Those knife-in-the-heart moments
Sweet, sweet tooth.
I threw out an old waffle iron recently that had migrated down to the basement over the last few years from lack of use. It was an old Proctor Silex number with oil streaked across its white casing and inside, there were still gobs of gunk leftover from breakfasts of long ago. It was a Belgian waffle style because at one point when my four kids were younger, we had to have both a regular waffle iron that made thinner pressed disks (that were heart-shaped) and then the fatter Belgian waffle option. Depending on the day, the children could get their pick of how to deliver boxed Aunt Jemimah to their bellies when lowly pancakes just weren’t cutting it.
I had been down in the basement trying to organize the wire shelves I bought at Target to hold some overflow items that don’t neatly fit into my tiny kitchen. It took some getting used to when we moved here a few years ago to go from endless cabinet space – enough to fit piles of platters, wide-mouthed margarita glasses and three sets of dishes – to a more scaled-down situation that can accommodate just the basics. I even converted a tiny closet in a nearby hallway to house baking essentials and small appliances we still use on the reg, like my Vitamix and 30-year-old Cuisinart.
My oversized Le Creuset dutch oven, which was perfect for big batches of chili and stew when I was married and cooking for six, now sits on the basement shelf along with a smaller version that’s tucked inside. Then there are all the games and puzzles I still can’t part with – Sorry, Monopoly (regular and a Walking Dead editions) and four different versions of Scrabble. I’m convinced that one night I will talk someone into playing Jenga with me.
After all three of my grown children had found their way home to shelter in place last spring, those basement shelves were jammed packed with Costco-sized portions of kcups and paper towels and cases of Spindrift for my nightly cocktails. The shelves sit in a smaller side room that I’d been using for working out but when the kids came home, we dragged in an IKEA futon for my oldest son to sleep on.
When my younger daughter moved out in June, she took some of my old All-Clad pans that had been taking up space on the shelves along with the air mattress she arrived home with at the start of the pandemic and shoved on a bottom shelf. I went down after she left to see if I could organize the shelves a little better and that’s when I saw the waffle iron and decided that those days were over. The only person now left at home is a very fitness-conscious 18-year-old boy who drinks protein shakes for breakfast and would just as soon eat a candy bar than a waffle at the start of his day.
***
The overflow of items wasn’t just relegated to the basement. When the girls came home for the pandemic, they brought with them enough beauty products to stock a very small CVS. When it seemed clear that my younger daughter would be staying for the long haul, I gave her one of the drawers in my bathroom cabinet and one of the two wire racks hanging from the shower wall, which never seemed big enough to contain all of our products that spilled onto the shower bench and ledge. There were enough disposable razors, loofah mitts and body wash to buff and polish all of the Kardashians – even Caitlyn.
But now that they’re both gone, I’ve got the whole bathroom to myself. The two shelves are now full of all the mostly empty shampoo bottles that I can’t part with and I no longer have to wait my turn to get into my own bathroom or find a hair straightener cooling on the counter when I finally get in. I can also leave the door open whenever I need to pee.
***
A week before my youngest graduated from high school in June, I was gathered with my knitting gang around a table picking at a big plate of balled melon and prosciutto and someone asked me if I was going to be a puddle sitting in the bleachers watching my baby get his diploma and I shook my head. I wasn’t feeling emotional about high school ending.
But it’s the little things that are getting to me lately. The small signs indicating that I’m moving into a new chapter. I mean, we’re constantly moving from one stage to the next – as kids go from babies to toddlers, to cute little school-aged monkeys to scary teenaged monsters – and we’re constantly adjusting to accommodate their changing needs.
I’m so much later to the empty nest party than most of my friends because I was such a glutton that I had to spread my kids out over 10 years. So the changes have been slower to come for me. My oldest is closing in on 29 and I’m just now throwing away a 25-year-old waffle iron and somewhere in my stacks of platters I still have the metal "sick tray" with collapsible legs that my youngest would use to eat a meal on in front of the tv when he wasn't feeling well (or sometimes, because he's the baby, just as a special treat).
