Menopausal Mother

     Since becoming an empty nester, I now have plenty of time to socialize with friends, write my memoir, or snag an hour for yoga. I no longer have to worry about planning trips around my children's school schedules or fret over what to feed a family of six. EVERYTHING in life is easier.

     But it wasn't always this way. My life was once chaotic and stressful, although I must admit, I loved staying busy. It gave me a sense of purpose. Now that the kids have moved out, my priorities have changed, and sometimes it feels weird not to have a strict schedule to follow.

     I look at young mothers today and wonder how they do it all while remaining tethered to the internet. I try to imagine what my life would have been like raising four kids if I'd had a computer in my home and a cell phone in my pocket.

     Distracted. That's what I would have been.

     My children were born between 1987 and 1995. I was a stay-at-home mom, and yes, sometimes it got pretty lonely being cooped up in a small house with four children under the age of eight. If I wanted social interaction, I had to drag my little beastlings to the gym where there was free daycare and I could do an aerobic workout for an hour with my friends. If that wasn't possible, there were always the Mommy & Me classes that were so popular in the late 80's. I made quite a few mom friends through the program, and we kept in touch by meeting at the park with our kids or hosting lunchtime playdates.

     If I wanted to stay connected by phone, it took a bit of planning. Our house had a landline with a long, curly cord in our living room. Whenever the kids were occupied watching a VHS tape (it was either that or the PBS channel---our options were extremely limited), I would set up their snacks, quickly pull the corded phone into the next room for a little privacy, and chat for approximately 30 minutes---or until the video ended.

     Long distance friendships were even harder to maintain. The calling fees were too expensive, so most of my relationships existed through handwritten letters. I recall writing 30 page letters to some of my best friends and waiting eagerly by the mailbox for their response two weeks later. Snail mail was the only way to stay connected, but it made us appreciate the time and effort it took to write a handwritten letter. It proved to the writer and the recipient that they mattered.

     If cell phones had been around back then, I know I would have been preoccupied texting my friends and sharing silly videos on Instagram, because I'm the type of person who is easily sucked into social media. God bless the mothers today who aren't, but as for me, I know I'd be curled up on the sofa far too long with my phone, scrolling through photos and Facebook updates while my kids played nearby.

     A night out to dinner with the kids in tow was also never an easy feat. They became bored after the first ten minutes, got antsy waiting for their food, and were always in a hurry to get back home once they'd finished eating. It was up to my husband and me to keep them occupied at the table. We told funny stories, drew in their coloring books, or played tic-tac-toe on the paper placemats....anything to keep them busy. As much as I enjoyed those times, there was always the stress of eating quickly (hello, heartburn) and praying that no one would have a meltdown in the restaurant.

     I'm pretty sure that if iPads and cellphones existed when my children were young, I would have been sorely tempted to use them to keep my kids entertained while my husband and I enjoyed a glass of wine before dinner.

     The same goes for vacations, which were even more of a challenge. We once drove from south Florida to Missouri for spring vacation, and the 24 hour drive was interminable. Staring out the car window at a flat landscape with the occasional appearance of a cow was not great entertainment for a five-year-old. The best we could do was arm our kids with headphones and storybook tapes for their cassette players. When that became tiring for them, my husband and I popped children's sing-a-long tapes into the car's stereo and sang goofy songs with them until our eyes glazed over. The only thing that saved us from losing our sanity during that road trip was when the kids finally became drowsy and fell asleep---but even then we had to whisper, and we couldn't play the radio too loud for fear of waking them. Let's just say that by the time that trip was over, children's songs like Raffi's "Baby Beluga" were a constant ear worm that took months to get rid of.

     If we'd had access to games on cellphones and tablets for our kids, our road trips would have been ten times less stressful. And I wouldn't have been stuck for weeks with kid songs in my head.

     How is all of this different from what mothers are experiencing today? I'm not going to say that they have it better or worse---every generation has its own challenges. Social media is a great way for moms to stay connected to the outside world, and to seek advice or find like-minded parents who are struggling with similar childrearing issues. There are tons of online mommy groups and pediatric websites that make searching for answers literally just a click away. We never had this luxury; sometimes it took hours to get through to a doctor in the middle of the night and numerous trips to the emergency room just to get medication for a simple infection, since most pharmacies closed by 10:00 p.m.

     Honestly, back in the 80's and 90's, I would have enjoyed staying in constant contact with my friends via emails, texts and social media, but I would NOT have liked living my life under a public microscope where everyone would have been free to judge my parenting skills. There's very little privacy nowadays, but a whole lot of criticism floating around, and as a young mother, I cannot imagine living with that burden while trying to raise my kids. From disciplinary tactics to eating organic or non-organic foods, everyone has an opinion, and no parent is immune from being judged on their decisions.

