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

The happy thing. Part 1.

Dear friends,

Remember yesterday when I said I had a million-bazillion things running through my head — some happy, some tearful, some funny, and so on? Well, here’s one of the happy things:

Bloggers Karen and Wendy over at After the Kids Leave gave me a big ol’ shout-out on their blog. They think I’m awesome (awesome?) and said I remind them “of the importance of being happy for what life has given us.”

Here’s the deal. They are way cooler than me and THEY HAVE 507 FOLLOWERS. (I have 41.) So I’m, like, wow. Thank you, Karen and Wendy. It’s pretty neato-bandito to know somebody besides my family and hometown friends are reading.

Their recognition involves paying it forward, which I’m happy to do. But first, I’m supposed to tell you 7 things about myself. The way I blather on and on  — well, I just can’t imagine there’s anything you don’t already know about me (especially any reader who followed me over from my old blog). But I’ll jump in because lord knows I can talk about myself.

1. I used to be a clown. Really.  The kind with a painted face, funny wig and costume who performed with other clowns doing things like tumbling, pantomime, and silly skits. Say what you want, but I contend that juggling and entertaining finicky audiences of all ages was the best training ever for a working mother, wife and executive.
2. The best decision I ever made was marrying Mr. Mom. If I would have turned left instead of right back in 1988, my life would be totally different. I’m grateful every single day for our abiding partnership.
3. The best compliment I ever got (Carole are you reading?) is that I’m always game. Carole is a dear friend who once told me the thing she likes most about me is that I’m always up for whatever wacky adventure she wants to pursue. Need a partner in crime? Need a Mikey to take the first bite? Call Joan. (Also, see point number 1.)
4. Mr. Mom would tell you the thing he was attracted to most when we were dating is that I can keep a confidence. I know. That’s an unexpected thing to hear about a woman who now blogs (blabs) to the world, but back then, I was as tight-lipped as a Soviet spy. Case in point: (PSSSST — I’M REVEALING STATE SECRETS NOW) When Mr. Mom met me, I was going to college and living with my father, who was a bookie. Much later when Mr. Mom put two-and-two together and realized I hadn’t said a word to him about my father and none of my friends knew either, he decided I was a woman he could trust.
5. Ready for a bombshell? I used to belong to a religious cult. At least that’s what some people called it. To me, it was a post-college phase that didn’t last long but scared the bejesus out of my family. I wrote an essay about it. Maybe I’ll share it someday. (This revelation is further evidence of point number 3.)
6. If I could remake my life and be anybody or anything, I envision myself as a revolutionary, a la Emma Goldman or Margaret Sanger or Noam Chomsky or Che Guevara or Cesar Chavez or Ralph Nadar or Crystal Lee Sutton (“Norma Rae”). I once said my epitaph would be “She was a free spirit struggling to transcend the constraints of a conventional life,” but maybe that’s just the romantic in me.
7. Maybe the thing I like most about myself is my determination. “The Mountain” notwithstanding, I’ve got the fortitude of a marathoner. I’ve never thought I had enough intellect or talent to win anything, but play the perseverance game and I’ll come out on top every time. I watched a mother with no education, scarce resources and three alcoholic husbands set her jaw and endure hardship every day of her life, so I’ve never doubted for one second I could outlast the SOBs. (Holy cow, I might just have drummed up the mustard to beat those Unfriendlys!)

So that’s it. Tomorrow, I’ll spread the love to blogs I adore. Please come back. Learning about those folks is far more entertaining than hearing about me.

With gratitude {for two new readers who inspired me to contemplate my life, which is always a welcome exercise in thanksgiving},

Joan, who never really aspired to be a clown, per se, but joined the troupe her freshman year of high school to be near a senior boy she was sweet on and ended up performing for four years straight

So long sweet summer.

