Lesson 15,150-Aging Parents

Okay, so I have entered a new chapter in my life.  It's the hard part of life that everyone will eventually face.  In our 40's, we have our own children and families to take care of, friends who are in need of support and the part of our lives where we have aging parents.  In the past couple of months, I have attended a few funerals of people who I never even knew but they were one of my friend's parents and I had to be there for my friends, while also taking care of my family and aging parent.  Some of us are blessed to still have parents that are in good health at 90-something and some of us have parents who are 60-something and in failing health. This is tough.  So, in between taking care of our families, we make time for our parents who are aging and make casseroles for friends who have lost a parent.  We drive our children to soccer practice and drop off a casserole.  We go to the grocery store and run an errand for a friend in need.  We go to the doctor because at 40+ our bodies are falling apart and we need mammograms and colonoscopies and start having blood pressure problems and then we go to our parents house and fill up their medicine boxes for the week.  We take our parents to the doctor and pick up kids from school.  Some days we don't even get our beds made because we have so many things to do.  Some of us work and still manage to find time to do all of these things and still make time to bake a cake for a friend.  It's almost humorous the things that we find time to do with everything going on.  We have to find humor in these crazy times in our lives.  Throw in a load of laundry, take a shower, put the clothes in the dryer, go pick up the kids, restart the dryer, help with homework, restart the dryer, cook dinner, restart the dryer, get the kids ready for bed, restart the dryer, take my nighttime meds, load the dishwasher and go to bed.  Wake up in the morning, restart the dryer, take the kids to school, restart the dryer, call you sick parent, finally fold the clothes in the dryer.

Some of us have elderly parents or elderly in-laws who live with us.  I have tried to get one of my friends to write a blog about her "Adventures With Mom" but she won't but boy does she have some good ones. You have to see her act out what her Mom does for it to be funny.  Her Mom is a hoot and she doesn't even realize it!! She is in her 80's so she lived through a lot of things in her life.  She has lived through lots of Presidents, wars, the Civil Rights era and Women's Lib.  She has probably washed clothes on a washing board and couldn't figure out how to use her daughter's high-tech washing machine.  She lived before TV's were in every room. She lived when there weren't phones in everyone's home and before cell phones.  She probably doesn't know how to turn on a computer.  She probably sat around a radio and listened to The Lone Ranger.  She probably listened to Frank Sinatra on a scratchy record player.  Her Mom has to be a tough to have lived this long but she is getting frail and needs supervision. Same thing with lots of our aging parents.

My Dad is in his early 70's and has health issues.  Everyone will tell you how sweet he is and how much they love him and he has tons of friends but if he needs something, he only wants his daughters there to take care of him.  Getting him to understand medical jargon is up to me.  Getting to understand his finances is up to my sister. He takes medicines which have side effects so he has to take another medicine for a side effect and then that medicine causes him to have another issue.  Tack on surgery to that and then there is another side effect and more medications to combat all of those side effects.  He gets dehydrated easily which effects his kidneys.  His kidney tests are high and he doesn't understand that because he has never had problems with his kidneys.  Then he takes a medication for diabetes and it has side effects on the kidneys. He has to take fluid pills and that has side effects on his kidneys.  His feet are swollen and he won't keep them propped up and argues with me when I try to explain that gravity is not his friend when he has fluid built up so he has to keep them elevated above his heart.  That just makes him angry to have to sit around with his feet propped up and sleep with his feet elevated.  Then he needs to eat more protein so he calls me every 2 hours to see if it is okay to eat something like peanut butter or bacon.  Salt isn't your friend when you have fluid overload but he likes bacon and he likes grits with salt so he's going do what he wants to do and then complains about the fluid!!!  "Well, Daddy, the swelling won't go down if you don't keep those feet up and lower your salt intake!!"  And at what age do you start counting your bowel movements every day?  "If you have one, Daddy, you're fine!!" If he has only one, he gets worried that he is constipated.  If he has three or more, he's worried that he has diarrhea.  So, I pray that he has 2 every day!!  I'm quite sure that I will do whatever I want to do when I am in my 70's!!  If I live to be 73, and I want bacon and my sodium level is high and I have fluid on my ankles, I am still going to eat bacon!!!  Then I am going to call my son and ask him why my feet are swelling!!