     I'm also extremely grateful that cellphone photos and videos did not exist when I was a young. Once that stuff is out in the internet, you can never erase it. No one needs to see that photo taken eons ago on my friend's Kodak camera of me being carried out of a party after I'd had one too many vodka tonics. Nope. That evidence from my partying days was burned, and my kids will one day be thankful for being spared from seeing it.

     Now that I'm an empty nester, I have all the time in the world to indulge in my social media connections. I love the freedom of it, but given half the chance, I wouldn't trade it for the internet-free time that I spent with my children while they were growing up....Baby Beluga and all.


***WANT MORE MENO MAMA? This week you can catch me on Pickle Fork with The Three Stages Of A High School Reunion and on Reality Moms with 9 Reasons I Love Having Adult Children.

     If you've been having an unusually craptastic week, there's a pseudoscientific reason for your misfortune. Mercury is in retrograde from September 17 to October 9th, and this astrological phenomenon is the perfect scapegoat for everything that has gone awry in the past week.

     "Mercury Retrograde" occurs during three periods throughout the year, a time when the planet appears to stall and spin backward. Although this is an illusion caused by the rotation of the earth, many people believe that the retrograde phase is responsible for wreaking havoc during each of these three-and-a-half week periods. Mercury is the ruling planet of communication, so it stands to reason that while in retrograde, communication, travel and technology go haywire, causing a certain degree of pandemonium on earth. Computers crash for no reason, cell phones erase info, emails are lost and transportation is a nightmare.


     It doesn't stop there. Staunch believers of Mercury's trickery advise against signing important documents, traveling, starting a new job, moving, getting married, or launching a new business venture during retrograde.

     I've had my own share of misfortunes in the past week; my car died, my husband was in a car accident (not hurt, thankfully) and one of my sweet pets died in her sleep. I've also had a few heated debates with friends and even engaged in a ridiculous argument with my husband one night over the Miami Dolphins….and I don't even watch football.

     I'd love to blame Mercury for my bad luck, but rather than focus on my misfortune, I prefer to think of all the good things that the retrograde phase might do for me. If everything is spinning backward, that means I might have a second chance at enjoying some of the things I miss:


*My old metabolism. Maybe I can go back to eating chicken wings, donuts, and cheeseburgers without gaining a pound.

*High energy. I'd like to be as energetic as I was when I was a kid with the motivation to run around the playground, climb a jungle gym or sail down a hot metal slide without getting second degree burns on my chunky thighs.

*Good music. Pat Benetar, Journey, The Cars, Peter Gabriel, Toto, The Police…..the list goes on and on. I'd rather listen to them than some dude singing, "Now watch me whip, watch me nae nae…"

*Size eight clothing. It sure would be nice to fit into that size again, since right now the fabric from one of those tiny t-shirts would barely cover one arm.

*Required nap time. In kindergarten, we played all morning, ate lunch, then pulled out our mats and blankets to sleep for an hour. When we woke up, the nice teacher handed out graham crackers and milk. I want to go back to kindergarten….for adults. And the nice teacher hands out margaritas with chips and queso dip.

*My stamina. I could stay out all night and party like a rock star when I was in my twenties. Now I can't even make it to the dinner hour without three cups of coffee to prop me up.

*80's fashion. Shoulder pads, parachute pants and velour jumpsuits. Just kidding. Pajama jeans and yoga pants work fine.

Come to think of it, now that there's a Clinton and a Bush running for office again, who knows? Maybe there's something to the lore of Mercury in retrograde, after all.

     Welcome to another edition of Fly on the Wall group posts, hosted by Karen of Baking In A Tornado. Today 16 brave bloggers are inviting you to catch a glimpse of what you’d see if you were a fly on the wall in our homes. 

      At my house, whenever my whole family gets together, things get weird. Someone will bring out the accordion and attempt to play polka music. Worse, SOME people actually try to dance to the music. Soon after, a pudding fight ensues. 


     Yes, I live with lunatics, and they all belong in a padded cell….together.  


"You've infected me with your lunacy."

"Don't throw out those leftover pancakes! I might eat them later."
"Instead of 'Save the Whales' your new slogan should be "Save The Pancakes."

"Laughter is NOT the best medicine. Chocolate is."

"I like this bottle of Winking Owl wine, even though it's really cheap."
"It tastes like crap. They should have named it Winking Sphincter wine."

"With all the tossing and turning you do in bed at night, I think that qualifies as a day's worth of rigorous exercise."

