On balance.

Dear friends,

I saw a Tweet today that said “You can have it all — just not at once.”

It was immediately followed by this blog post from my friend Sizzle, who was reflecting on the one-year anniversary of the purchase of her first home, which prompted my own reminiscing about the four houses Mr. Mom and I have called home. Each of our houses was in a different city; each holds unique and special memories for our family; and each was perfect (despite its particular deficiencies) for the season of our lives in which we dwelled under its roof.

We have lived in a big-city, post-War cottage with loads of charm; a plain-Jane, suburban 70′s special; a majestic, turn-of-the-century “mansion” on a brick-paved street in the center of my beloved hometown; and a modern and spacious Ranch situated on a scenic Midwest acreage. We’ve clearly had it all (or most) over the course of 20+ years and I’m reminded that all of life is lived “on balance.”

Not long ago I counseled a young colleague who was fretting about “work-life” issues. I shared with her some of the lessons I’ve learned as a working mother and wife and I advised her not to think she could find equilibrium on any given day. I told her that over time I’ve learned to look for “balance” only when contemplating the entire span of my life because in any given hour, any given month, even in periods as long as a year or more, my life has been decidedly off-kilter.

I think about the many years I spent ungodly hours at the office and commuting long distances. I think about the three-year period I completed a Master’s Degree and did absolutely nothing but go to work and go to class. (I even “cancelled” Thanksgiving the year I wrote my thesis. Mr. Mom was a saint during those years, by the way.) I think about the years I fretted I would never again pursue a personal interest beyond raising my children and I thought “Hobbies? What are hobbies?”  I think about the entire year I selfishly focused all my energy on losing weight and getting fit for my impending marriage. (I did look ravishing in my wedding dress, only to get pregnant and gain 50 pounds six months later.) I think about the weeks I spent lying on the sofa eating buttered crackers in a depressed state because Kate had left for college. I even think about recent weeks when I’ve become a crazed and obsessive quilter, rushing home from the office each evening to pursue my latest project into the wee hours of the morning.

Maybe you’ve got a secret for achieving perfect (or even relative) balance on any given day. If so, please share your wisdom! I suspect, though, that most of us do what we must do in the moment we must do it, and find our search for balance fruitless unless we set our gaze on a very long horizon.

And you know what? I wouldn’t change a thing about my life. (Except maybe I would save more and spend less, but good lord, who wouldn’t?) I’ve been blessed with so very much and I suspect so much more is coming my way, including interesting and invigorating new friendships in our (still) new town, new hobbies, new career opportunities, new family members (grandchildren some day?), and certainly new opportunities to grow and learn through the pain and challenge that inevitably beset every soul on earth.

On balance, life’s been good to me (and apparently Joe Walsh) so far. Why crave it all when every single bite is so uniquely flavorful?

With gratitude {for discovering that perfect balance is a rather silly notion except in bike-riding and ballet},

Joan, who invites you to leave a comment about the season of life you’re experiencing right this moment

In the nest.

Dear friends,

Kate came home last night. When she and Mr. Mom drove up just as the sun was going down, my shoulders relaxed a little and I couldn’t help but sigh in relief. I gave them both big hugs in the driveway and thought about how lucky any mother is to experience a homecoming of loved ones.

We spent the evening hauling boxes, unpacking, and listening to her funny college stories — all four of us plus her boyfriend, Jake, and her dog, SweetPea, piled on her her bed as if it were a life boat and we might drown if we left her side.

I couldn’t be more content to have her back in my nest for the summer. I hope we’ll make time for all kinds of fun, like watching old episodes of West Wing, going on float trips, participating in our annual girls weekend, making shopping trips to St. Louis, and engaging in any other activity that sparks our mutual interest during the glorious 90 days of summer she’ll spend in Missouri.

Kate’s looking for a seasonal job and enrolling in two summer classes, so her schedule will no doubt be tight. Still, just the opportunity to cook a few of my special “Sunday Suppers” while she’s home will satisfy this hen’s need to fuss over her chicks. Oh, and I hope to finish her quilt so she can go back to school knowing there’s nothing better than a mother’s love in which to wrap oneself tightly.

