Confessions of a Daughterless Mother

Birthday flowers from my girlfriend I am 8 days into my 44th year.  I intended to write a post on my birthday ... but I couldn't.  I have always been moved to write and find that when I force myself it usually becomes an episode of me sitting in a chair bouncing up every 5 - 10 minutes to feed the dog, change the laundry, let the dog out, go to the bathroom, make lunch, check email, pay the bills, fold the laundry ... and ends in a very low word count with very high frustration. It works best when it comes to me organically. So I waited. I waited for 8 days. Then when I was driving home from the gym today I realized something.  When I was younger my birthday was potential: expectations for excitment, surprises accompanied a buoyed feeling of being older. Don't get me wrong - I am not hung up on my age (although I am less fond of the "11" wrinkle I have between my eyes than I ever have been before) - I don't mind the years piling up, but my birthday no lon

Yesterday when Jackson came home from school we had a rare few moments to ourselves. He chatted about his day - telling me funny stories and anecdotes about his new teachers for this tri. He's not usually this talkative - so I was enjoying every minute. Eric and I often laugh at how often our questions are met with "Good." School was good, practice was good, dinner was good .... when I have these moments with them where they open up and words come out - I don't want them to end. While he was talking he was also getting ready for a workout with his trainer. Doing two things at  once, he continued giving me details as he walked up the stairs. He stopped about half way up and said "Seth yelled at me today." Seth is an autistic student that Jackson has had in his classes for the past several years. He does not like the other kids to touch him as he's afraid of their germs. I often hear funny stories about Seth, Jackson loves to chat with him and hea

  "The quieter you become the more you can hear" Ram Daas I have spent a lot of time in the last week working on putting my phone down, looking the boys in the eye when we are chatting, to be more present. Before Lulu gave me her gentle reminder that I was on my phone too much - I had thought I was pretty plugged in. Maybe I was, but what I've learned in the past few days is that I  need to do more than put my phone down. It's always been interesting to me that when I learn something new about myself, it's rarely new. It's usually the same lesson packaged in a different way, with a different bow and a different message on the tag. In the work of putting my phone down I realized it wasn't my phone that was distracting me ...  I've said before that I dread the end of summer and the coming of books, school, pressing commitments. I enjoy the time with the boys in the summer months where we build our scheudle around baseball and lacrosse and eventual

This morning as Aiden sat sleepily eating his breakfast at the counter, I was curled up in a chair next to the fire in the kitchen chatting with him. My year and a half old Lab Luna crawled halfway on my lap for some morning snuggles. I scratched her ears and she snuggled me with her cold wet nose and licked my hands. My phone was sitting on the small end table next to my chair and it chimed loudly - breaking in the quiet of the morning. Leaving one hand on Lulu's head I reached for my phone ... Luna took her paw and pushed my hand away from the phone and then crawled the rest of the way on my lap (which is quite a feat in my small sitting chairs and her 68 pounds) blocking me from my phone. I giggled at first, she was clearly asking - demanding - my full attention for a few minutes and didn't like being interrupted by a text message. I didn't answer the text right away and helped Aiden finish up with breakfast and got him off to school. On my ride home it occurred to