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I’m not posting a photo to go along with this entry because if I did it would be me sitting on the toilet, hair sticking out in 1000 different directions, eyes glazed over from lack of sleep and energy, donut glaze on my cheek,  yelling at my kids to, “for the love of sweet Jesus, learn to put a new roll of toilet paper on the holder & pick up the damn potato chip wrappers & Coke cans in the living room” because we haven’t had a kitchen for a week.  Also, if I share a picture, the President’s men will see it and immediately put me on the no-fly list because they will draw the logical conclusion that I’m a danger to my fellow citizens.  That’s pretty much how my entire month has gone, frantically running from end-of-school-year event to event, watching my daughter graduate and watching, at 3 a.m. one morning, my mother’s apartment go up in flames. I also had a bikini wax because I love to kick myself when I’m down and I hadn’t done enough screaming at the kids to get my monthly fill.  So, how are you guys?

But seriously, THANK YOU for all the love and support shown to my mother as she faced dealing with the loss of all of her possessions, the sentimental stuff being what mattered.  There were 4 fires in a three-month period in her building as of the night that hers was deemed a total loss.  There has been one fire since in the south building across from her, set in the same way, so they’re being called “suspicious” at this point.  It’s bad enough to endure the trauma but to endure it out of someone’s meanness is very unsettling.  Your gifts, love, hugs and support have meant the world to her.

Ryder graduated on the 23rd and then turned 18 on June 8.  We will be taking her to orientation at TCU this week.  I am excited, if for no other reason than for three full days I won’t have to listen to boys fight over and talk about Minecraft servers, I can go to Clotheshorse Anonymous and raid IKEA.  I’m also looking forward to some good Texas meals & hotel room bedding.  Maybe a dip in a pool or two.  But I will miss all three of my boys. 🙂

Our flooring installers finished and our new floors look, well, MAGNIFICENT.  That’s really not too strong since they turned out exactly as I envisioned the day I walked into the flooring store.  I want to bow and kiss them.  They completely change the look of our kitchen and den.  When I get the walls painted and artwork hung, I promise a picture. Right now I am putting a desk together (again, I love you, IKEA) for my tiny office nestled in the corner of our bedroom where I can work in peace.  Speaking of work, it’s going well & I’ve had the opportunity to photograph some beautiful girls lately.  Things are good.

The pool finally opened full-time & I’m enjoying some time there basking in the rays and reading on my new Nook, which I love.  I can never replace the friends I have made through our neighborhood pool – it’s definitely one of my happy places.  I’m so glad my kids have many childhood memories from that place.  Last night, our little buddy Clay turned 10 and our oldest son Wyatt, who is three years older than Clay & a TEEN,  went to his party with us.  Right after we got there one of Wyatt’s friends called and wanted him to come over & he said he could after a while, but that he wouldn’t miss Clay’s party.  As the oldest boy there who had an offer from his best friend, my heart was very proud.

Brooks plays his last spring season baseball game tonight and will have a break from baseball until fall.  He pitched a good game the other night & I’m very proud of him.  He will start again in the fall with the same team & I hope his love for the game continues. It hasn’t exactly been a joyride the last couple seasons and as an introvert, adjusting to a new team has not come easy for him. He’s going to attend a camp in July that I think will give him a nice mid-summer dose of baseball and allow him to spend time with a good friend who moved last fall.  I’ve made the choice to have him step out of his comfort zone a bit and decisions like that are one of the harder aspects of parenting, aren’t they?

I recently finished reading a rather life-changing book by David Sheff called “Beautiful Boy”.  It’s a “hard-to-read-emotionally-but-inspiring” book about his son’s struggle with meth addiction.  Last night I started a memoir written by David’s son, Nic Sheff, called Tweak.)  It’s really made me do some deep thinking about my parenting and honestly, parenting in general and what we are doing to our kids these days. (Not necessarily because of anything the dad did in the book, however.)  I feel very strongly that our generation tends to parent from the perspective of what WE want our children to be and do.  We want them to do what will make us look good & give very little thought to what may actually be the right thing for them.  The book just made me think that we really have very little time with them & if you screw that up, there’s no getting the time back.  It’s a heartbreaking read but there are so many passages that struck me & I don’t even have a child dealing with addiction.  The quotes are applicable in other areas of parenting too. I do have some experience with people who want their children to succeed for their own accolades (not my dad, who raised me) and I think it’s just sad.  We need to love our children for what they are and what they choose to become.  I think Mr. Sheff definitely loved his child for what he was & probably had no idea in writing his book that he would help people in areas other than addiction.  I commend him and his son for being brave enough to share their stories.

I have to meet Chuck in an hour for lunch and I’m nowhere near presentable so I hope your summer is off to a good start and that the sun shines brightly on you today!