By the way, we had a fabulous time in Phoenix. Kate’s team lost in the “Round of 16″ but they gave the #3 team in the nation a run for their money in a very competitive match. Given the ordeal our girls have been through, I’d say just qualifying for the National Championship was a victory. They only lost one player to graduation, so they’re a young team with a highly promising future.

As you might imagine, I took a ton of photos during our four-day trip.  I won’t bore you with a travelogue, but I will share with you this favorite from the tournament awards banquet:

With gratitude {for my favorite girls, tennis, travel, vacation time with family, and all things summer},

Joan, who would love to hear what you’ve got planned for your summer

Tough love.

Dear friends,

I’ve got tennis fever. It’s that time of year so I can’t do anything but spread my disease to you. Forgive me, won’t you?

Here’s the first cool thing I want to share:

My girls won their match 5-0 last weekend and now they’re headed to the Sweet Sixteen in Phoenix.

So am I, by the way. My plane ticket is purchased, my rental car is reserved and my hotel room is booked. I’ve done everything but pack my bags, which will happen on Sunday. I leave on Tuesday, and the girls start play on Wednesday. They will play every day until they lose.  I will scream loudly every day until they lose, or until I fry in the Phoenix sun, which with recent highs of 100+ might come sooner than one thinks. Either way, I’ll be in heaven even if the temps feel like hell.

Did I mention MY GIRLS ARE GOING TO THE SWEET SIXTEEN?!!!!

Oh, sorry. I’m suffering from a kind of Tennis Tourette’s and I can’t stop blurting it out.

Here’s another cool thing: My boy’s doing pretty good too.

We’ve lost track, but he’s won something like 12 straight matches. Recently, he served 11 aces in a single match. At 6’7″ tall, his serve is formidable. His doubles partner is about the same height, but weighs a good 30 pounds more than Parker. To say they are an intimidating duo at the net is an understatement.  I’ve heard tell some of their opponents are skeered. Don’t blame ‘em a bit.

The other day, one of his less experienced teammates was so awed by Parker’s serving display he later asked “Has anyone ever returned one of your aces?” I don’t mean to poke fun, but we sure got a belly laugh out of that one. You see, by definition, an ace is an UNRETURNED serve.  (So the answer is no.) You gotta love the kiddos that are working hard to learn the game.

While I’m in Phoenix following Kate’s team in the National Championship, Mr. Mom will be home following Parker’s team in District and Regional competition. Both are rough assignments, but we’re the kind of parents that don’t shy away from the hard jobs.

I know they’ll thank us some day for our tough love.

With gratitude {for two kids who make me proud every day to be their mother, not because they happen to be terrific tennis players, but because they happen to be terrific souls who also play my favorite sport},

Joan, who resisted the headline “by the time I get to Phoenix” because quoting Glen Campbell ages her more than she cares to admit

A totally gratuitous photo op with no point whatsoever except to please me.

Dear friends,

There is no point to this post.

Except I tripped across this old photo and the mother in me swooned.

I had no choice except to post the photo here. As large as possible. I already posted it as large as possible on Facebook and so — in the immortal words of my favorite officer and gentleman — I ain’t got nowhere else to go!

Yes, that’s my boy. At age three with a very cute dog.

Here’s him at age 17 with a very cute dog.

Lawzy, that boy loves his dogs.

And oh how his mother loves her boy.

With gratitude {for the magic of old photos},

Joan, who promises to return you to regular programming and to avoid further gratuitous photos of her children

. . . until she can’t any longer.

Late Breaking News: Here’s how long it lasted — 12 hours. Parker posted this photo of him and Lily Pad on Instagram and I couldn’t resist copying it here. A boy and his dog . . . an endlessly explorable photographic topic.

 

She ain’t nothing but a hound dog.

Dear friends,

Meet Lily Pad.

