Chatting

My social calendar is more full than it has ever been.  I meet people for lunch.  Rich and I get together with other couples for dinner.  I have a Wednesday night dinner group made up of other ladies married to company executives. 

(That sentence is funny to me.  It brings to mind a group of women in dresses and heels, sipping martinis and talking about JFK.  Or, as my children like to tease, it sounds like The Real Housewives of Thief River Falls.  Neither is true.  The dress code is very casual; most of us have jobs and the main topics of conversation revolve around the ups and downs of relocating our families.)

Of course we also have church and have made connections there.  I have even signed on to be a mentor mom for a new MOPS group that is starting here.  For those of you who don’t know, a mentor mom is someone who has survived the raising of preschoolers and is therefore considered qualified to advise other moms going through it.

Which is a long winded way of saying:  I am old.

All of these activities involve meeting new people.  Which, along with substitute teaching, means I am having to learn new names and faces at a rate which is taxing my brain and social skills.  Then, of course, I have to learn the stories that go with the names and faces.  For an introvert who generally tries to avoid meeting people, this is kind of a lot.  I spend most of my days feeling like I walked in on a movie that started before I got here.

“Wait - now who is that again?  And she’s married to the guy with the beard, right?  Oh! The guy in HR? Really? I thought he was with Sue.  Sue - the one with the three boys in college.  Her name isn’t Sue? What is it? … “

And so it goes.  I’m slowly getting up to speed with a handful of people I see regularly, but am still at surface level conversation most of the time.  I appreciate everyone’s willingness to talk to me at all.  They all have lives and families and circles of friends that existed before I got here.  I’m sure they don’t need to add in another person.  Goodness knows when I lived in Lincoln, I wasn’t seeking to add anyone else to my life.  So I appreciate everyone’s patience with my fumbling attempts at conversation.

Do you think it would be too much to ask for the entire town to wear nametags and carry short bios?

Babies

I really need to redo the photos on here.  That header?  Those kids don’t even exist any more.  Reagan has been through three hair colors since then, pierced her nose and added three tattoos (that I know of).  Hayden looks like a baby up there.  He’s probably six inches taller and has a beard for heaven’s sake.  Faith has probably grown that much too - her height I mean.  She doesn’t have a beard.

But a new header featuring my kids means all three in the same place at the same time in an agreeable mood with a photographer present.

So the header stays.

But here are updates on their lives:

That’s my favorite recent photo from Reagan’s Facebook page.  I haven’t seen her in person since August.  The cat is Persephone and is technically her roommate’s but they co-parent the cats.  Caspian is still alive and kicking … literallyReagan is a junior+.  If she sticks the “get me the heck out of college ASAP” schedule she’s set for herself, she will graduate next December.  I kind of wonder what the hurry is.  I suspect it has something to do with the fact that her boyfriend lives in L.A., but she says she’s just ready to get on with life and quit paying money to take dumb classes that she isn’t interested in but that a Liberal Arts degree requires.

A valid point.

In addition to the 15 credit hours she’s taking, she has a waitressing job and coaches a high school Slam Poetry team.  She’s also still heavily involved in Slam herself.  In August she went to Nationals in Oakland and competed for the Nebraska team.  The aforementioned boyfriend helps run a YouTube channel so she also gets roped into helping film events which she likes to do as it involves travel, Slam and the boyfriend.  

She’s kind of busy.  I marvel at all she juggles and miss her terribly.

This is a picture I took of Hayden when we dropped him off in August.  He does not participate in social media so I don’t have anything more recent.

Nor do I have any more than mere scraps of info about his life in college.  Here is what I do know:

• He has a roommate.  I guess they get along ok because I haven’t heard otherwise.
• The food in the residence hall is good.
• He’s going to class, not chronically oversleeping as I feared. This fact has been confirmed by other sources as well.
• He doesn’t like his Soils class.  I can’t imagine liking an entire class about dirt either.
• He says his grades are good.

