Aged Like Cheese

I just turned 35, and I wish I could feel like this about it:

"I am strong!  I am fierce!  I can do anything!" (I love, love, love that face!)

But mostly, I feel like this:

"Don't hurt me! Don't ask me to do anything hard! I'm tired."

When I turned 30, I remember jogging down the street in Wellington, New Zealand, thinking about thirty.  Thirty years old.  It didn't seem old.  It didn't feel old.

This morning, I thought about 35.  Why does it feel so much older?  I can look at some of the other leaders in my Young Women's group, mothers themselves, and remember the year they were born.  I have to make conscientious clothing choices so I don't look like I'm trying to be younger than I am.  Or older.  Mostly, it's just a general feeling that I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm afraid of doing it wrong.

I'm not old.  Not even middle aged, but I'm no longer a young person.  It's an adjustment.

*** Just a word about the pictures I used.  My husband wanted to make vinyl art for the kids' bedrooms and came up with those.  The first was originally Calvin, from Calvin and Hobbes, but then my husband put my older son's hair and dimples on it.  It's genius.  The second picture looks like this in its entireity:

It's from the Dr. Seuss book "Fox in Socks".  The tweedle beetles.  My husband gave them light sabers instead of paddles so he wasn't breaking copyright laws.  Isn't he brilliant?

Gush.  Gush.

Hairdos and Don't I Know You?

My niece was giving a talk in church before leaving on her mission to Brazil.  She called me a few nights before that Sunday to ask if I would sing with her other aunt.  I said yes, chatted a minute, then hung up the phone.

As soon as I hung up, I remembered what it was like standing next to her aunt while a lot of people looked at us and compared how much I could never measure up.  I mean, this woman I'd be singing with is gorgeous.  Gorgeous like Farrah Fawcett.  Gorgeous like any other blonde model (I really did try to think of the name of another one).

Any woman standing next to this paragon would take a hit on their self-esteem.

I immediately called my usual hair stylist (a.k.a. my sister) and told her I needed help.  She cut and layered my hair, and then showed me how to style it so it would fall in luscious waves instead of the frizzy curls I usually have.  Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with curly hair, but I've had the exact same hair style for like 8 years.  Curl, curls, curly.

The day of the song came.  I did my hair all sleek and glossy.  I didn't think it would look too different from my normal do, but I was proven wrong.

I got WAY more comments about my hair than about the singing.  Way. More.

Beautiful Aunt and I sang our duet with our niece playing the violin.  We made it through and I walked back to my seat in the back because we always sit in back.  On the way, I passed my Mom and Dad where they were sitting and smiled to them.

My dad, bless his heart, leaned over to my mom and said, "Was that Mandi?"

Either Dad is losing his sight as well as his hearing, or a hairstyle really makes that much of a difference.

Who knew?

I'm Watching You, Wazowski, Always Watching

Three items of business:

This weekend was General Conference.  For those of you watching, wasn't it wonderful?  I loved Saturday morning's session, such timely counsel!  Our prophet, giving his shoes away to someone in need of them, I get choked up thinking about it.

Second: I started watching "Dr. Who" this week.  I'm only two and a half episodes in.  I don't even know which Doctor I'm watching, as I know there are several, but I'm already wondering why I didn't start this before?  I mean, the acting isn't wonderful but it's so fun, and the special effects?  Bwah ha ha! But there is something about it.  A good something.  My husband disagrees, but he doesn't have to watch it with me.

Third:  Last night, my husband and I decided to watch a movie we'd recently put in our queue.  It looked like it might be a meaningful life/relationship story.  The kids were all in bed and we sat down to stare at the screen some more because we hadn't watched it enough after two days of General Conference.  *grin* Maybe we were just trying to pollute our minds after so much goodness.  (I'm kidding, Mom.)

So, we'd gotten about five minutes in, and it wasn't great but it wasn't terrible, when our daughter comes down the stairs and says, "What are you watching?"

As soon as she looks at the screen, up flashed a naked bum.  We all kind of went "Woah!"  Our daughter took several hasty steps back, behind the TV.  Of course, when my husband tried to stop the film, it paused on the bum, so we all got a good look at it, which is what we were really after.

Our daughter went back upstairs to bed, and later asked my husband if that was what rated R movies were like.  I sort of died a little inside.  (By the way, it wasn't rated R.)

I wrote her a note that night telling her that her parents weren't intentionally heathen.

