There Are No Instructions for A First Broken Heart

Children do not come with instruction manuals.  Like any new product, I firmly believe they should.  As a matter of fact, why should only one family per week benefit from Super Nanny’s knowledge? I think Jo should capitalize on her child rearing knowledge and develop that manual! 

Infancy is easy.  Pat here to burp, rock in a consistent swaying motion to quiet crying.  Feed here.  Have plenty of Tide Pens ready for spit up stains.   It all seems simple enough.  Around the age when you expose your child to other children it gets a bit more complicated.  Issues like parents who send children to day care while they are carrying what all parents know as “the crud.  Solution – visit pediatrician…get icky thick pink stuff.  School brings more questions.   “Hey Mom….why does my classmate have two Moms instead of a Mom and Dad?” Accccck!  Deal with child in a matter of fact voice, and explain according to family values and religious beliefs.

Before you know it you are smack in the middle of the dreaded teenaged years.  Suddenly, the little girl that once kissed a worm in your friend’s back yard notices …. (Gasp….) boys!

Rule # 1 –Teenaged boys are walking hormones, therefore, boys lie.  Boys Lie.  Boys will say anything to get into your pants and do anything to get you into their pants.  BOYS LIE is required memorization for every teen girl.

Once they ignore that with a burning determination you wish they would apply to cleaning their rooms, the inevitable happens.  The dreaded first broken heart appears and suddenly you wish someone told you before you had this child that you would feel everything that they feel.  The problem is you feel is from a parent’s point of view…and that is magnified a million times.

Broken hearts are bad enough; however, they are worse when they are suffered as the result of betrayal by your “best friend”.   Even worse – your best friend begins accusing you of things that you aren’t doing to deal with her guilt.

Rule # 2 – No friend that values a boyfriend more than they value a loyal friend is worth calling a friend.

These are two lessons that are the first of many that will count.  Most importantly, they are two situations where adult reason makes sense, but your heart is still shattered in a million tiny pieces.  That my dear is called commonly called irony.

This is the time Moms and Dads everywhere will do everything within their power to take the pain away, all the while knowing that no matter what they say or do,the child must still swallow this bitter pill.

So – I’ll go get the crazy glue and a quart of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey and get ready to have a shoulder full of tears and such ….heaven knows my little girl is growing up and I’m going to need those Tide pens again…but this time they will be removing mascara.

Look What They’ve Done to My Childhood – 60′s Edition

Growing up in the 1960′s and 1970′s was definitely an experience.  This is just a sample of how things have changed and what exactly is missing.

First, Sister Seton, who was a mean little nun, would never survive today’s standards.  No longer would she be able to throw erasers at students heads, smack them with rulers or …and this is from personal experience …make them write the word gum in 1/4 inch high letters on both sides of a piece of posterboard because he or she forgot to spit gum out after lunch period.

Spelling Words…my favorite…antidisestablishmenterianism, which I learned to spell in the first grade.  The nuns were our spellcheck.

Girls attending Catholic School did not have a “gym” class.  Boys did.  Girls listened to records, went for walks, sat in class and crocheted or completed art projects.

Sister Mildred, who many fondly remember now, was a force to be reckoned with back in the day.  She would grab you by the little hairs above your ear and drag you all the way to the principals office for having the wrong look on your face at any given time.

Plaid Stamps, which we dilligently saved and redeemed for the coolest stuff at the catalog store.  Months would seem like years, as my brother and I split them each time they were attained with a purchase.

Rock School – an actual outdoor game played with nothing but a rock, a bunch of friends and the front steps to your home.

Nursery Rhymes…very few people know them anymore.

Literature…some of the changes – Just Like Mommy/Just Like Daddy….MIA – how it read – one side contained sentences like “I sweep the floor…Just like Mommy”….flip it over and “I fix the car just like Daddy”  Little Black Sambo was another one…thank heaven those two books have been stricken from the world of children’s literature.

Penny Candy.  Wow!  This was awesome.  We’d save our coke bottles and once a month we were permitted to go to the corner shop and redeem them.  With 10 coke bottles each, redeemed at a nickel a piece we wound up with enough candy to last until the next visit.  Little wafer “flying saucers”, jelly rings, bazooka gum and tootsie pops could all be obtained for a penny.

Coney Island.  I spent many a Sunday with my grandfather, who believed it wasn’t Sunday unless there was an excursion of extravagant proportions and fresh loaves of Italian Bread and “Buns” for breakfast.  The bakery is now closed and sadly, Coney Island and the “Cyclone” that entertained millions for generations is being torn down. 

Pallisades Park – The amusement venue made famous in a song of the same name…DOA.

John Lennon and George Harrison…Two of four who helped to shape modern society.  Often controversial, always respected and revered.  May they rest in peace.  Read Anthology…the history will amaze you.