We have to find humor in our aging parents!!  We have to be there for our friends when a parent passes away.  Nothing meant more to me than looking over and seeing 2 rows of beautiful ladies at my stepmother's funeral.  (She was my Mom for 24 years. My Mom died in a car accident when I was 9-years old so Katherine was my mom for much longer than my real Mom.  Of course, I will always love my real Mom and Katherine because she treated me as her own.  She saw me graduate, get married and have my son. She wiped my tears when my heart got broken.  She gave me advice about life and she was always right!!!  Of course, I didn't think she was as smart as she really was until I was about 25-years old and then I realized that she wasn't stupid!!  She was right!!)  We have to be there for our family.  We drive kids hither and yon.  We help with impossible school projects.  We cheer for them at sporting events in the freezing cold and the scorching heat.  We have to keep the house and clothes clean, no matter how many times we restart the dryer.  We have to take care of our spouses.  We have to be there for our siblings. We have to be there for friends, family and loved ones.  We have to do things to better our community.  We have to make sure our children know that not everyone lives like they do.  There are people who have it way better and way worse.  That's Life!

This time of life is definitely the hardest. Being there for everyone is tough and sometimes a juggling act.  If you find time for a little exercise and a nap occasionally, don't be hard on yourself.  Take some time for you!!  I need a manicure and pedicure really bad so I am a little bit glad that it is winter because my toenails look horrid!!  My eyebrows look like a caveman and my wrinkles have not been Botoxed in quite some time!!  Sorry, I look like this but I've been taking care of  "My People"!!

Lesson #15,149-Even Sick People Can Be Funny

Okay, So let me explain where I've been lately.  First, there was summer and now it is fall and I haven't been writing lately.  No, I haven't been in an insane asylum but I may as well have been.  There's been summer fun, school starting back, homework and driving to soccer practices and games and tournaments and blah, blah, blah.  Not making excuses but...Well, yes I am.  Anyway, throw in a health scare and having a hysterectomy, which, by the way, is no big deal anymore.  If you need one, find a good GYN that can do it with a laparoscope and have it done!!  I was sore for a week and a half and then I felt normal again.  I get tired a little more quickly but it was exactly 3 weeks ago today so that's to be expected.  Now, onto more important issues.  Daddy has colon cancer and has been in Stage 4 for 9 years and so I know that isn't good.  He had to have surgery the day after Thanksgiving and the poor man had an NG tube in his nose and couldn't even eat on Thanksgiving Day!! Eating is his favorite pastime so I felt really guilty for eating while he was in the hospital.  Funny thing happened when he had surgery, I saw some guys that I went to high school with and they work on the local ambulance service.  Boy, did these EMTs have some stories!!

Okay, so here goes...

They go on a call and go into the house because there was a sick child.  Checked his vital signs.  Maybe a little elevated temperature.  Maybe a little diarrhea and nausea.  Mom thinks the child may have a virus or something and Grandma pipes up and says, "Tell 'em what we caught him doing yesterday."  They turn to Mom and she says, "Well, we caught him sucking on the Chicken Diaper."  They looked at each other and said, "Chicken Diaper?  What's a Chicken Diaper?" and Mom says "Ya know?  The diaper in the bottom of the package of fresh chicken that soaks up the chicken juices."  OH MY GOSH!!!  Thought I was gonna pee myself laughing at that one!!  I don't know what that spongy thing is called but from now on it's a Chicken Diaper!!


They go on another call to the bad part of town and find a man bleeding from his abdomen.  They go to check his wound and see 7 different wounds.  They ask him what happened and he said that he ran into a knife.  They asked him how in the world he ran into a knife 7 times.  They look up and see his wife standing there.  "Oh.  Never mind."  (I think someone got caught cheating!!)


They go on another call.  This time they know this guy.  He's a "frequent flyer" to the ER because he is "suicidal".  Apparently, this guy claims to overdose on purpose quite frequently and sure enough, they walk in and he starts flopping around on the floor, faking a seizure.  Once you have seen someone have a real seizure a few times, you know what it looks like.  These guys were onto his act.  The guy had on nothing but his underwear and it was pouring down rain outside.  They have had enough of his antics so they load him on the stretcher with no sheet or blanket and wheel him out to the ambulance in the pouring rain.  They said his belly button was full of water by the time they got him out to the ambulance. ((Hee Hee))  He stops mid-fake-seizure and asks for a towel.  They told him that they didn't have one.  He got mad and jumped off of the stretcher without even getting in the ambulance.  Again, if you've ever seen a real seizure, you know that a patient is a little dazed after one so they made him sign a release and he hasn't faked a suicide ever again!!  Score!!

