My kids are growing up. Well, they’re all grown up, if I have to be completely and painfully accurate. And, any of you who have even a passing familiarity with this here blog know that I love my darling offspring very, very much. BUT, I am just now realizing - perhaps not exactly in epiphanic proportions, but coming through loud and clear all the same - that they have actually built lives for themselves. They have their own family units, they have their careers, they have their friends and social spheres. Oh, certainly, they make time for their mother regularly, but I feel very distinctly that element of “making” time in otherwise busy and productive lives. To wit, last night we had one of our somewhat regular “movie nights” whereby everyone gathers at DD36’s (she has a wide screen television set in her family room); we “order out” our supper - pizza, chinese (more about that later) - and then choose a movie from on-demand or pay-per-view or whatever and get comfortable in our respective chairs, the couch, the window seat cushions - wherever. DH went home after we ate because he was tired and wasn’t up for a movie. As usual, of course, he was awake and up at 5:30 this morning. But never mind that. Last night we couldn’t find a movie that everyone wanted to see, and ended up watching four episodes of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, which I find hilarious. I’ve heard it said that you either love Larry David’s humor - or detest it. I’m one of the ones who loves it. I, of course had never even heard of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” until I was out in L.A. visiting my son last November (late October - early November; something like that) and one night when his significant other was at work, my son and I watched about ten episodes in a row. I watched until my eyes closed of their own accord. I swear. My son said he knew I would be “hooked” once I saw one episode and of course he was right. I guess that speaks to a couple of things: my son knows me very well, and - hmmmm. Is there something a little dysfunctional, perhaps, about people who find Larry David so funny? I mean, he reminds me of several people that I know, and I like them (although they irritate me completely). But enough about that. We were watching “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episodes last night, and my GD7 and GS6 were playing in and out of GS’s room - staging “safaris” (complete with pith helmets and other safari paraphernalia) out to the kitchen and yes - you’ve guessed it - straight through the family room, and straight through “Curb Your Enthusiasm” - and making lots of “jungle noises” like screetching chimpanzees, trumpeting elephants and roaring lions and tigers. How adorable, eh? Okay, well, here comes the moment of truth: I did not find my own darling little grandchildren adorable. I found them irritating and annoying, and I was wondering why, when we were sitting attempting to watch something on TV at 11:00 at night, they were still traipsing around making noise and so on and so forth. At their age, my kids were all tucked safely in their beds at 8:00, and that’s the truth. Whatever happened to this new generation of parents who seem to feel that their kids should decide when they’re tired and when their bedtime should be? So I raised my kids with some structure in their lives, which contributed (I think, at least) to their doing well in school and becoming responsible human beings. And do they think that how I raised them was too harsh or something? TOO structured? Too…..something? And they feel the need to give their children complete freedom to romp and run about the house until they fall over from exhaustion? And that’s being a good and loving parent? Oh, blah! I can’t even begin to count how many funny lines of Larry David’s that I missed last night because one child or the other raced through hollering his or her lungs out. Now my GD does wonderfully well in school - right up there at the top of her class (and to be completely fair and accurate, I do believe that her mom & dad do insist that she go to bed at 8:00 on school nights; and they’re quite firm about homework, what she’s allowed to watch on TV, etc.) - but GS is another story. I believe I may have mentioned that he was diagosed with Autism, and while he’s actually doing pretty well, there are occasional problems with him, and his sleeping patterns are abominable. Even on school nights, he runs himself ragged - and DD puts him to bed from wherever he’s managed to poop out. She says it’s the Autism; I’m more inclined to believe that it’s poor limit-setting on her part, but hey - I TOLD you I’m getting old and irritable.

But back to my kvetching. (This is very cathartic).

This is the very group that I will be going to North Carolina with in a little under two weeks time. We are DRIVING down in a seven passenger mini-van thing - an “Uplander” (????) and there will be exactly seven of us, including the two children. It’s about a fifteen hour drive, and we’ll all share the driving - kind of rotate our way around the van, with each driver doing 3 hours (five adult drivers; 3 hours apiece - not hard, eh?). Those not driving can put on some headphones, listen to music and sleep. Maybe. I’m trying here, to picture GD & GS cooped up in a car for fifteen hours with only the occasional “get-out-and-walk-around, get-something-to-eat and use-the-restroom” breaks. Oh, Lordy, Lordy - what have I gotten myself into, anyway? Once we’re at my sis’s, I think we’ll be okay, because she has several bedroom suites on the lower levels of her house where the kids - and their kids - can stay. There are two bedrooms, two baths, a laundry room and a big family room with TV and everything else you might need down there. So, the kids, when we’re not out and about, can do their romping and running down there. Of course, each child will have the use of a laptop computer with a full complement of DVDs and what-have-you to keep them occupied. Hah! When I think of how we traveled with MY kids….well, never mind.