Kimba the White Lion, Bozo the Clown, Howdy Doody, The Wizard of Oz in black in White…Ditto for Rudolph, The Ed Sullivan Show, Firing Line, Andy Williams, Sonny and Cher, ….Flip Wilson – Here Comes da Judge – Geraldine – Flip’s most beloved characters, The Andy Griffith Show, The Partridge Family, Wild Kingdom…Presentd by Mutual of  Omaha…Leave it to Beaver, Gilligan’s Island, …and a house with ONE television in it.  Marlo Thomas, Mary Tyler Moore, H.R. Puffenstuff, The Brady Bunch, ….the list goes on.

Catching lightening bugs…blocking the entire street with “snow forts” and not having a single neighbor complain…a street where no one double parks.  Men giving up seats on the bus to pregnant women.  Stock Car Races, tossing rocks into the water “just because we could”. 

Big hair, dungarees…(at least the word), platform shoes, “marshmallow” shoes, bell bottoms, Easter Hats, rabbit fur coats, Real winter coats (woolen dressy ones”, leisure suits, pants suits, hair “laquer”, gloves, patent leather maryjanes, which are now a very rare.  Children who dressed modestly.  No pants for girls in school.  It could be 10 degrees with 8 inches of snow on the ground…if you walked, you wore pants under your dress and they were removed the second you entered the building. 

Being able to just hang out outside of school, high school kids (they have now become “posers” rockers, emo kids, ghetto kids, punk kids, ….the division never ends). 

The novelty of a first moonwalk, John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Fidel Castro, Richard Nixon, Watergate, Harry Truman, Support for Soldiers in a time of war, Peaceful Protests, decorum, manners, consideration and patience.  Family dinners EVERY night, kids who went to bed at a reasonable hour, parents who weren’t running 24 hours a day 7 days a week, then showering kids with gifts to compensate for lost time.

Need I say more?

I will wait patiently.  Perhaps we will hear from a wiser one…one who grew up in the 30′s and 40′s or 40′s and 50′s.

Things change.  They change drastically, and I hope for the sake of my child and her children, that they begin to change for the better.

Bad hair day? Think outside the box!

Growing up sucks.  We get to school, and what we thought was fun at home is no longer fun, because it just isn’t cool.

Competition starts early, and so does conformity.  No longer can we color a dog purple and heaven forbid we color outside the lines.  We begin our day hearing the teacher say “Good Morning Class” and we give are trained to respond in unison “Good Morning Ms. Smith”.   Blech!

How does this prepare you for life?  Okay…so there are rules we have to follow.  Order is necessary in society and a stop sign does mean stop, however, did you ever stop to consider what would have happened if William Shakespeare or Benjamin Franklin followed all the rules all the time?  Can’t you just picture old Ben’s mom screaming “Get in out of the lightening!”  What if Plato had remained silent in the interest of decorum?

Just for today perhaps we should break the rules. I don’t mean run a red light, or steal something from the local grocer and for heaven’s sake don’t say “Abby gave me permission to not file my taxes this year”.  What I am saying is follow your heart.  .

Think not only with intellect and factor heart and instinct into your decisions.  Perhaps showing compassion for the three elderly people walking at a snail’s pace side by side in the supermarket who are blocking you from passing by deserve compassion rather than disdain or contempt because they are blocking you and throwing your schedule off by three precious minutes.  God willing, you will be that old someday.

Just for today, when the class says “Good Morning Ms. Smith”  say “Hey girl Hey” – evoke laughter, smile and show a little compassion.  You will surprise those you come in contact with, and more importantly…you just might find yourself pleasantly surprised with the promise of who you can become.  Think outside the box!

Sometimes Your Prince Turns Into A Frog

Forty brings about a lot of change in most people.  It is a time where our minds begin to wander and wonder what might have been.  We long for contact with old friends, and when it is made you never know what you will find.

It is also a time when we assess life and question the decisions we have made and begin to take action to change them.  The discovery I made in this process is that there is a reason for everything. 

After twenty years of not speaking, my first love contacted me.  Curious, I flew off to another state to meet him, and it was incredible.  Looking in those blue eyes, with the eyes of a sixteen year old who was still blushing in his presence was novel.  Those eyes killed me when I met him at the age of 12, and years later, they still held that magical power.

At the age of 40, I had a ten year old child, was divorced and life consisted of work, child, work, child and did I mention work, child?  The trip began an adventure, and a transformation.

Eventually other events in life sparked a move to his new hometown.  Two years had passed since that first meeting and I now had a more sober view of life.  Time passed and the honeymoon was always there, but the commitment never came.  I had moved on and grown, and I finally realized that I was still dealing with the same man that ran off breaking my heart twenty years earlier.

I did learn though, that I am capable of many things, of loving adventure, of standing on my own two feet, of making decisions to change.  I learned to feel my fear and face those things I had to face anyway.

At the age of 46, I have finally become comfortable with  the prince being a frog but I have retained the crown jewels!