It’s taken my husband and me a couple years to adjust to having teens around the house. They have opinions of their own, once they are driving they want to go places by themselves, and they may or may not do what we want when we want them to do it.
My husband and I had my mom’s roof replaced last week. I was contemplating the man from the roofing company who had “project manager” after his name. The tasks he did were varied and extensive, from writing up the contract to picking up supplies to bringing in the dumpster to actually working on the roof.
I’ve kind of gotten into the groove of having my oldest daughter home during the day. She graduated from high school and only has evening college classes.
My husband and I have been helping his parents clean out their home of 25 years. They’re getting ready to downsize and needed extra hands to help with this enormous task.
I’ve spent a lot of time in recent days comparing my youngest daughter’s toddler ways to her teenage ways.
I got away this weekend; a girls’ weekend with cousins, direct cousins, extended cousins, cousins I’d only met on Facebook until this weekend. They are cousins descended from my great-grandmother, on my father’s side.
My youngest daughter is at it again. She’s making yet another costume for another anime convention. I believe it has long ago quit being about the anime (Japanese cartoons), but more about the costume.
Oh the agony of summer homework! My daughters just hate having summer homework. They feel it interferes with their busy summer schedules: playing video games all night in the family room, hanging out in their rooms all day playing video games, watching whatever their latest movie obsession is over and over, and complaining to their friends on Skype about summer homework.
My husband and I went alone to a car show in Yakima last weekend—no kids, pets or grandmothers to be seen.
I have been at a sweet place in parenthood for a couple years now. For those of you with older kids you know the spot – it’s when you can drop your kids off at places they want to go without chaperoning them. It actually starts in a small way a few years sooner when you can leave them at home alone for an extended period of time – like long enough to go grocery shopping or enjoy a date with your husband without getting a babysitter.
I spent a day last week doing grown up things with my now 18-year old daughter. She turned 18 a few months ago, but it seemed like graduation really marked the grown up phase of her life.
There are just some staples we always packed in our RV during the summer. Pop Tarts used to be one of them.
Last week I spent a lot of time Googling. Even if you’re not an internet user, you’ve probably heard of Google. Google is an internet search engine; it’s kind of like going to the library and looking in their card catalog (now also on computers) for a book you need on a specific topic.
One night, many years ago, I sat bolt upright in bed. What was that strange sound? The toilet flushing?
I was at a barbeque last week with my husband and his car club friends. They were surprised when we told them our oldest daughter graduated from high school the week before. Although they are long-time friends of my husband’s, they only see our kids once a year at his club’s car show.
I got a new couch. Those groans you hear are my mother and my sister reading this and thinking, “Another one? Really?” This is because in the 22 years we’ve been living in this house, we’ve had more couches than you can count on one hand.
My neighborhood girlfriend, who is ten years younger than I, with children still in elementary school, called me the other day to ask my advice about her oldest daughter who must choose a music option next year: How does the program work? What instrument should she play? Band or orchestra? Where to get an instrument? Future music career advice?
I had a slow start to my morning on Monday last week. So as I sat down to write, I got right to work. The ideas started to flow and I began to feel a productive glow. When I feel productive in my writing, I start feeling productive in the rest of my life, which turns me into the only super hero I know how to be – Super Mom!
Yesterday, as I finished addressing my oldest daughter’s graduation announcements, it struck me how our lives have evolved since they were born.
We celebrated my oldest daughter’s 18th birthday last week. She had a Big Backyard Barbeque Birthday Bash with twenty or so of her friends. It was exactly what it sounds like, with a little twist in the form of an inside family memory.