Dear friends,

This is how I spent my last weekend of summer –

Cooking (grilled salmon, pasta, assorted salads, barbequed chicken, baked french toast, biscuits and gravy, green chili enchiladas and more) . . .

baking (apple pie, apple-pineapple crostini) . . .

decorating (tablescapes, new arrangements for the mantle and buffet, flower arranging) . . .

and mothering (big hello and goodbye hugs,  staying up late for long talks, relaxing on the sofa with every person and critter in our household piled on with me, watching movies, passing out money and, of course, all that cooking).

It was three days of bliss I won’t soon forget. I even worked in a couple of naps, some leisurely reading, and lots of the US Open. It was the perfect end to summer, a much-needed respite before the busy fall, a luxury for a homebody who’s called away all too often.

With gratitude {for 72 hours of full-nesting},

Joan, who feels a new sense of energy and says bring on the fall

Home sweet home.

Dear friends,

I got the best surprise ever last night. Kate called after dinner to say her tennis coach cancelled their practice scheduled for Sunday and gave her a free pass for Monday — so she’s home for the long weekend!

I ‘m absolutely giddy about having my CupKate home for an unplanned visit. I made Pioneer Woman’s Baked French Toast this morning and I’m just waiting for the aroma to wake the kids.

By the way, it’s still raining slow and steady  in our neck of the woods. I feel blessed beyond measure — Mother Nature is smiling upon us and we’re all together under one roof. I’m one Mamma who couldn’t be happier.

With gratitude {for three days with the three people I love most},

Joan, who’s not leaving the kitchen this weekend and whose holiday culinary line-up includes barbecued chicken and baked beans, grilled salmon and Midnight Pasta, and green chili chicken enchiladas

Two years.

Dear friends,

Nineteen years ago, our first child was born. I can remember with vivid clarity the concentrated emotion surrounding that event. For the first two years of Kate’s life, her father and I had a laser focus on her every need, emotion, and developmental milestone. Any new parent knows the feeling I’m talking about. It was frightening in some ways, but magical in so many more. We were a family of three — perfectly contained, thoroughly in love, completely content.

Then Parker came along and the whole dynamic changed. A family of four is entirely different than a family of three. And when the siblings are born 2-3 years apart, as ours were, the children can become their own self-contained unit, far more content to entertain each other and less needy of their parents’ attention. We were blessed that Kate and Parker developed a close relationship and enjoyed each other’s company right up until the moment Kate went to college.  We’ve been the four amigos for a very long time. (Well, 16 years to be exact.)

So it occurs to me now that — just as we enjoyed two years alone with Kate when she was a baby — we will now have two years alone with Parker. We’re a family of three again — two parents with a laser focus on one child.

I know. Kate will be home for holidays and such . . . and we’ll always really be a family of four, Lord willing, but it feels once again like we’re a family of three.

For example, there’s only three voices in the dinner conversation now. And only one of them is our child, so we’re naturally more attentive. It’s interesting, lisenting to this solo son’s voice without an echo or an interruption or an aside from his sister. In some ways, he’s on his own two feet for the first time since he was born. I wonder what he makes of it. I hope he’s enjoying our  undivided attention.

I’m certainly enjoying giving it to him. I’m enjoying listening to his voice with a new ear, one not distracted by another child’s concerns. I’m enjoying his company in a way completely different but just as satisfying as that of his sister so many years ago. When Kate was an only child, I read Dr. Seuss to her. I played with her. I cuddled her. Now that Parker is an “only” child, I watch reality television with him. I discuss social media with him. I seek his opinion on politics, community events, and family priorities.

Two wildly different stages of parenting, but still one deeply satisfied and appreciative mother.

With gratitude {for two years — then and now — as well as all the years before and after},

Joan, who just discussed with her son his essay comparing the sociological imaginations of Socrates and Forrest Gump and thinks adult conversations with your children are awfully cool

Some unrelated thoughts indicative of my state of mind.

Dear friends,

So I’ve got about a thousand things running through my mind this week, none of which add up to anything meaningful but all of which are eminently fascinating to me.