That’s it.  That’s all I’ve got.  I need to see the boy soon as he’s much more forthcoming in person.

Faith is stuck up here in Minnesota with us.  That means she’s doing a LOT of adapting.  Adapting to a new town, new school, new dance studio, new church, new friends, new home, new dog … 

It’s a lot of adapting.

Most days she does pretty well, but I strongly suspect that if we were to pack up and move back to Lincoln tomorrow she would be thrilled.

Since that is not a choice, we keep pressing on.  That picture is from Homecoming.  She had vehemently decided to not go.  The thought of walking into the dance where she still didn’t know very many people (it was the second week of school) was overwhelming.  At diner the night of the dance she was scowling into her plate at dinner time, hating life. However, the young ladies who have befriended her kept bugging her until, an hour before the dance started, she decided to go.

Of course, shopping for a new dress was an impossibility so she pulled out one we bought a couple of months ago, brushed her hair, threw on some make up and was ready to go. (The friends in the athletic gear were dressed for the black lights.)

Oh to be 14 and lovely enough to pull off a trick like that.

Faith turns 15 on Saturday, which means that this post should definitely NOT be titled “Babies” but … 

that is what they will always be to me.

Autumn

I’m still here, but I don’t think a daily writing prompt will work for me.  I’m too bossy to be told what to write about ever day.

You aren’t shocked, are you?

I think I’ll try to go alphabetically instead.  A is for Autumn. This is the view off of my back patio yesterday morning:

I have been delighted by fall here.  Delighted by the apple trees in my yard and the colors of the trees.  Delighted by warm days and cold nights.  Super delighted by a normal sunrise/sunset schedule - the days of summer were LONG and it was very bright in my bedroom very early.  I prefer to greet the sun well after 6:30 a.m. when I can.

Mostly I’m just delighted that we have fall here.  It was always my favorite season in Lincoln, and I was afraid winter would come so early to Northern Minnesota that I’d miss it.  But nope.  It’s here and it’s glorious.

The only thing I don’t like is the wasps.  From mid-August to mid-September wasps are EVERYWHERE.  Seriously - it’s like an Armageddon Plague.  Makes mowing under the apple trees a dicey situation.  But they are mostly gone now which probably means winter is right around the corner. 

(sob) Hold me.

Things we did to celebrate fall:

Kayaking.After Hayden left, we went a few more times.  Luna even went along for one.  Honestly, though, Hayden is my best kayaking partner so I lost some steam after he was gone.  They’re in the garage now for the winter.

Homecoming:

Homecoming was the second week of school here and Faith felt like she didn’t know enough people to go to the dance so we did NOT dress shop.  That day though, she walked in the parade.

Oh the parade.

You guys - it was the BEST.  The whole town comes out for it.  They bus over the middle and elementary school kids to watch it.  There are “floats” for every sports team, club and organization.  There are floats for the royalty of course and several area businesses also participated.  They even loaded up the entire orchestra onto the bed of a semi and had them play “The Final Countdown” through the whole route. Faith walked with the sophomore class.  They were supposed to dress like what they want to be when they grow up.

Someone watches too much Criminal Minds.

So yes - autumn has been wonderful up here.  I’d like to get in one more bonfire in our fire pit before it’s too cold.  Maybe if I put that off, I can put off winter too!

You All Should Start A Betting Pool On How Long I Stick With This

In an attempt to get back into the blogging habit, I am shamelessly copying Joyce by participating in the 31 Day Challenge using the writing prompts from Five Minute Friday.  It is important to note:

1. I have not read through the 31 Day challenge AT ALL so if I’m doing it wrong, that’s why.
2. I may or may not use the writing prompts every day.  I’m going to start with them, and then we’ll see how it goes.
3. I’ve already missed the first day, so I’m going to use BOTH prompts today.  You may interpret that as genius or laziness.  

