believed in reincarnation, I’d want to come back as one of their kids. I honestly would. They are all loving and well-mannered and just darling.

Little Squirt went to play in the backyard with some of the little siblings, and Super Hubs and I sat outside to keep an eye on him. And that is when their elderly neighbor plopped her ample-sized booty into the chair next to me and asked me if I was “politically active.” Which is when Super Hubs skeedaddled out of there, the Lily-Livered Chicken Poopy, hence leaving me to fence with Crazy Political Lady on my own. And she made an assumption (based on I have no idea what) that I was of a certain political persuasion. And then she insisted that I join her group, Daughters of The Revolutionary Crazy Peeps or some such. All I heard was “blah blah blah” because I wasn’t quite paying attention. I find political discussions very boring and very uncomfortable and I rarely join in, being a very Politically Private Person. Oxymoron? Perhaps, but that is mois.

So Crazy Political Lady droned on and on about the stimulus package and illegal immigrants and the agenda for her next meeting, which she insisted I attend. And all I could think of was how I was going to torture Super Hubs in the most agonizing ways possible when we got home, for leaving me at the mercy of Crazy Political Lady and smugly standing in the corner of the yard eating watermelon and pretending he didn’t see me.

And I kept praying that somebody would fake a heart attack or that a giant bee would sting me, thus creating a diversion that would enable me to leave the presence of Crazy Political Lady, who was, at that very moment, babbling on about the current Administration’s policy on social security. And how she went to Joe’s Crab shack and ate lobster for her 42nd anniversary, but doesn’t like caviar...blahblahblah. I was clearly her new BFF.

I love people. I really do. But I seem to have some kind of pheremones that attract the Socially Inept at parties wherever I go. And I never know how to move on. I’m uncomfortable disappointing people.

Thank the good Lord for texting. A simple, “Get me out of here or I will cut you” to Super Hubs caused him to finally rescue me. Thank the good Lord for Little Squirt, who is still young enough that we can plead, “He needs to get to bed early tonight.” Which is what we did, finally, and moved on.

Red Light Green Light

As of exactly one week ago yesterday, I have two teenager drivers. Rock Star got his Driver’s Permit last week and began Driver’s Ed. And, amazingly enough, he’s doing quite well. He doesn’t seem to be nearly the lead-foot his sister was, and he’s got a humble, teachable spirit. I’m mightily impressed, even thought I still sit in the passenger’s seat white-knuckled, jaw clenched and constantly pressing an imaginary break pedal. I cannot help myself. It’s instinct. This is the kid whose wallet goes through the wash on a daily basis, so I’m a bit apprehensive about him being reponsible for a motorized vehicle.

However, he’s doing wonderfully, and passed his Permit test with flying colors. Which has led to another issue. As I drove him around town today, he was all, “Mom! For Pete’s sake! You didn’t come to a complete stop back there!” and “You are supposed to stop behind the white line!’” and “Heavens, Woman- watch the speed limit!”

Now I’ve got a Driving Critic sitting beside me. Oy.

Graduation Party-ing

We threw Butterfly a Graduation party on Sunday. There were just a few glitches during the preparatory phase, such as the weather. The forecast called for Perfect; sunny and 80. And I was banking on “Perfect,” and had no “Bad Weather” plan. Absolutely none, which concerned Super Hubs to a degree. My only fantasy of this Grad party was for Perfect Weather, and we set up tables and chairs on our back deck and down by the firepit, and it had not even occured to me that we might have to entertain guests in Bad Weather. So when I saw a few thunderheads come drifting by, and the forecast changed to “isolated showers,” I panicked. It was three hours before the party, and was all in a tizzy with “What on earth will we do? We cannot fit 70 people in our home, and how do you make s’mores without a fire pit??” Super Hubs and my mother-in-law tried to calm me down and reassure me. And then I prayed all the best Good Weather prayers I could think of and rebuked the storm clouds and so forth, and it worked. The Perfect Weather came back for the remainder of the day. Halleluiah!

And then there were a few food glitches. I ordered it all to be ready at 4pm, but both places that I was catering from fell short. Jewel had no record whatsoever of my order of chicken wings, and Portillo’s had neglected to fax my order over to catering, so I had to wait 20 minutes while the Rigatoni A La Vodka finished cooking. But they gave Rock Star and me free drinks and chocolate cake while we waited, which made it almost worth it. So then I was running 20 minutes behind schedule and had to high-tail it home and bark orders at my family to “divide and conquer” and arrange all the food before the guests arrived at 5pm. “You-cut up the French bread! And you- arrange the watermelon slices neatly around this plate....” and so forth. But by 5pm, all the food was neatly arranged on two different tables, the drinks were in the coolers, Butterfly’s music was playing, and we were good to go.

It was a lovely party with family and a few close friends, and multitudes of Butterfly’s classmates that kept mutliplying like locusts. They’d fill up their plates and head to the front yard where a Baggo tournament was in assembly.

Dare I say it was Perfect? Fabulous weather and company and the feeling of being mighty proud of the woman my daughter is becoming! And she was thrilled with the party. I am so glad it all worked out well. We were blessed.