Such as:

• Parker got a job. At his parents’ urging. He’s busing tables and mopping floors at a steakhouse conveniently located one mile from our house. He’s making minimum wage. He’s busting his butt and coming home tired. His parents can’t stop smiling. Especially his mother. Especially in response to the statement “It was mayhem Mom! I mean, I worked non-stop for FOUR hours.”
• I decided that with all my newfound spare time — what with a daughter away at college and a son at work — that I would read. Read books. Books I’ve had on my list for a while but never gotten around to. Right now, I can’t put down Gun Fight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America. I was looking for an objective treatment of the subject and I’m not sure I found it, but I’m tripping over all sorts of interesting facts I didn’t know. Warning: I’m neither a “gun nut” (read: NRA fanatic) nor a “gun grabber” (read: raging liberal who wants to disarm America) that the author uses as his archetypes, but I am interested in the debate, I’m married to a man with a different perspective on the topic than mine, and I want to be more informed on the facts and not the rhetoric. I’ll let you know if I think the book ultimately has anything to add to the dialogue.  Next up: Fraud and Half Empty, both by the brilliant David Rackoff.
• My dear sweet Kate is doing just fine.
• My minimalist phase continues (new books notwithstanding). I spent the last couple of days de-cluttering my master bedroom. There’s now a three-tiered television stand with nothing on it but a television. It’s weirdly . . . vacant looking. But in a really calming way.
• Does it count if I took some of the clutter to my office? I know. It probably doesn’t, but, among other things, I couldn’t bear to discard my “Tulsa” snowglobe. And yet it was imperative that I get it out of my home. Is this kind of emotional oxymoron (I must get rid of it! I must keep it!) the sign of a breakdown? Or is it merely phased detachment? If “phased detachment” (a term I totally just made up) sounds better, I’m going with that one.
• When Kate left home, I stopped running. Remember that interval training we were doing? Yeah. I fell off the wagon without the incentive of early morning mother-daughter bonding.
• I have bitten off every last one of my nails. I do that when I get anxious. I’ve been a nail-biter for as long as I can remember. It drives Mr. Mom crazy. I don’t care because his jittery leg syndrome drives me crazy. It’s an even trade, I figure.
• Now that I have a daughter at college and a son at work, I joked to a friend yesterday that I would soon have to send Mr. Mom back to work. She looked at me with a furrowed brow and said “Well, you won’t get dinner served at 5:30 pm anymore.” I realized that’s no joke and I zipped my lip.

With gratitude {for my clean house, warm dinner, industrious children and long reading list},

Joan, who hasn’t cried in 48 hours and thinks that must be a good sign

Good morning, Sarah!

Dear friends,

I have a friend from back home named Sarah. She’s one of the most adorable 20-something girls you’d ever want to meet and she tweeted this yesterday:

Sarah is the daughter of a woman I went to high school with named Shelli. Shelli’s adorable, too, so it runs in the family. (In fact, back in high school another friend of mine used to say about Shelli: “Isn’t she the most adorable girl ever?”)  Anyway, Sarah has told me before that she likes to start her morning with Debt of Gratitude, and that thought alone makes me happier than you can imagine. Probably happier than Dr. Pepper, m&m’s and my blog make Sarah.

I was not having a stellar day yesterday. It was my first day back at work after returning from Oklahoma and it was jam packed with meetings and other obligations in which I had little interest. Everybody knew I had just returned from taking Kate to college and everybody kept asking me how I was doing.

I smiled. And I said fine. But really . . . I wanted to burst into tears. So when I saw Sarah’s Tweet mid-day, it sure perked up my melancholy little heart.

“I can’t be sad and mopey,” I thought to myself. “I have to go home and write something for Sarah!” I wish I had something more creative, something more profound, something more substantive than “thank you” to offer her (to offer all of you, really), but I don’t.

Still, since this is a blog devoted to gratitude, I can’t exactly argue with an expression of appreciation, no matter how modest.

So thank you, Sarah, from the bottom of my heart for evicting me from Mopeland and back to real life where I count my blessings every day.

