Then and Now

Reading through the various pieces I have authored, one can see that much of what I write about pertains to my current life with 2.5 children, a dog that is so human she should be considered a child, and a husband who, God love every inch of him and his greatness, is a child as well. That said, I have been thrust into a life where I am currently raising four children with one on the way while at the same time, not always feeling like I am a grown-up myself until I have to send off a bill or have some random family member reveal a deep, dark secret that was reserved only for those who are old enough to hear it, making you wish you were still all of 16 and considered too immature to handle the drama of real life. Once in a while, when I am allowed to listen to my music instead of Dora from the DVD player (love it when the headphones actually stay on...) a song from my college days/single post-college days will play and I am instantly transported to memories that don't even seem to belong to the same person that I am now. Now before we start to think that I have "lost myself" and could be suffering from depression, let me add the disclaimer that I truly to do love my life and love where I am.. It just always amazes me and stops me in my tracks when I think back to who I was before I became 34 years old with almost three children...I remember jumping off a bridge that connects Sanibel and Captiva Islands when I was 17 years old after an afternoon of consuming, shall we say, beverages that were not legal for someone my age to consume. We all laughed and had a fantastic time as we plunged to the ocean below and it was not until years later when I was relaying this story to my mother that I reazlied how incredibly stupid this was and how easily it could have turned out to have a not-so happy ending. My mother looked at me incredulously and simply stated that the undertow beneath that bridge was legendary and most people do not attempt to swim in that area let alone jump from the bridge to the water below...The mother in me wants to vomit to think of my own children doing something like this someday but yet I know they will because though I did have a mild wild streak, I was still your average teenage girl that had crushes on boys, made good grade (OK, decent), and was very active in extra-curriculars (the real ones,not boys and drinking, though I sometimes did indulge in these as well). One of my friends also loves to tell a story in which I wrote various words with my big toe on the windshield of a car in which I was riding in at 3 a.m. while eating a leftover piece of pizza...Lovely...I could certainly go on, but my point is to simply illustrate the fact that I often stop dead in my tracks and laugh at the fact that I am now raising children that make me wear my heart on the outside of my body - once they reach their teens, I will be fully-aware of what is going on and be sick with worry. Classic Old Spice likes to joke that when our children are trying to pull off all-nighters with friends (you know the drill - I am staying at Jill's house and she is staying at my house and bingo! No one expects us home...) or simply thinking that they concocted a good story that their parents just might believe, it will be me that will call their bluff rather than the much more tame and mild-mannered him. I do take issue with this as his halo is not quite as golden as he would like for us all to believe, but he is probably correct in that I have "been there, done it" with whatever they try to pull. What I do have now that I did not have before is wisdom and to be honest, fear. I used to ride roller-coasters without a second thought while now the idea of getting on one makes me nervous and clammy. I never gave flying in an airplane another thought until I realized how much I had to lose should my plane go down. I used to casually smoke when I was out with friends and the thought of it now makes me ill. I have recently become interested in my genetic history (long story on this one - let's just say that I was conceived through artificial insemination in the 1970's so there is half of my DNA that I am unsure of which of course, now affects my children) whereas I have never given this another thought though I have known this information for quite some time. I look at strange men (and women for that matter) who glance a little too long at my children with a look that is not the friendly smile that I might show a stranger but instead a scowl of a mama bear protecting her cubs from a hunter. This aside, I also must chuckle that I have, though this is difficult to admit, become not as hip as I once was. There are times when I look at myself after I have picked up Missy Moo from preschool, gone to Target, and stopped by the bank and the dry cleaners' and truly am stunned that I would ever even step foot out of my bedroom looking like I did let alone parade myself all over town. In fact, a few weeks ago, a woman (probably a sympathetic fellow mommy) stopped me on my way out of Target to tell me that I had a Cinderella sticker stuck to my arse...How lovely to bring attention to an area of my body that seems to be expanding along with my pregnant belly and who better to showcase it than Cinderella? What recently caused me to stop and laugh out loud was a radio report on "Max and Emme"...Feeling so cool that I knew the broadcaster was talking about the sister/brother combo on "Dragon Tales" and why on earth would they be talking about them on the radio?, I was taken down a few notches when he reported that these were the names that JLo and Marc Anthony had chosen for their recently-born twins. The fact that I know Max and Emme are the children on "Dragon Tales" astounds me but then I know theme songs to almost all major kid's programs and can rattle off all of the characters of Dora in my sleep. Scarily enough, I also have this amazing talent that allows me to create a made-up story following the exact pattern of the show (Who do we ask for help when we don't know which way to go? The map!) while jotting down my grocery list. This talent will not win me millions of dollars nor will it give me a first place on Star Search but if I must confess to a dirty little secret, this is my favorite newly-discovered talent I have yet to uncover. I also like that I am the only one who knows where the poms-poms are located, the one that possesses the great knowledge of how to paint fingernails, the one who can kiss boo-boo's and make the tears disappear, the one who knows how to do "Snug as a Bug" just right...No, I would not trade this version for what I was - OK, maybe just once in a while for a night or so...