WineontheKeyboard

I look in the mirror. I’m not sure I know this woman I see. With the wisps of gray hair and are those wrinkles I see?

Where is the woman who was just holding this child? Scooping him up when he fell? Reading stories. Watching him fly down the hill on his Big Wheel and hoping he didn’t get hurt?

My hands that used to grasp his tiny hands? My hands are wrinkled now. Not a lot, but enough to let me know that they’ve lived. The hands have done a bazillion loads of laundry. They’ve picked up hundreds of Matchbox cars and Ninja Turtles. They’ve dried tears, and cleaned up skinned knees, and patted fevered foreheads.

I miss those little boy hugs. You know the ones? Where they wrap their arms around your neck so tightly you can barely breathe? Where have those all gone? How did the time fly by so quickly?

Was I not just taking this child to his first day of preschool? Did he not just learn to read? Score his first soccer goal? Learn to drive a car?

I have regrets. Things I wish I had done. I wish I’d spent more time with the boys, and less worrying about the house, or bills, or money or anything. I wish I’d put down my work, and sat and just listened to their laughter more often. I wish we had built more forts out of blankets and castles out of Legos. I wish I could have taken away the pain of their first broken hearts.

As the boys got older, I’ve taken back up hobbies that I had dropped in the exhaustion that is a mother of small boys. I slowly got back a part of me that wasn’t “mom”. But even that person had to shape her life around the demands of being a mother.

I’ve always been one of those moms willing to launch their children into the world. Be there for them, but encourage them to stand on their own two feet. Now my youngest leaves for college and it hurts. Honestly, I’m a mess. Even though I know he’s so ready for college and to be out on his own. I didn’t think I’d take it this hard.

So I stand here looking at the mirror and wonder. Who am I now? What will I become now that I’m not first and foremost a mom? How will I seize this life and make it into everything I want it to be? It’s actually kind of exciting…in a melancholy-the-world-is-changing way.

Who is that woman in the mirror?

Baby Boomer by Kacey
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Really, I like pink. I like it a lot. Pink is great protection against too much testosterone in the house. So, you’ll just excuse this little rant, won’t you?

Dear Retail Stores,

(yes, this means ALL of you! Linens and Things, Walmart, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohls…just to name a few…)

There are moms who have BOYS who are going to college this month too. Surprisingly, not all incoming Freshmen are females. Honest.

The males? They are not interested in pink sheets with lime green stripes. They aren’t into the whole brown with bright blue circle thing. They aren’t into fluffy bedspreads. Or zebra stripes. So, I realize that most females think that decorating their dorm rooms is a big deal…and most of the boys might not be that into it. But more than a handful…or none at all… in the not pink, no circles, no lime green selection of sheets would be nice.

PLEASE can you just make some good old gray sheets? Or black ones? Heck, I’d take beige at this point. Oh, and if you don’t mind? Dorms=twin sized sheets. So those over abundance of bright pink and lime king-sized sheets? Yeah, I don’t think they’re really going to sell very well for you.

My last babies are headed off to college, so this rant won’t help me one bit. But I send this letter to you, stupid retail stores in hopes of making it easier on the mothers of sons that follow me in their quest for just one darn set of twin sized sheets their son won’t be embarrassed to have on his bed.

Helpful hint to clueless retail stores…Males need sheets to go to college too.

Ever the helpful,
Kacey

P.S. To those moms out there with daughters who are making sure their bath towels match their sheets and match their bedspreads… At least I don’t have to worry about that!

Family Life by Kacey
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Deja Vu…well besides being the name of a great bar when I was in college….

I was having a deja vu type of week last week while visiting the campus of Mizzou. I went to college at Mizzou (Go Tigers!). When I went back there a few years ago with my son when he was registering for classes, it was like waves of memories washed over me…twisted in with the realization I had walked these streets everyday for 4 years. The same streets my son was soon to walk every day. It was like our lives had folded together and our paths had interwoven in some weird way.

Mizzou is a pretty campus…even more so now than I was there. They’ve done a great job prettying up the campus. They’ve also done a great job with their expansion projects, tying them in to the existing older architecture. Mizzou has a “red campus” (old red brick campus) like this shot of Jesse Hall–their administration building and a “white campus” white limestone buildings.

Here is the student union, the “entrance” to the white campus. This pretty walkway up to the union used to be an old torn up street when I went to school there.

Here is the “landmark” that Mizzou is known for. The Columns in the quad.

This is all that is left of the original Academic Hall at Mizzou. It burned down in 1892.

My Great Aunt Verena (love and adore the name Verena) went to Mizzou. About 80-90 years ago if I’m doing the math right. One of the few women on campus at that time. I have an old black and white photo she gave me of the columns back from when she went to school.

It just seems a bit weird, in a good way, to think of the history of this college and our family. SuperGuy went to Mizzou his last two years of college too. So we have a lot of history wrapped up in it. Now, in August, my youngest one, The Impish One will start college at Mizzou too. I sometimes get in a weird place when I’m walking around the campus now. Trapped between two worlds. For just a brief flash, I’m 20 again and reliving my college days.

Baby Boomer by Kacey
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