With gratitude {for Sarah and all my readers whose daily visits enrich my life},

Joan, who also wants to give a shout-out to Debbie, her first college roomie who made her home-to-college transition so much more bearable all those years ago

PS: While I’m counting my blessings, will you indulge me just a moment? I want to show you some photos I took of Kate at college. She’s in a lovely environment and it gives me comfort to know her world is a pretty, happy place.

Kate outside her new apartment. She’s on the 2nd floor. Hooray for the built-in Stairmaster!

Kate’s bedroom. We both were pleased with the pink-and-black decor and the $20 craigslist desk. Hooray for cheap chic!

Kate and her roommate, Houda. Houda from Casablanca. I love saying that! You know what else I love? Houda is Muslim and speaks Arabic. Hooray for cultural diversity in Kate’s life!

 

The college girl.

Dear friends,

My two favorite brunettes of all time.

Some women my age would be embarrassed to admit this, but during my college years, Cosmopolitan magazine was my primary textbook. I scoured every issue and took its advice seriously. I thought Helen Gurley Brown was it, and I longed for a career as glamorous as hers.

My views have changed considerably since then — though my appreciation for independent, outspoken women has never waned. So I was sorry to hear Ms. Brown died yesterday in Manhattan at the age of 90.

From her NY Times obit, I learned a story about HGB that had never before caught my attention. Chiefly, that her mother sent the legendary Cosmo editor a telegram just before her best-selling (and career-making) book, “Sex and the Single Girl,” was published. In it, her mother wrote: Dear Helen, if you move very quickly, I think we can stop publication of the book.”

I cringed when I read it. I never want to be that mother, I thought. The naysayer. The second-guesser. The older woman dispensing one generation’s advice to a younger generation for whom the old rules don’t apply.

Lord knows I’ve been dispensing plenty of advice in the last few days as Kate prepared to go to college. Everything from where to buy the cheapest textbooks, to how to get answers from college administrators, to why it’s important to thoroughly read the syllabus.

In the end (where end equals Sunday night, time for mom to go home already), I simply had to zip my lip and walk away.  And, yeah, I walked away with tears in my eyes, trying hard not to make eye contact with the girl who wouldn’t be helped by a tearful goodbye. I left her among her friends and contemporaries, where I hope she will find the space and the encouragement for her unique voice to develop and her dreams to flourish, which is the only thing I ever hoped college would offer her.

I told her to call me if she needs me. (I know she won’t hesitate because barely two hours after I departed, she called to ask where I had put the Q-tips that I unpacked. I’m not sure if I’ll be more or less relieved if her next call for help is about a matter of more consequence.) I told her I loved her. I told her I was proud of her.

And then I drove six hours home, where a new adventure awaits me, too. (Just as soon as I stop crying. Kiddingnotkidding.)

With gratitude {for the strongest, smartest, kindest college girl a mother could hope for},

Joan, who finds it odd that the mother who breezed through Kate’s first day of Kindergarten had to look away or burst into tears while buying last-minute dorm supplies at Wal-Mart on Saturday (Who knew separation at 19 was harder than 5?)

The scramble.

Dear friends,

It was a mad scramble yesterday. Kate returned home from orientation for a two-day layover, fresh with the news that, oh yeah, her college apartment is only partially furnished and she needs a twin bed, a desk and a chair.

<insert sound of mother’s piercing scream here>

No less than three conversations with her coach and two conversations with the college’s housing staff previously failed to uncover the fact that Kate needed furniture — even though I directly posed that question to multiple parties at multiple times over the course of the last several weeks.

So I spent the afternoon and evening doing what desperate people do — combing the Craigslist ads and driving across two counties through shady neighborhoods in search of used furniture. (Note: when I say shady, I don’t mean tree-lined.)