But it's true, that no matter what you do, someone is watching.

Big Kid Versus Little Kid

I had to tote all three kids to the church for an activity on Wednesday night because my husband was working late.  Joy all around.

The boys brought a basketball and headed into the gym, the only place I'll allow them to run and yell and generally be boys, everywhere else in the church they must pretend to be angels.  My daughter went into the activity with me, which was good considering it was for young women.

I told the boys where I'd be if they needed anything and left them to entertain themselves.

Later that night as we were eating a late dinner, I got to hear what they did.

Some bigger kids, boys, were in the gym with an adult.  The adult had a punching bag and was teaching the kids with him the correct ways to use it.  My younger son kept calling the punching bag marshmallow for reasons unknown to me.  After the adult took marshmallow away, the bigger kids were unsupervised for a moment.  "Hey, where did those little kids go?  Let's find them and beat them up."  After all, they had just learned the proper uses for punching bags.

My sons were sitting under a table.  I'm not saying they were hiding from the bigger kids, but my sons were under a table in the hallway.  My youngest heard what the bigger kids said and relayed the information to his older brother.  He said, "Let's do the same thing to them."

My youngest opened the gym door, freckled nose, missing teeth, and mischievous eyes, and yelled, "Hey look!  There's some big kids.  Let's beat them up!"  Laughing hysterically, he let the bigger kids see where he went, almost asking for them to follow.

I'm just glad the bigger kids had the sense not to follow.

Blading

My daughter's friends whiz down the street laughing like maniacs on their rollerblades.  She turns pleading eyes to me.  "Mom, can I please have new rollerblades?  My old ones don't fit me anymore."

"Put it on your Christmas wish list," I reply, because at this time of year that's what I always say.

She does.  The last item on a short list.  It stares me in the face every time I get something from the fridge.

Thinking I am so prompt and on top of things, I look online for a cheap pair of rollerblades for my daughter's Christmas gift.  Because I am me, I find some second hand that look great.

I send my husband to look at them, and he buys them.  When he gets them home, he tells me he doesn't like giving the kids second hand things for Christmas.  It makes him feel cheap.  I say, "Isn't that a good thing?  Feeling cheap means you're doing something right."

He disagrees.  Then I disagree.  In the end, we decide to give the rollerblades to our daughter now, the deciding factor being she won't be able to ride them at Christmastime.

That very night, I have the pleasure of watching my daughter whiz down the street, laughing like a wobbly maniac with her friends.  It is one of those moments a mother files away in her memory box to pull out later and remind herself that life is good.

Ugh! Frustration!

I had two hours to write this afternoon, if I was a good girl and buckled down to do it.  I was planning to be a very good girl because I've been working on revising a story.  Working for quite a long time on this revision.

I got onto my computer, and looked at all the files on my desktop.  Then I looked again.

I can't find it anywhere.

The only explanation I can come up with, is my son, who uses the computer for school and so is on it more than anyone else, must have done something with my precious, precious story.  It's a good thing my son is gone right now, because if he were home, I would probably scald his face with my scathing words of accusation.

As it is, I will allow my words time to cool.  Unless he really is guilty of making me redo all my hard work.  In which case, I will bring those words back to a boil and let them fly!

A Heavy Load to Bear

Two weeks ago, our neighbors moved.  My older son asked if he could help them load things up and they told him no, probably thinking it would be a relief to him.  He came home bummed that he didn't get to help.  He said, "When our new neighbors move in, I WILL help them."  He did.  Every day they brought over small loads, and my son was there.

On Friday, I took two kids, including my elder son, and my sister shopping.  Since he was still being uber-helpful, my son told me to tell him what I needed as we walked around and he'd put it in the cart for me.

"I need milk."  He ran to grab it.

"I need grapes."  Done.

"I need flour,"  I said, pointing to a fifty pound bag.

My sixty-five pound son jumped at the chance to heft something nearly as big as he was.  Wrapping his arms around the bag, he lifted.  To his credit, he had it in his arms before gravity took over.  My son began bending backwards to compensate for the weight he carried.  Then the flour laid him out, right there on the aisle floor.  The monster bag of flour perched on his chest, the clear victor.  Trying to get air to his crushed lungs, my son gasped.

So did I, but I was laughing.

He had to suffer through several seconds before I controlled myself and lifted the flour into the cart.  It was heavy.  Still chuckling, we continued on down the aisle, passing another shopper who stopped us long enough to say, "That WAS funny."