Category Archives: Leaving the Nest

January 26, 2023 · 10:56 pm

The Laundry Blues

It’s possible I made a horrible mistake when I decided to make my kids responsible for their own laundry. In theory, it was a wonderful idea as it relieved me of the dreaded chore and saved me from spending countless hours in what may be the smallest and most depressing room on earth. What’s more, I thought it would help prepare them for college and eventually adulthood, giving them the tools necessary to ruin their own stupid laundry. Let’s face it. It’s just a matter of time before someone combines lights with darks or shrinks a favorite pair of jeans beyond all repair. I figured they might as well get started on the path to one of life’s crippling disappointments—ahead of the curve, so to speak.

The problem with my plan is that it backfired. Ever since delegating said task, my charges have monopolized every square inch of the laundry room, compromising my ability to so much as enter without tripping over a tangled mass of bras or heaps of socks, turned inside out—naturally. Never mind their hampers that overflow and practically vomit clothing onto the floor, effectively blocking the door and keeping me from hauling my own hamper inside. Further, the detergent, stain removers and dryer sheets never get returned to the cabinets “correctly” and the drying racks are almost always filled to capacity, leaving no room for anyone else’s clothing. Forget trying to do the rest of the family’s laundry. That’s virtually impossible.

I guess I should be happy that they’re doing laundry at all. I just wish they’d REMEMBER that they’re doing laundry and actually finish the job. For days on end their clean clothing hangs on the drying racks while their dirty laundry waits patiently nearby, at times, stacked more than three feet high. Related: I’ve watched them pluck a number of items from their hampers as well as the racks so they could wear them immediately, skipping crucial steps in the laundry process. And let us not overlook the crumpled masses of sweatshirts, etc. in the dryer, all but forgotten. On occasion, I also make horrifying discoveries—wads of partially dried, yet decidedly damp clothing INSIDE the washer. Gak. The longer the abandonment, the more foul the odor.

As one might expect, I often cave by rewashing the aforementioned items, folding their clean clothes and carrying the towering piles all the way upstairs—something they promised they’d have no trouble doing. Sadly, after this happens the cycle begins again and my window of opportunity for completing any of MY laundry is gone. To say that this is frustrating is an understatement.

I suppose it goes with the territory of being a parent, however. I’m quite sure my mom was fairly exasperated when I came home from college during a semester break or an occasional weekend, hauling with me an embarrassment of dirty laundry. Giant garbage bags worked best as I recall, because I could stuff them beyond the point that a reasonable person would, deeming those particular trash bags as overachievers forevermore.

At any rate, I spent an eternity doing my laundry at home. Marathon sessions as I recall—especially after Thanksgiving and Christmas. No doubt, I enlisted the help of my mother, who probably felt a little sorry for me since I had obviously lost my way to the campus laundry facility and had almost no clean clothes left by the end of the semester. Looking back, it’s more than a little likely that I failed to return the detergent et al. to its proper place in our basement and I probably exploited the washer and dryer for a period of time that was unbearable to my mother, never once considering that she might want to use them, too.

With any luck, we’ll get the kinks worked out before my kids head off to college. Lord knows I’ve let them know what a terrible idea it would be to boycott doing laundry FOR AN ENTIRE SEMESTER. Then again, my mom probably made the very same speech.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live, suffering from the laundry blues. Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under In the Trenches of Parentville, Leaving the Nest, motherhood

Tagged as humor, laundry, parenting, teenagers

February 6, 2019 · 1:30 pm

Hurry Up and Wait

My youngest kids are high school seniors, which, by extension, means that my husband and I have been tasked with the thankless job of hauling them hither and yon over the past two years so that they might ultimately find a college campus that “speaks to them.” Needless to say, we’ve spent countless hours on the road and in hotels as well as scheduling auditions, meeting with various professors and arranging shadowing dates ad infinitum. And let us not forget the days spent crawling over hill and dale, tolerating both the rain and snow of fall/winter and the searing heat of summer, in order to better determine the merit and overall appeal of each campus.

While I recognize the gravity of the decisions that face them, I’m sure I’ve muttered, “For the love of God, pick one already,” more than once in what has seemed like an eternal span of time. When all is said and done, I know they’ll make the right choices, but in the meantime my husband and I are losing our collective minds. I honestly don’t remember agonizing over schools the way they do. Who knows? Maybe things were simpler back then and it came down to whether or not the cafeteria food was decent.

I, for one, thought that was relatively important.