Yes, yes, I feel that “grumpy old woman” persona slowly taking over. I really do. And the sad part of it all is that I flat out don’t care. So much for the wise, warm and nurturing old crone whom everybody looks to for sage advice and unconditional love, eh? Nope, I’m just a grouchy old hag who plays a wise and nurturing grandmother-type on TV. LOL! Okay. Not. And I do - I DO love my kids - and my grandkids - but having said that, I certainly see the inherent need for a change in attitude as one progresses through the various stages of their lives.

I’m not old to the point where I’m at death’s door, or even close to it, I don’t imagine. But I have sort of “been there, done that” when it comes to procreating, raising the offspring, seeing them safely into adulthood, and now feeling the need to withdraw a bit. I know that most grandparents absolutely swoon over their grandchildren, and while I love mine very much and do whatever I can whenever I can for them, I am past swooning, I’m afraid. New babies I can work up a pretty good swoon for still, but by the time they’re running about making all sorts of (undisciplined) noise, I no longer swoon. I think that my kids love their kids very much, so having passed that capacity down from one generation to the next is no little thing, and I will give myself due credit for raising loving human beings. I’m glad of that.

But I have, of late, found myself feeling a little resentful at how busy their lives are, and how they seem to have to “make” time to see me. Silly and ungrateful, considering that they do make it, but it is somewhat strange to be on the receiving end of their emotional largesse when I used to be in charge. I think that’s what’s been bugging me, too - is that in my reality, they are supposed to look to me for permission to do thus and such, and now they do thus and such - and thusser and sucher - without so much as a by-your-leave, and I am sort of “along for the ride” in some respects. No longer CEO, you might say - now a retired exec with no staff to command, and just a salute in passing acknowledgement that I built the freaking company!

BUT, epiphanistically speaking (LOL) I think I have just now realized that life does have a “phasing out” process. I have done my job, done it fairly well, and now it’s time to bow out - time to decide what I want to do with the rest of my appointed years. I think that the irritation and annoyance I’ve been feeling is actually separation anxiety. I’ve been enabling myself to become irritated with them all beause THEN, leaving them when it’s my time to move on, will be less painful. For me. And, if I’m enough of a grouch and mean and miserable enough, it’ll be less painful for them, as well, to see me go. Good thinking, eh?

Oh, such craziness.

You’ve caught me in a weird mood. Or I’ve caught myself in a weird mood, eh?

I ironed this morning and effectively doubled my wardrobe. I have SO much stuff that I haven’t been wearing because it seemed like too much trouble to iron it - a few things that I haven’t had on my back yet this summer, and if I don’t hurry up and wear them once or twice, it’ll be winter and time to pack them up and put them away for the season.

I’m also trying to limit myself on my packing for this visit with my sister. Typically, I overpack to the point of ridiculousness and end up not even wearing half of what I’ve brought. BUT, there’s always something that I haven’t brought that would’ve been soooo perfect….well, you know what I mean. No, this time I’m going to pack smart for a change. With a little planning ahead, it shouldn’t be that hard. PLUS, we’re all going to have to learn to pack smarter, considering that the freaking airlines all want to charge us for checked bags now. Damned oil prices! Well, they’ve dropped a little in the past week. Maybe there’s still hope… Anyway, I’m going to really think through what we’re likely to be doing down there, decide exactly what I want to wear while we’re doing it, and bring just those things that I need and nothing more. ONE somewhat dressy (casual-dressy) outfit for going out to dinner in, but something I can wash, iron, and wear a second time if need be.

Oh, the other night? The kids all ordered pizza and grinders and chicken wings and onion rings. DH & I had a huge salad with chicken cubed into it, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, sliced green peppers and avocado. A slice apiece of pita bread. And it was GOOD! I like healthy food again! My foray back down the junque path seems over. Not that there won’t be the occasional stroll in that direction in the future - but brief strolls - brief. That’s the ticket! (We’ll see, won’t we?) It does tend to help, though, that I am forever haunted by the spectre of a fat little mother (mine) who wasn’t EXACTLY obese, but had a round little belly like a bowl full of jelly…etc. And long, thin stork legs. I don’t mind having her legs, but developing her belly would send me ’round the bend, and that’s the truth.

Okay, I am off to have my bath. Clean body, clean spirit. Something like that. At least smoothly shaven legs. Gawd, how I hate pickety legs!

Cheers & hugs,

Z