I suppose you have to have a sense of humor to do what these guys do every day.  They see some horribly tragic situations and some really funny ones.  I told them that they needed their own reality show.  Only with the funny people though!!  Oh and here is my Public Service Announcement for the day:  If you see one of these, PULL OVER AND LET THEM THROUGH!!

Lesson #15,148-Summer Time!!

Okay, So, I cannot decide if summer is too long or too short.  Our school runs on a year-round schedule but it is not really "year-round".  They do get about 6-7 weeks in the summer.  That is not very long and we all wish it was longer!!  But then again, if I hear "I'm bored.", "Can somebody come over to spend the night?", "What time will so-in-so be here?", "Can we go bowling?", "Can we go to the record store?", "I don't want to get up", "I don't want to go to the pool, or play soccer outside or ride my bike or do my summer reading or anything else that you suggest"!!!!!  "I'm hungry" is another of my least favorite sentences to hear.  "Can we go to Bojangles?" and "Can you pick me up some Chick-fil-a?" makes me want to cringe.

We are so lame that we didn't eat hotdogs and hamburgers on the 4th of July!!  We ate leftovers from Olive Garden.  How lame is that??  What is wrong with us??  We made up for it today and ate hamburgers for dinner.  Had to do it!  So, Happy 5th of July, People!!  We celebrated Cinco de Julio!

We are heading to the beach in a few days for one more week there before school starts back!  UGH!!  Okay, So is summer too short or too long?  I suppose it is according to the day that you ask me!  I am not looking forward to getting up early again and helping with homework and soccer practices and projects and book reports and all of that again!!  Then again, I won't have to fix lunch and snacks 100 times a day!!  After the beach, all we will have to look forward to is fall break!!  That is my favorite part of the year round schedule! 
 
So, tell me how you all are keeping your children occupied this summer.  Especially if you have an "Only Child"?  We have had a lot of sleepovers!!  Borrowing other people's kids are the way to go when I have only one!  They are probably tired of entertaining their multiples!!  So, I am helping them out, really!!  Right??

Lesson #15,147-Summer Break!!!!!

Okay, so school gets out today, for summer, here in NC.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.  Super Excited about not having to get up at 6:00am for 7 weeks!  No homework for 7 weeks.  No packing lunches for 7 weeks.  No projects for 7 weeks.  No studying for 7 weeks.  No tests for 7 weeks.  That being said, there is also no going back to bed at 8:30am for 7 weeks.  No lunching with my friends for 7 weeks.  No peace and quiet from 8am-3pm!!  I will be hearing "Mom, I'm bored" about 5,000 times over the next 7 weeks.  I will have to stock up on snacks and lunch food.  There will be stinky teenage boys in my house at all times.  My floors will not be clean for 7 weeks.  There will be cookie crumbs and potato chip crumbs in my sofa cushions for the next 7 weeks.  That's okay though.  Sleeping past 8:00am is a treat for me.  Now I just need to find a quiet hairdryer so my husband doesn't wake me up when he is getting ready for work.  Maybe I can find some earplugs that really work!!  Maybe I can also find a shock collar that shocks my son every time he says "I'm bored"!!

I know that I love summertime and there are some great reasons to love summer break and believe me, I do!!  There are also some great reasons to hate summer break!  I am already dreading the "I'm bored, Mom" and "Mom, can I have a friend over?".  I'm dreading the crumbs and the smelly teenage boys.  I'm dreading the sticky floors and the elevated grocery bills.  However, the warm weather and sleeping for 2 more hours a day may soften the blow!!





I suppose there could be nothing worse than having a kid that has to go to summer school.  That must suck!!

Happy Summer Break, Everyone!!!

Lesson #15,146-I Want a Job!!

Okay, so I have been a SAHM for over 13 years now.  It has been great and I love it but I think I want to start earning my own money.  What kind of jobs are out there for me?  I mean, I now have "Mommy Brain" so I can't remember anything.  My brain has turned to mush!!  I can't remember how to use Excel.  I can't type very fast anymore.  I can't work weekends.  Well, I can but I don't want to.  I can't work evenings either.  Well, I don't want to do that either.  I only want to work from about 10am to 2:00pm.  I take that back.  I need a nap sometimes so I'm gonna need to leave about 12:30.  Are there any jobs that I can work from about 10am to 12:30pm?  Oh and I am going to have to wear my yoga pants because they are very comfortable.  No makeup would be great and if I didn't have to fix my hair that would be a bonus as well!!

