I just spent over an hour deleting over 300 spam comments. Which is, I guess, a literal dusting off the old blog. The back end of this website has always been a bit of a mess but it’s been around since the dinosaur ages of blogging and with the exception of pretty much everything I wrote in 2004 — which was essentially just me talking about Survivor and all other fictional characters I was emotionally invested in stop judging it was very new territory I was just finding my stride and my courage to write about things like how hard raising children can actually be and about mental illness — I want to hang on to all of these archives. I used to write five days a week (five!) and you guys, I used to be really funny. But also, I am so thankful to have an actual day-to-day record — baby books, if you will! — of what happened in our family’s life from 2004-2017.
So, I fight the urge to wipe it all clean and get myself a free blogger.com site and just write words and keep this space around, and every once in a while go in to clean out all the spammy stuff and try to fix the broken things but usually end up breaking more things and never fixing anything at all.
All of this is to say that I’m back. Because there are still words to say. And even though I’ve had a year and even though blogging has changed and I don’t even know if people read any of them anymore of it they just read news stories shared on Facebook now I’m going to just go ahead and say my words. I hope you’ll read them.
As I fumble towards 40 {this May} there are most certainly some signs of age that are constant daily reminders that I’m officially one of the elderly — the face lines that no longer go away when I stop smiling, I have now found exactly three white hairs in my eyebrows, I have changed the zoom on word docs from 100% to *gasp!* 125%, I hate the mall, I found myself nodding along with Angela Chase’s parents, I would spend a lot of money on good cheese, I remind everyone to take a sweater, and the idea of compression socks is juuuuust a little bit appealing.
But the thing in my life that makes me feel less old and more OLD!!!! is
HAVING TEENAGERS. It’s really a bold and all-caps thing, I swear. And not just because they speak a different language than I do — Low key, cheesed, NIM, goals, extra, gucci, goat, catch feelings, sus, basic, lit, shook. I mostly just use this a platform to make fun of them which makes them even more teenagery.
In a not-unlike-Elf move, I took the three kids to see the pediatrician last week. Someone needed a shot of some sort and everyone was eager for a height check.
The waiting room was filled with moms and babies and toddlers and Bubble Guppies (which I had to be told was Bubble Guppies because I am old) was on the television. I worried that my kids might be a big over it and give me a hard time with a baby doctor, but instead it turned into what should be a pilot episode of a new sitcom, a cable sitcom because it was way too good for network or the Disney channel. As this was a new doctor, there was a lot of paperwork to fill out and receptionist looked at my three children who are 12, 14, and 16 and then looked at me and then smiled and handed them each a clipboard.
“You’ll need to fill these out while Mom sits and watches Bubble Guppies.”
Things at least one of my children didn’t know: Their health card numbers. Our home phone number. What their father does for a living. What my cell phone number is. How old Josh is. If they have asthma (they all do).
The doctor met with each of my kids separately for the private-y issues and then met with the four of us as a group first to discuss things like eating healthy and school and electronics usage and their vitals. Their blood pressure is all normal even thought Emily convinced us that hers was off the charts bad. They are 5’4 and a half, 5’1, and 5 and a half, which is significant because 4-years-younger sister is going to overtake 4-years-old sister in just a few months, if not weeks and this is a BIG DEAL in our house which should’t have the word BIG in there anywhere because I only know how to make small people but they all made it to five feet tall which was the lofty thing I had prayed for when each one of them was born. Huzzah. He talked to them about their bathroom habits and even brought out his trusty poop chart and told everyone that a number 3 on the chart was #poopgoals. He talked them about the fact that none of them sleep. Ever. My children might be vampires.
Emily was in a very Emily mood, Josh was in a very Josh mood, and Isabella was in a very Isabella mood. Which meant that I spent 90% of our trip to the pediatrician apologizing for my children being mysteries. I threw my arms up in the air in a very “I don’t even know who they are” gesture. But the good doctor proceeded to tell me that it was the most fun he has had at work in weeks because no offense to babies and toddlers but they are just a little baby-ish and toddler-ish at the pediatrician and truthfully most of them just cry because of shots and other doctory fears.
But also because babies and toddlers are simple. It’s a basic needs thing with them. Are they eating? Sleeping? Pooping? Are they watching Bubble Guppies?
And teenagers are NOT SIMPLE. They are complex creatures. The doctor found them sitcom-worthy entertaining. I find them EXACTLY A MYSTERY.
This week I was watching Scream Queens and this scene between Emma Roberts and Uncle Jesse made me actually laugh audibly:
Brock: “My mother was the one who wanted me to become a doctor ’cause she really loved M*A*S*H.”
Chanel: “Wait. What? Mash, like… Oh, like mash potatoes?”
Brock: “No. Like, M*A*S*H the TV show. You know. Took place during the Korean War? But it was really about Vietnam?”
Chanel: (HUMMING) “Uh…”
Brock: “Only the most popular television show in the history of TV?
Chanel: “I think you mean Boy Meets World.”
And then made me gather my children in front of my ipad in my office to force them to watch it because as I work to figure out these three mysteries are this is the thing I need to remember.
They are Boy Meets Worlds living in a M*A*S*H world.
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