At any rate, aside from coordinating virtually every detail of each visit and tolerating a maze of parking garages in the process, we’ve been saddled with the issue of how to kill time while our progenies attend classes, etc. It’s the infamous hurry-up-and-wait syndrome. So far we’ve traipsed through courtyards peppered with trees, explored enormous and impressive facilities, took pictures of various mascots, used Google Maps to find the nearest Starbucks, made multiple trips to the car because we forgot something of vital importance and talked to umpteen college students and staff members about why they chose XYZ University. And because there is never a dull moment in our lives, one afternoon a fire drill went off at one of the aforementioned universities and another time my husband got stuck in a bathroom stall, where he frantically texted me for help. Eventually he got out on his own, but not before I was able to tweet about it to the amusement of many.

But mostly, the waiting involved hanging out in the libraries of each school. And by hanging out I mean we found a couple of comfy chairs and spent upwards of eight hours playing solitaire on our phones, surfing the Internet, snacking, watching students filter in and out, eavesdropping on their conversations, perusing daily newspapers and, of course, napping indiscriminately. Thank God we were smart enough to bring along a favorite book or two. I devoured several patently hilarious titles by David Sedaris and Jim Gaffigan while my husband read about politics and the Vietnam War. We wanted to at least appear productive and engaged.

Quite frankly, I don’t know how I would have survived even one of the ordeals without something substantial to read. Granted, my Facebook and Twitter feeds are entertaining, but I doubt I could spend hours doing that alone. For me, books made the time pass and allowed me to almost forget that I was stuck in a library surrounded by herds of 18 to 20-somethings. In a very real sense, books preserved what was left of my sanity.

Speaking of books, this Friday, February 8^thwill be my very first bookiversary (book anniversary)! Please order Deliverance: A Survival Guide to Parenting Twins for just $8.99 on Amazon or pick up a signed copy at Otto Bookstore, the oldest independent bookstore in America. Keep in mind, you don’t need to be a parent of twins to appreciate the hilarity packed within every chapter. I promise. As an added bonus, having Deliverance on hand means you’ll never be without reading material if you happen to find yourself stuck somewhere—waiting.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live, probably holed up in another college library with my husband. But at least we’ll always have great books to read and we’re no longer enduring the misery of FAFSA forms. Visit me there at www.Facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under Bookish Stuff, Growing Pains, In the Trenches of Parentville, Leaving the Nest

Tagged as bookiversary, books, college visits, Deliverance: A Survival Guide to Parenting Twins, humor, marriage, parenting, Planet Mom, teenagers

August 16, 2018 · 12:59 pm

The Laundry Blues

Planet Mom: It’s where I live, suffering from the laundry blues. Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under I Pretty Much Suck at Parenting, In the Trenches of Parentville, Leaving the Nest, Rantings & Ravings

Tagged as chores, humor, laundry, parenting, teenagers

June 6, 2018 · 10:48 am

Motherhood Anew

When I first became a mother, it felt as though time stood still, my days and nights never-ending, woven together into an unfamiliar tapestry that defined my upended world. I remember thinking the infant stage would endure forever and that I would surely be driven mad in the process. Sleep was a commodity I craved with fervor beyond all imagining, as were hot showers without the constant worry of being responsible for a tiny human 24/7.

My mother, of course, assured me that the sleepless nights, inconsolable crying and umbilical cord awfulness would eventually abate. Things would get better and my life could be reclaimed to a degree. A new normal would emerge in due time, largely contingent upon my child developing some level of independence. Turns out, she was right.

Granted, as my oldest daughter grew, my days were still filled to capacity and mostly blurred at the edges, although at the core they were remarkable and good, making me grateful to be a mother. Again and again this happened as another child joined the fold and I reminded myself that the inaugural stages only felt like a train wreck. I would muddle through, somehow. Motherhood would not consume me.

Eventually there would be sand castles and building blocks, baby dolls and baking cookies, blanket forts and, of course, endless summers in pursuit of the yellow-green flashes of fireflies. Days would be spent creating entire villages with sidewalk chalk and devouring favorite books together nestled on the couch—hours of being present with my children, moments that I now struggle to remember in perfect detail. If I sift through old photos and squint hard, however, I can often return to what was—tethered to a time and place when I was a different kind of mother.

At the time, I never imagined longing for those things, assuming they’d always be there—the books, the sandbox, the fireflies and so on. I hadn’t considered that a day would come when my children no longer crawled into my lap for a story or begged me to build a teetering tower with blocks or allowed me to rock them to sleep. Back then it almost seemed a bit inconvenient, having to stop what I was doing and be present with my daughters, never mindful that eventually there would be “a last time” for engaging with them in that way.