Let's see now.  What am I really good at nowadays? I am pretty good at driving carpool.  The kids only have like a tardy or 2 this year.  What else?  I'm great at Facebook and Instagram.  I am an ace at drinking wine and eating crackers and cheese.  I cook really well but I don't bake.  I only like to cook about twice a week so I am really good at making sandwiches.  I'm not great at decorating but I have fabulous boards on Pinterest.  I am great at Internet shopping.  I can win an eBay auction with 2 seconds remaining!! I can do laundry but I don't like putting it away.  I can rearrange a dishwasher so many times that I can get every cup in my cabinets in one load!!  I can clean a cat litter box in 30 seconds.  I can pack a backpack and fix peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with my eyes closed.  They are usually still closed at 6am!!  I give the best kisses and snuggles that my son has ever had!!

Okay, so maybe I should just keep my day job since nobody is hiring for anything that I am good at now.  Plus, I would probably forget to go to work because of my "Mommy Brain".  Being a Mom doesn't pay well but being a Great Mom is worth more than silver and gold.  Better stick with what I know I am good at!!

Lesson #15,145-Happy Freaking Birthday To Me!!

Okay, So this sucks!  When you are turning 43 and not a child anymore, nobody really cares about your birthday.  It's not a milestone birthday like 10, 13, 16, 21, 30, 40, etc.  It's 43.  Whoop Dee Do!  Who cares, really?  I want a damn birthday party!! I want cotton candy!!  I want balloons and a petting zoo and birthday cake and birthday presents and I want everyone to sing "Happy Birthday" to ME!!  Then I want to take a nap.  What am I, 3??  Seriously??  When did we stop getting to have birthday parties?  Would it be frowned upon if I threw myself a birthday party??  I think the older we get the better parties we should get.  Why not?  If nobody will throw you a birthday party, throw yourself one!!  I may be a Birthday Brat this year!!

If I have to buy my own gift, I will.  If I have to buy my own cake, I will.  If I have to have my party catered, I will.  If I have to decorate my own house, I will.  If I have to buy my own balloons, I will.  If I have to send out invitations to my own party, I will.  If I have to buy plates, cups and napkins, I will.  If I have to hire a damn clown, I WILL!!  I want a party!! I want a party!! I want a party!!  Go ahead and call me a Birthday Brat!!

Now what kind of party should I have??  Pool Party?  Roller Skating Party?  Dance Party?  Cookout?  Masquerade Party?  Pizza Party?  Beach Party?  Wine Party?  Ice Cream Party?  Movie Party?  Oh what the heck!! I may have them all in one!!  Just because I can!!  That is the best part about being an adult, we can have any kind of party that we want!!  So bring your beach ball, float, roller skates, dancing shoes, grilling mitts, mask, pizza, bottle of wine, ice cream scoop and your favorite DVD and come on over!!

Life is too short to wait on someone else to throw you a party.  Throw yourself one!!!

Lesson #15,144-IT'S MOTHER'S DAY WEEKEND PEOPLE!!!!

Okay, so it is Mother's Day Weekend!!  YES, WEEKEND!!  Fathers only get Father's Day but Moms get the entire weekend!!  Yes, it is fair!!!  (Unless you are a single father.  Then you get an entire weekend too!!)

So, what do you think your loved ones will give you for Mother's Day?  I am sure that dads and children all over America will be scurrying all day today to find a card and the dads will "allow" the children to pick out a gift for Mom.  Then we get to open the gifts and pretend that the gifts are perfect!!  "Oh, sweetheart, I love this beautiful bunny sweater. I really, really do!"  (UGH)  I have the perfect solution!!  I think I will drag my husband to the mall for the "Perfect" gift for me!!  I will pretend that I want to go with them!!  Genius, right?  Actually, I am just making sure my gift this year doesn't come from CVS off the "As Seen On TV" aisle!!  Although, I do love that stuff, I just don't want to get any of it for Mother's Day.

So, here's to all of you Mothers out there!! I hope you all have a great weekend!! Maybe even get a nap in!!  Wouldn't that be a great weekend?


Happy Mother's Day!!!