The good news that unlike so many other moms I know who grapple with kids moving on with how quickly it all seemed to go, I’m ready to explore what a life is like when the only person’s day-to-day needs I need to worry about are my own. I think I’m the only mom in America who’s excited for all of her kids to move out and to be alone but tbd on what the reality of that is really like.
***
My teenager went with his dad and a bunch of pals to the Poconos for a few days this week and, as luck would have it, my cleaning ladies were here on the same day. All day after he left I luxuriated in how clean the house was: no fingerprints on the frig and all the shoes finally gone from under the bench by the back door. When I went upstairs later, I noted that my son’s bed would be made the whole time he was gone, which brought me joy each time I climbed the stairs.
I finished work that night and closed my laptop and then quickly opened it back up and Googled a song the kids and I would listen to driving around to various activities when they were young. It was when I was still trying to manage what we listened to on the radio, which was a challenge with a five-year-old and 15-year-old. I’d gotten a bunch of CDs of albums by a young guy who wrote silly songs with catchy tunes that we soon knew all the words to and would sing along as we’d roll along through town.
I don’t know why I needed to hear “Brontosaurus Got a Sweet Tooth”, but I got it in my head and tried to get my nearby Alexa to play it, but all she wants to do nowadays is upgrade me to some premium Amazon music option. But I quickly found a YouTube video that featured the album cover that I stared at that as the song filled my office.
If you are looking for a knife-in-your-heart experience, just Google a song that you and your young children used to listen to, back when they were small enough to bop around in their seats as you drove. Before they were too cool for silly songs. When all of your voices would come together as you sang at the top of your lungs about a dinosaur who just wants to give you a big, wet kiss. And then when the song is done, you’ll remember how the kids would shout from the backseat to play it again and of course, you would comply and somewhere in the back of your mind, you tried to remember what that moment was like so that someday when they were too old for songs about dinosaurs and driving in the back of your car, you could call up just what that moment was like. Just how happy you were to be driving along singing with your children at the top of your lungs.
I was fine when my daughter moved out and my baby graduated from high school. I’m just as excited for them as I am for me. And I’m not sure that if you offered to magically transport me back to those days of singing about dinosaurs that I would grab that opportunity. I’m not sure I have the stamina anymore for all of that work -- physically, mentally, emotionally.
Instead, I can pull out those memories and try to remember what it was like to be up to my eyeballs in small children and all of their sweetness: their skin, their breath, their voices. Then I’ll put it away for another day and heat up a small thing of leftovers for dinner that I'll eat while reading a look and later, go to the bathroom with the door open.
xoAmy
If you are looking for your next great summer read, dive into Alka Joshi's "The Henna Artist," like my book club. The woman who made this month's selection really raised the book club bar by not only arranging to have an actual henna artist come and give us tattoos but we were joined by the author who zoomed in for a wonderful conversation about the book.
I left not only with a gorgeous design on the back of my right hand but inspired by Alka who not only published her first book at 62 but also had the incredible good fortune of having that picked as a Hello Sunshine Book Club selection last year. Not to mention, she's incredibly chic and engaging and was so generous with her time, even though (we learned later) we were her 452nd book club appearance. We loved it so much we're reading her follow-up, "The Secret Keeper of Jaipur," for August.
SUNDAY SHARES: Read, watch, cook, buy
My brain is so full from work lately that I can only handle books that are on the lighter side and heavily plot-driven. I have been flying through Elin Hildebrand's "Paradise" series (thank you Amy H!) and Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series (Kathy B!)
Wait. Stop the presses. I found a bathing suit company that makes bathing suits for actual, real live women and not Barbie dolls. I bought two (soon to be three -- here, here and here) suits from Summersalt and guys, they hold up the girls AND I don't feel super frumpy AND it covers all the critical things that need to be covered (barring wearing a burkini). I feel cute and appropriate and on the cusp of 55, there's not much more a gal can ask for.
I had toe surgery in May and while my tootsies are on the mend, some shoes still feel better than others. I had been eyeing these Freedom Moses rubber slides for months and finally bought a pair and they are so delightful, I might buy more.