"Did my granddaughter just say that having to carry all of her stuff up the stairs was 'ridiculous'?"
"No---she said it was 'DICKulous.' She hasn't mastered her R's yet."

"Dear triple shot of espresso, please lie to me about how much we're going to get done today."

"Stop licking my earlobe---I already know you're feeling amorous. Who needs Q-tips when I have your tongue?"
"Are you talking to me or the dog?"



"Why is your ring tone a loud siren? Are you trying to give yourself a heart attack?"  
"Wow---that Water Pik works better than floss! After eating a steak, I just sprayed half a cow out of my molars." 

"I have so many tabs open on my laptop --- it sounds like a jet getting ready to take off."

"Note to self: never give your husband cabbage for dinner an hour before he has to drive clients around all night for Uber."


     Now you understand what I mean when I say I've been locked in a padded cell with these whack jobs. Can you hand me the keys to get out of here, please???

     Last month I wrote about the fifteen things no parent should have to say to their teen daughter (you can read it HERE). So what about the boys? I've raised two sons, as well as daughters, and it seems that in every stage of my boys' lives, from the moment they stood unassisted to when they took their first step, there was a battery of things I NEVER imagined I would have to say to my little male bundles of joy. When they were young, it was the simple stuff like, "I know it looks like a Tootsie Roll but you can't play with the cat's poop"…..."Stop eating dirt---it's not part of the food pyramid"…... "No, that humming wand you found hidden in the back of Mommy's drawer can NOT be used as lightsaber while playing Star Wars."

     Raising boys is a whole different ballgame, and their teen years are known to reduce even the toughest of parents down to a puddle of anxiety and insecurities. Please know that if you have uttered one or more of the following statements to your teenage son, you're not alone:



*You're gonna need a chain saw to cut those toenails.

*If you keep 'borrowing' gas money from me, I'm trading in your car for a Vespa.

*Just because you have laser lights and a stereo system the size of a Winnebago in your room, it doesn't mean that you're allowed to host a rave every weekend. Our house withstood several hurricanes, but I'm not sure it'll last through the rumblings of your bass.

*Please chew with your mouth closed. I don't need to see how fast your molars can masticate a steak.

*Did you wipe?

*You're going to have arthritis in your fingers by the time you're twenty-five from using your cell phone 24/7.

*I don't care how pretty she is---when you take her out on a date, you'd better be thinking with the big head and not the little head.

*All that stinky laundry on your closet floor is making your room smell like a Porta Potty that hasn't been cleaned out in months.

*If you're going to spend THAT much time in the shower, then you need to start scrubbing all the extra  "conditioner" off the shower doors.

*Pay your speeding tickets before you end up on a television episode of Cops.

*No, you will not get carpal tunnel syndrome from flushing the toilet several times a day.

*It's going to take an ice cream scoop to clean all that wax out of your ears.

You need to make a cell phone payment instead of spending your entire paycheck on sneakers…unless, of course, you plan on ditching the wheels in favor of using your feet to get around.

*Yesterday there was a five pound ham in the refrigerator, and now it's gone. A gallon of milk, two bags of chips, a loaf of bread and an entire box of Oreos are also missing. If you step on the bathroom scale, I think I can solve the mystery of the missing food.

*Belching the alphabet is not a skill that women find attractive.


Thankfully, one of my sons is now an adult who has turned into a fine gentleman. My youngest (and feistiest) still has a few more years to go, but the way I see it, he'll be the one who ends up married with four children. Hopefully all boys.

I'd better keep an ice cream scoop in my pocket at all times…..just in case.








***This week I was thrilled to be featured on Beyond Your Blog! You can read my post about living the writer's life here: http://www.beyondyourblog.com/its-a-writers-life-for-me/#

 
     I have two adult daughters who are the light of my life, but I have to admit---their teen years were not the brightest. I could have done without the arguments over the boys they dated, the clothes they wore or the fact that they mastered crawling out of a bedroom window late at night without disturbing the dogs.

     Any parent who makes it through their child's teen years unscathed deserves a metal of honor. Perhaps more so if they've been able to successfully raise daughters.

     There are certain things that no parent should EVER have to say to their little darlings once they've transitioned from the tea party, dress-up stage to Cyndi Lauper's girls-just-wanna-have-fun stage. Although the parent may feel they have a handle on raising their teen girl, it's inevitable that one or all of the following lines will be uttered from their lips at one time or another:

*Drop that hem about four more inches before you leave the house.

*You want to put a tattoo where?

*I know you consider twerking a skill, but that still doesn't mean you should dance like that in public.

*You'll need to buy another cell phone just to store all your bathroom selfies.