The prompt for yesterday was Calling and the prompt for today is Family.  Setting my timer for 5 minutes and …

If I were feeling terribly spiritual I’d go with that kind of calling and apply it to my family, but I’m not so I’m going to talk about actually calling.  Like on the phone.  I like to talk on the phone.  I especially like it when I’m tackling an unpleasant chore because talking distracts me from scrubbing or folding laundry and makes it fun.  Some of my family members are good about talking on the phone.  My mom is always up for a chat and if I can catch my sister when she isn’t shuttling kids to activities, she will talk with me for a while.

My kids?

Not so much.  Reagan does a pretty good job, but she’s so busy between work and school and coaching high school Slam Poetry teams that it’s hard to get her for more than a few minutes.  I try though because I just love to hear her voice.  Texting is fine, but doesn’t fulfill my mama need to hear my kid.

Hayden, on the other hand, is phone phobic.  It’s killing me.  He will answer the phone if I call, but then I just get monosyllabic answers to my questions and I can just tell that he’s dying to get off.  I’m sure that’s typical of boys as his dad and my dad are the same but I’m just dying for a meaty conversation with that kid.  Makes me anxious to see him in person!

Five minutes are up and I’m not done, but I’m going to stick to the rules today because I actually do have things to do.

Until tomorrow … or not. ;)

My Bearded Baby Boy

This is the oldest picture of Hayden on this blog:

It’s from his very brief football career in 2008.

This is the latest picture of Hayden, taken yesterday as he mowed the lawn for the last time.

Comparing the two makes me cry, which is fine because I’m pretty much just a blubbering, bawling, baby today.  Tomorrow we get in the car and drive the nine hours back to Lincoln to put my bearded baby boy into a residence hall and then we will drive nine hours back to Minnesota … 

without him.

I’m trying to focus on the positive:  There won’t be knives with globs of peanut butter on them in the sink anymore.  Bathrooms will be easier to clean.  I’ll have less laundry.  One less person to nag … 

It’s not working.  Still crying.  

Of my three kids, Hayden has taken the most hands-on parenting.  When he was little, he was the most physical so he literally needed my hands all the time.  As he grew and struggled with the challenges that come with ADHD, he required a lot of figurative hand holding.  I kind of thought that when it finally came time for him to leave home, there would be a measure of relief but, no.

In fact, the kid has done so much maturing over the last few months that he’s really become fun to have around and truly helpful.  One of the key things everyone should have when they’re packing up a house, moving to another state and then unpacking a house is a strong 18 year old boy.  Strong, 18 year old boys are darned handy to have around.  I don’t know what I would have done without him this summer.  He’s been good company and good help and… 

Darn it.  I’m going to miss this kid.

Of course the measure of successful parenting is that your kids grow up and leave home and goodness knows that I don’t actually want my adult children living with me forever.  But … I guess I just want them to not be adult children.  I want to freeze them in time for a while.  I want us to be a family of five living together for a while longer.  I want more snuggles and more dinners and more trips and more lazy Sundays.

Why isn’t that a choice?  I want that to be a choice.

Sending Reagan off wasn’t this hard.  She was three miles away for Pete’s sake and I could see her any old time I wanted to.  Besides, I still had two at home keeping me plenty busy.  Now I have two in another state and just poor Faith who gets to be the sole focus of my attention.

Probably you should pray for that poor girl.

So this week we send another child out into the world.  If he’s like his sister, this will be the last time he lives with us.  Or perhaps he’ll come home for summers.  I guess there’s always the possibility that he’ll stumble and need to come home to regroup.

I’m kinda thinking he’ll probably make it out there though.  He’s smart and funny and growing more capable every day.  He’s going to make some mistakes, but that’s how we learn.  And I want so much for him so succeed that it would be selfish to hope that he doesn’t just so I could get him back for a while.

So I’m just going to cry for what’s past and then move on to cheering for what is to come.