Fortunately, times are hard and there’s furniture for sale, cheap. For $70, we came home with a computer desk, a twin sized bed, and a mattress and springs — all in reasonable shape. The bed, currently an ugly shade of brown, is going to get a coat of black paint tomorrow thanks to Mr. Mom. In return for his free labor, I promised to buy him a comfy new desk chair (so he can hand down his no-longer-gently used one to Kate) as soon as we get Kate settled in.

At this point, “settled in” won’t come fast enough. In between now and this coming weekend — when we move her to Oklahoma — I have no less than 9 meetings, a retreat, and a quick business trip to St. Louis. And a whole lot of packing.

And maybe a little fretting because I am a mother and that’s what I do best.

With gratitude {for our truck driver and furniture loader who took Kate and I on a three-hour tour of mid-Missouri last night},

Joan, who has just a few suggestions for Craigslist sellers, including 1) It would be helpful if you’d put your phone number in the ad and/or respond to emails asking for your phone number, 2) Go ahead and clean the bird poop off your desk before you try to sell it,  3) You might reconsider making your 10-year-old son the front man for your furniture sales because he doesn’t adequately describe the product and his directions to your house are less than intelligible, and 4) Telling somebody to look for the horse corral when driving in rural Missouri is about as helpful as suggesting they watch for the oak tree

A new window on the world.

Dear friends,

I am sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee and watching it rain (hallelujah for rain!). I have a whole new window on the world, both literally and figuratively.

A few months after Mr. Mom and I moved into our new home last year, we learned that some of our windows were rotting. After a thorough pre-sale inspection that uncovered termites but not window rot, this discovery was particularly disappointing. The previous owners were meticulous in their upkeep and I have often said (and meant it) that I would have eaten off their garage floor.  How window rot escaped their notice is beyond me (unless, of course, it didn’t; but I try to give folks the benefit of the doubt). Anyway, representatives from the window manufacturer came to our home a few days ago, at our expense, to replace the ruined ones and repair the sashes on those in danger of decay — so I’m breathing a sigh of relief that my window on the world is sound again.

(I tried to resist pointing out that our home in Oklahoma, which is still for sale, has 91-year-old windows made of solid oak without so much as a speck of rot — but I failed because nothing gets to me like irony. Century-old house, sound windows. Decade-old house, rotting windows. Sigh.)

In addition to new windows, I have a whole new view of the world. Both my children have flown the nest. Parker is spending a few days at the lake with the family of his girlfriend and Kate is at her college’s freshman orientation. My house is eerily quiet in a way that is becoming increasingly familiar to me.

Mr. Mom and I woke up to an empty house this morning. We drank coffee in bed and talked — of our day, our weekend, our future. Parker has two more years of high school, but he’s mobile and has a social life that any teenager would envy and so we find ourselves alone a lot. I’ve said jokingly that I’m glad we like each other, but I know it’s no laughing matter. That Mr. Mom and I enjoy each others’ company is one of the greatest blessings in my life.

I’m less and less restless about this lack of children to fuss over and (s)mother. Even though I’m not entirely certain what Mr. and I are going to do with this newfound time on our hands, the prospect no longer unnerves me.

What does give me pause is the unknown of my relationship with Kate. Will we talk on the phone? Skype? Text? Email? All of the above? (I hope!) Will we communicate frequently, or will she be in touch only when she needs me? What does the mother-daughter connection feel like when it’s no longer daily? I assume my relevancy will ebb and flow in her life, but how will those tides feel for me?

I suspect I’ll have different perspectives on these questions as time marches on. In the mean time, I’m “swimming  upstream” and mindful of all that is new and glistening in my world.

The unflinching light of mindful awareness reveals the extent to which we are tossed along in the stream of past conditioning and habit. The moment we decide to stop and look at what is going on (like a swimmer suddenly changing course to swim upstream instead of downstream), we find ourselves battered by powerful currents we had never even suspected—precisely because until that moment we were largely living at their command.

– Stephen Batchelor, “Foundations of Mindfulness”

With gratitude {for new views},

Joan, who believes washing windows is a most satisfying chore