*Of course you won't gain five pounds from eating three Milk Duds at the movie theatre.

*No, I'm not leaving work just to bring you a tampon at school.

*You could save a lot of money by actually washing your clothes instead of buying new ones to avoid doing laundry.

*There's a great deal on Amazon right now for chastity belts.

*No, you're not allowed to get your belly button, nose or nipples pierced.

*You're not going to experience life on the back of a motorcycle until you're over twenty-one.

*Yes, there really is such a thing as too much eye liner.


*I don't care how cute he is---if his I.Q. matches his shoe size, you can't date him.

*No, you won't be scarred for life by scraping old food off the dishes before you load them into the dishwasher.

*If the clock strikes twelve and you're not home, your car won't turn into a pumpkin but your social life will turn into the black hole while you're grounded.

*No, you're not allowed to use your college loan money for a Brazilian butt lift.



     I'm proud to say that I survived raising two teen girls----despite a few tattoos and piercings along the way. Thank God for BOGO sales on chastity belts!

   


Want more Meno Mama? This week, my article, "The Invisible Generation," is up on The Huffington Post.  You can read it here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcia-kester-doyle-/the-invisible-generation_b_6938344.html

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know how much I like to highlight the absent-minded situations that my husband gets into. His intentions are good, but somehow his plans always go awry. Case in point: One afternoon when we were hosting a backyard barbecue, my husband offered to do all the cooking. He'd forgotten to replace the old gas line to the grill, and was happily flipping burgers when he noticed a small spark by the gas tank. Grease from the meat was splattering everywhere and hitting the leaks in the gas line.

We narrowly missed a gas explosion that day when the grill burst into flames. The black plumes of smoke sent the partygoers scrambling out into the street. Fortunately, most of our friends discovered a sudden fondness for Cajun-style burgers.

Another example of good intentions gone wrong occurred years ago when a hurricane approached our coastline. My husband thought it would be "fun" to pack our family of six into the minivan for a quick trip to the nearby beach to watch the storm whipping up the waves. Little did he know that the hurricane was a fast moving storm, and that it was closer to our area than he suspected. When the wind began rocking the sides of the van, he broke the land speed record to get us home before the hurricane hit.

Rather than leave the minivan in the driveway, my husband decided to park it on the side of the house for better protection from the oncoming storm. It was a new vehicle, and he was determined to keep it from being crushed by a fallen tree. In his rush to maneuver the car to safety, he put it in reverse and backed into the tight space of our side yard. His foot slipped  off the brake onto the accelerator and the van lunged backwards, slamming into a tree. The glass in the rear window shattered into a million shards just as the rain started lashing the streets. The kids had a hard time containing their giggles while they watched their wind-blown father struggle with a roll of duct tape and a plastic tarp in the middle of a hurricane.

My husband easily falls into these situations because he is a kind man who is always happy to help others. He'll carry heavy bags out to the car for elderly shoppers at the grocery store, assist a stranger changing a tire on a busy highway, or rescue a stranded friend in the middle of the night.  But sometimes these little acts of kindness backfire.

One morning he was in a crowded elevator on his way up to a job interview when the woman next to him spilled a stack of business cards onto the floor. Being the chivalrous man that he is, he bent down to retrieve the cards for her when he heard something rip. Everyone in the elevator stood silent, and at that moment, my husband realized his brand new slacks had split wide open from stem to stern.

Needless to say, he spent the entire interview with his backside to the wall.

It was the most recent incident, however, that will go down in history as the EPIC PHONE FAIL.

Last week when my "Spandex" book was published, my excited husband sent out a large group text on his cell phone to share the good news with everyone on his contact list. A few days later, one of his buddies responded to the text and asked what he could do to help out. My husband JOKINGLY texted back, "Buy the book, F@#*ER!"

After he hit "send" on his cell, it dawned on him that he'd accidentally sent the message to EVERYONE on his contact list. This included not just our close friends, but the plumber, the minister, our vet, the jeweler, the dentist, all of our doctors, the electrician, the A/C guy, our contractor, my mother, the friggin' MAYOR, our hairdresser, and all of our neighbors. It even went to the physician who performed our colonoscopies.

Now I'm worried that the next time I'm due for a colonoscopy, the doctor might "conveniently" forget to give me anesthesia.

I think it's time for my husband to go back to using a rotary phone.





If you love my blog, you'll love my book, WHO STOLE MY SPANDEX? MIDLIFE MUSINGS FROM A MIDDLE-AGED MILF on sale now in paperback and Kindle at Amazon.com http://amzn.to/11uY6fD or on Nook at Barnes and Noble!