Her name is Lily but, of course, I prefer Lily Pad. (Two-name first names are a big deal in my family in case you don’t remember so she’s getting the VIP treatment.) Parker suggested I call her Lady Lily Pad but I think Her Highness the Duchess of Lily Pad is more distinguished.

I snapped this photo of her in the truck on the way home Sunday. She assumed this position about 10 minutes into our 5-hour drive and slept the entire way home. I loved her the minute I met her in a parking lot on Friday afternoon. But once I saw that wrinkly forehead that is the telltale sign of a hound dog, I swooned and knew she’d always be ours.

Her foster mom told us she is part Labrador Retriever and part Redbone Coonhound. Based on appearance and personality, she seems all hound. She sniffs as if it’s an Olympic sport and she’s a gold medalist. And she’s definitely got the energy and drive of an Olympian. She’s a bit hardheaded but she’s also so very sweet. She’s the first big dog that I’d consider living inside my home — assuming she’s trainable, of course. Right now, she’s a puppy on overdrive and we’re just trying to survive the first month of puppy parenting, which involves crate training and keeping everything you own from being chewed into smithereens.

Ed has been friendly to her (Ed’s friendly to everybody though). Sweetpea has not. In fact, Sweetpea acts as if she wishes Lily Pad would suddenly disappear. Or die. Sushi the cat is terribly worried, as evidenced by a panicked stare and a forehead almost as wrinkly as Lily’s.

Parker is trying to get used to rising early and turning in late so he can walk Lily before school and at bedtime. Mr. Mom is trying to get used to a demanding daycare schedule for what is essentially a highly mobile, diaperless infant with very sharp teeth. (Lordy, lordy I forgot how much work puppies are.) I apparently am in the catbird seat because I don’t have to walk her or train her and I get the pleasure of enjoying her company on my schedule.

And isn’t that a convenient way to have a baby?

With gratitude {for all the good and bighearted folks in the dog rescue world, especially the Oklahoma woman who is responsible for getting Lily to us},

Joan, who wishes to warn you in advance that you will likely tire of Lily photos and stories long before she does

A love letter.

Dear Kate,

Twenty years ago, I fell in love with you.

At 8:00 am on March 8, 1993, you took your first breath outside my womb and made your presence known. Until that moment, I had never before witnessed perfection.

Until that moment, I didn’t know love could be so big and so strong. I felt overwhelming love deep in my bones when I held you, and I saw it on the faces of your Father and your Grannie the first times they held you.

After your birth, the doctor told your Father you were a footling breach. That means you were right side up when you should have been upside down. And your umbilical cord was wrapped around your foot. The doctor said it was very dangerous and you could have died during birth.

You didn’t, of course. The doctor didn’t know you. She didn’t know my CupKate who’s never made a fuss in her life. Who always bucks up, head up, and makes things work. It was the first big sign of who you are, that you could have been a big mess, a child full of drama and complications, who instead came out perfect and perfectly poised.

From that day on, I have fallen in love with you another 7,300 times, basically every day I have known you.

My heart is bigger because of you. My touch is gentler because of you. My instincts are kinder because of you. My soul is filled with gratitude and hope and optimism because of you. I am excited about the future because of you.

Did you know you impressed your Dad and me from the start? He loves to tell the story of how smart you were even as a baby, a baby who got caught sneaking away noisily the first time and crawled away quietly the second time. He loves to tell the story of how you walked miles with him on a cold winter day at age two.

He loves to tell the story of how calm and brave you were after the neighbor’s crazy dog bit you. Of how charmingly superstitious yet stoic you are. Of how enormous your love and loyalty are. Of how sound your judgement is. Of how, every day of his life, you have loved and cared for your brother.

Me? I just love to tell the story of you. It’s the best story I know.

Happy birthday, my sweet baby Kate.

With gratitude {for the gift of you},

Mom

Butt Nakey.

Dear friends,

This is my boy.

He has hops.

Hops is what you say when you want to be urban-cool and you mean “He can jump.” I’m not urban-cool but I want to appear to be in front of my boy so I say hops.

He has big hops.

I am in love with my boy.