The other night I was looking at old pictures and videos with my daughter, who about a week and a half ago, graduated from high school.  She will be 18 next Saturday & I’ve gotten rather reflective the past few weeks.  When I turned 18 I was worried about getting drafted.  Not because I had a legitimate reason but because my grandma worried about EVERYTHING, and on the list of worries I was genetically pre-disposed to when I turned 18, was the draft. (I spent the earlier part of my childhood fearing attacks from “the Russians”, so logically the armed forces would need me.) I’m not sure what, if anything, my daughter worries about.  I hope not much.   It’s certainly not “what people will think when they see the state of my bedroom.”  That I know.  The photos we were looking through made me realize she has had an incredible childhood, surrounded by wonderful, interesting friends who have been there through thick & thin, family who loves her and trips to places like Paris, Barcelona and San Francisco, all of those without us.  She bravely applied to 7 different universities from NW Arkansas to the east coast (Charleston).  She was accepted at all but one & completely of her own accord, chose to attend Texas Christian University in Ft. Worth which completes an unusual circle since that is where my parents lived when I was conceived. I have not been back since I was in that womb.  Life’s funny that way sometimes.  You get right back to where you started.

Someone asked me the other day what my hopes for her were.  That one is simple.  That she is happy.  I don’t care what she becomes, where she works, who she marries or how many children she has, if any.  I just want her to be happy.  I want her to live her life for herself and no one else.  So far, she has done so well in this category & I couldn’t be prouder of her.  We allow her to make most decisions herself & we are criticized for this often.  I think it’s been instrumental in fostering her independence and giving her the confidence she needs to go off on her own.  I know if we are here to fall back on, she will use us to lean on but I also know if a situation requires her to act independently of us, as many will when she ventures off to Texas, she will be well-prepared.  By letting her make her own decisions, all the regrets are on her & it leaves little room to resent us for being overbearing.  I will never, ever understand why people want their children to be dependent on them.

As for advice I would send her off with, I had to think on that one a while.  I would like to send her off into the world with two often diametrically-opposing pieces of advice:  Use good judgment & have very little fear.  Sometimes these two can collide in a horrible way. Sometime in the worst way.  A couple weeks ago, a group of students from the University of Arkansas were involved in a horrible boating accident on Grand Lake in OK & two of them died.  The driver admitted to having 10 beers, a shot of tequila and unprescribed drugs in his system.  I don’t think there’s one parent getting ready to send their kid to college who didn’t shudder at the loss of life & think, “That could be my child.”  I also shuddered at the likely prison sentence facing the kid driving the boat & thought, “How awful for his parents because once our kids are gone we have no control. (In all honesty, we have very little when they’re here.)  Like it or not, that could be our child too.  And by “ours”, I mean both you and I, dear reader.  These kids probably had very little fear as they were stepping into that boat but they sure didn’t use good judgment.  Had either of these forces played out in reverse, it would have saved some families some grief.  But dammit, we aren’t always there to be that voice of reason….

After Ryder graduated last week & shortly after that boat accident, we let her go to one of the lakes about an hour from our home & spend a few days on the houseboat of one of her friend’s families.  Chuck called me and said, “Ryder thinks she’s going to the lake tomorrow and says you know?”  He was a little surprised.  I said, “Yes, I know.  It’s hard, believe me.  But she is going off to a city 6 hours from us in two months & we have to trust her to have good judgment.  She’s made good decisions in the past & we have to trust she will again.”  She made it home safely.  On the way home she even turned the wheel of her car over to the friend who had the houseboat since it was raining super hard and she, unlike her friend, had never driven that curvy road before, even in good conditions.  I can pretty much tell you I didn’t have that sort of judgment right before I turned 18. I trust that she will continue to make wise decisions.

Now for the fear factor.  As stated before, I spent my entire childhood living with my grandma who feared EVERYTHING.  At one point, I was sure I was going to contract lockjaw because I fell into a rosebush & got horribly scratched & cut.  Because that’s how you get lockjaw, right?  Rosebushes. I was taught to fear weather, to fear the Russians, to fear microwave ovens, to fear someone breaking into my house, to fear being kidnapped…….I could go on all night. (Oddly enough, now that I’m older, I fear very little. I’m sure it’s a subconscious rebellion against my grandma’s attempts to instill fear & therefore make me dependent on her.)  I do not want my child to have fear.  I want her to be consciously aware of her surroundings but  I want her to explore the world,  make new friends, take risks in business and life, & live life to the fullest.  I don’t want her to fear taking a vacation overseas, flying in a plane, switching her major, starting a business, breaking up with a boy, etc.  And when it’s time to use fear to her advantage I hope she will have the good judgment to do so.

Make sense?