I often wonder which book was the last to be read aloud. I have no way of knowing, but I suspect it happened at the bus stop, a place where we turned hundreds of pages together as we sat on the curb waiting for the school bus to groan to a halt. And when did we last chase fireflies, our bare feet skimming the cool grass at dusk, mayonnaise jars in hand? I can’t reliably recall, although it might have been the same year I helped them climb trees or build a snow fort in the backyard.

By design I suppose, childhood has a season—an indeterminate yet finite number of days we get to watch our progenies move through the stages of development. If we’re lucky, we remember to etch upon our minds the moments of pure perfection immersed within the tumult, when time is suspended and we can drink in the joy we happen to experience. So many ordinary moments as a parent wind up being extraordinary because we remembered to actually live them—to savor the goodness in the midst of madness.

If nothing else, this is the advice I’d like to impart to my children—especially to my oldest, who just became a mother. And although she struggles to get enough sleep and spends far too much time doubting herself, I know she feels a wealth of gratitude and has embraced the concept of unconditional love, as has everyone who has ever nurtured something.

Needless to say, I am beyond grateful that I’ll get to relive so many of the moments that make motherhood special—even if I’m called Grandma.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live, revisiting motherhood as a newly minted grandmother. Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.

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Filed under "N" is for Nostalgia, Gratitude, Leaving the Nest, motherhood

Tagged as babies, learning curve, love, motherhood, mothers, newborns, parenting

November 25, 2013 · 11:25 am

Ten Ways to Say “Thank you,” Mom

Thanksgiving Day is almost upon us. Time for family, feasting and a well deserved respite from the impossible demands and harried pace of life. Time for bribing my kids to wear dress clothes, for hiding the abomination of clutter that exists within my home and for treating the reluctant gravy stains that will inevitably occur. Time for bickering about football, politics and the absurdity of reality TV. Time for snapping wishbones, smoothing tablecloths and clinking fancy silverware. Together.

It’s time for pies, pictures and parades, too, as we reconnect with loved ones, near and far. Mostly, though, it’s time to gather and to give thanks for harvest and health, just as it was at Plymouth in 1621. Indeed, it is time to give thanks for the many people and things deemed instrumental in our lives.

I for one recognize the wealth of goodness with which my life has been blessed. But on this particular Thanksgiving, my thoughts rest on my mother—perhaps because her world came crashing down just three short years ago, perhaps because of the battle she’s now fighting, perhaps because she’s always been there for me—even still. So thank you, Mom, for so many things…

…for being a good listener in spite of the vat of foolishness I’m sure to have delivered over the years…for reminding me that you can never have too many friends or woolen blazers…for emphasizing the importance of pausing when a child speaks, allowing the void to be filled with what’s really on their minds.

…for letting me do stupid (yet exceedingly edifying!) things—like putting all kinds of time and energy into a less-than-seaworthy raft, like chewing gum in bed, quitting band, forgoing French and studying till 3am for a physics test…like getting a disastrous perm, allowing gossip to consume me and dating boys with long hair and fast motorcycles.

…for tolerating my imprudence and forgiving my mistakes—like burning our water pump, which transformed our swimming pool into a pond overnight…like tormenting our sitters unmercifully, forgetting your birthday and breaking God-knows-how-many windows and flower vases…like betraying your trust by filling our house with teens and booze while you and Dad vacationed in Florida.

…for encouraging me and inspiring a sense of belief in myself, teaching me to accept what I have and to handle disappointment when it visits…for helping me recognize the inherent value in power naps, mental health days and a good, long cry.

…for letting me go…on the mother of all road trips with eleventy-seven of my closest friends…to the lake with the aforementioned motley crew…to an insanely large university where I would surely be swallowed up in lieu of finding my path in life…for biting your tongue when I quit my job in the city and when I married the wrong man.

…for introducing me to the almighty crock pot, to the concept of saving money and to the notion of waiting for the real prize instead of grasping desperately for the veneer of gratification.

…for underscoring the importance of writing thank you notes, of spending time with my grandparents, of talking to babies and of liking myself—even when I’m least likeable.

…for teaching me how to sort laundry, to deal with a loathsome roommate, to make a mean pot of chicken soup, to soothe a grexy baby, to contend with a rebellious teenager, to find a great pair of black flats…to appreciate the patina of a genuine antique and the untold merits of a good iron…to instinctively know when to opt for eggshell (as opposed to ecru)…to own my decisions, to list pros and cons and to always weigh my options carefully.

…for loving your grandchildren with as much ferocity as you loved me, for implanting within me the seeds of faith and for instilling me with the impetus to seek solace within the pages of a good book and nurturance within the arms of a good man.

…for letting me be there for you and Dad these past three years—likely fouling up your checkbook and misplacing things in your kitchen forevermore, but being there nevertheless.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (giving thanks). Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.