I loved him when he was a baby, depriving me of sleep for most of my 30s with his incessant, nocturnal restlessness and fussing.

I loved him when, at age three, he nightly sang a song called “Butt Nakey.” I’m pretty sure he meant “buck naked” but you have to admit butt nakey is far more lyrical. He always seemed to have an ear for that sort of thing.

He sang his original composition at full volume, not surprisingly while naked, typically after a bath and before pajamas.

Sometimes he sang it while chasing his sister.

She hated the Butt Nakey song.

She also hated his second favorite song, “Here Comes the Penis,” which he often sang immediately following “Butt Nakey.” “Here Comes the Penis” required a special guitar riff, which he played, also while naked, also while chasing his sister.

I love to remind my boy of how much I love him. I reminded him the other night, while telling the Butt Nakey story in front of company, and his facial expression suggested he doubted the sincerity of my declaration of love.

A couple of days later, he tweeted the following: I saw a unicorn today. Okay, I saw a girl who ate a meal without posting a picture of it on Instagram. Same thing.

I think he was taunting me. I think his Tweet was retaliation for talking about Butt Nakey.

I won’t hold it against him.

I’m too much in love to succumb to resentment.

With gratitude {for a son who has made me smile every day of his life and will forgive me for my immense love and the stories it spawns},

Joan, who has been teasing her boy of late for his “No-Shave November” beard but only because that’s her job as his mother and she doesn’t want him to know she secretly loves his beard, too

Putting on your big-girl panties.

Dear friends,

This is a photo my CupKate posted on Twitter Friday night of her tennis team.

I wish I could tell you they were dressed up for a happy occasion, but that’s not the case. Instead, they were going out to dinner with their coach to tell him goodbye.

Not long after Kate arrived in August for the start of her freshman year, it became clear there were issues with the tennis program. I’m not going to air dirty laundry that’s not mine to air. (In fact, I know very little. One thing you learn quickly after your child goes to college is that parents have little-to-no rights to information.) I’ll simply say the fall season was cancelled and the coach is leaving following an NCAA investigation.

It was a shocking development to say the least. Kate and I spent all of last year touring eight different colleges. I had pinned my hopes on a private Jesuit university several hours away, but Kate chose her current location — a small public university in our home state — because she instantly bonded with the coach and with these girls. I adjusted, and to say we both set sail with high hopes is an understatement.

But you know what? The universe immediately handed Kate a difficult but valuable lesson, chiefly that life doesn’t always work out like you planned. Two weeks into what Kate imagined would be an idyllic college tennis career, life smacked her upside the head with a big dose of adult reality: humans makes mistakes, institutions are fallible, and life goes on. I’m proud to say Kate put on her big-girl panties immediately and has been dealing with it in the most admirable way.

Kate is the only American player on her team. The other seven girls hail from Morocco (the girl in purple to the right of Kate, who is Kate’s roommate), France, Russia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. I don’t know if cultural differences have played a role, or if it’s a matter of youth, but I can tell you Kate’s teammates were having difficulty navigating the complexities and uncertainties of this very difficult situation.

So I sprang into action. If there’s one thing I know how to do and do well, it’s how to navigate administrative and organizational hurdles. Some would say I’ve made a career out of  making bureaucracy work to my advantage. I became the team’s ombudsman, advising them, scripting them, helping them prepare and organize their inquiries and responses and, hopefully, calming their nerves. The girl nicknamed “Frenchy” started calling me “the Tiger” (la tigre).

When Kate told me this, I laughed out loud. If you’ve followed the controversy over author Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, you know I’m more of a laissez-faire kitten-mother than a tiger. Still, I knew the name was offered with affection and gratitude and I pledged to wear it as a badge of honor (despite the Asian stereotype). And I couldn’t help but think of the seven other mothers, thousands of miles and four languages removed from their daughters’ situations, and hope it would give them comfort knowing one of us is well positioned to help.

None of us have any idea what the future will bring. A new coach, certainly. How that will affect these girls, their tennis careers, their college experiences and, ultimately, their adult lives is anybody’s guess. I advised Kate to ride out the year and see what unfolds — and she’s doing that with her famously mature approach.

The truth is — she had a drawer full of big-girl panties before she went to college so I had nothing to worry about.

With gratitude {for a girl who can roll with the punches with the best of them},

Joan, aka la tigre du tennis meres

Happy, happy. Tingly, tingly.

Dear friends,

I’m currently counting down the days until October 17, which is the evening Kate will arrive home from college for Fall Break.

Besides the fact that I can’t wait to see CupKate again, Fall Break is my absolute favorite (quasi-)holiday. Mr. Mom and I were married on Fall Break in 1991. That’s right, we celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary next week. And Parker turns 17 a couple of days later. So between Kate coming home, an anniversary to celebrate, and a birthday that allows me to spoil my favorite teenage boy, I’ve got a lot to look forward to. Oh, and did I mention I’m taking two days off so I can really soak it up?

First though, I’ve got a bit of work to do. It’s one of those weeks around my office . . . you know, a week that involves three consecutive dinner events, a 7:00 am business breakfast, and a 14-hour work day on Saturday. So if you don’t hear from me much, don’t worry.  By Sunday, I’ll be collapsed on the sofa, tired but smiling as Fall Break approaches.

With gratitude {for that happy-tingly sensation I get every autumn as family celebrations roll around},

Joan, who spent an enjoyable hour on Sunday decorating her mantle with autumn/Halloween items as a “welcome home” for Kate who, according to Twitter, seems to be as anxious as her mother for Fall Break to get here already

The vote.

Dear friends,

In 1916, my grandmother Marie was an 18-year-old girl living in Oklahoma. As such, she was denied the right to vote in that year’s presidential election between Woodrow Wilson and Charles Hughes. (Interestingly, Oklahoma was one of 30 “blue” states that carried Wilson to the White House. My how times have changed!)

I have often reminded myself that a mere two generations separate my grandmother and me from the right to vote, and I hold  precious the right to have a say at the ballot box.

Therefore, it won’t surprise you that I have emphasized that point to my daughter repeatedly, including in no less than three text messages last week in which I urged her to register in time for the upcoming election. “It’s your first presidential election!” I implored. “It’s a milestone in your life you don’t want to miss.”

Despite my strong views on politics, I have tried to be a bi-partisan parent. Whenever Mr. Mom and I have discussed the subject of politics with our children, we have always followed our “this is my view” comments with alternative arguments. (Since Mr. Mom and I don’t always agree, we sometimes stand as alternative arguments for each other!)

So it surprised me to get a text from Kate while she was registering to vote last week asking the question “Am I a Republican or Democrat?”  I had to chuckle because no one could argue I’ve brainwashed her.

“I don’t know,” I texted back. “You have to decide for yourself.”

Like so many children, when I first registered, I aligned myself with the party of my parents. Lifelong Republicans, my parents represented two extremes of the party. My father is very conservative and my mother was far more liberal. (My social-justice streak certainly comes from my mother who was a letter-to-the-editor-writing champion of the disadvantaged.) But both wore the GOP hat and so did I. Until I moved to Boston.

Living for two years in my early 20s in a state like Massachusetts shaped my worldview. It was a place where old money, new immigrants, and liberal politics (featuring the likes of Ted Kennedy and Barney Frank) were the ingredients for an alluring blend of cultural goulash. While there, I switched parties and have remained a Democrat throughout my adulthood.

Still, I expect my children to form their own views and draw their own conclusions about candidates, about political ideology, about public policy.

I was busy at work when Kate texted me about her potential affiliation, so after I told her to decide for herself, I missed her follow-up text asking which party the President belongs to.

I later learned from Mr. Mom that Kate subsequently texted her boyfriend for help. I chuckled again thinking that’s probably better anyway.

I’ll let him take the fall for any bad advice.

With gratitude {for all my rights as a US citizen, including suffrage},

Joan, who looks forward to voting in her 8th presidential election and hopes her daughter appreciates the vision and fortitude of women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who said “The heyday of a woman’s life is the shady side of fifty”