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Deb Clem-Buckert
on Sep 1 2010 - 12:00 PM
Silly Bands, Purple Bracelets, Leukemia and Lots of Inspiration!
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Margo Posnanski
on Aug 31 2010 - 06:00 AM
The Princess Who Once Wore Red Plastic High Heels
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Laura Bauer
on Aug 30 2010 - 06:00 AM
What do you mean you want to hang out with your family?
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Kady McMaster
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I pretty much stumbled into having kids and waltzed through my first pregnancy with very little thought to the work that lay ahead. Only during the last few weeks, when I took Lamaze, did I wonder, “Was this really a good idea?”
And then afterward, I decided it was, although there were so many things no one told me. Or maybe they did and I didn’t listen.
Like afterpains. WTF? They hurt like hell.
And the fact that I wouldn’t be wearing my pre-pregnancy jeans home from the hospital. Or maybe ever again.
Or how about how hard it is to get formula stains out of clothes. Or how quickly diaper rash develops.
Not to sound paranoid, but I think there’s a vast conspiracy to hide these truths until it’s too late to turn back.
So I made it my personal mission to tell my first-time mommy friends some of the tidbits they’d need to know, such as the fact that you need to wash the baby clothes before the baby wears them the first time. Or that while breastfeeding is a natural thing, it doesn’t happen naturally. And sometimes it hurts.
Anyway, that was then. That ship has sailed. But my paranoia continues, because I’ve been 40 for about two months now and have discovered that aging also is a realm where no one really warns you of some things, little things that are jarring when they first occur.
So I’m making a list. Feel free to add to it.
· When you go to the doctor, they start using phrases like “lipid profile” and “that just occurs naturally during the aging process.”
· Ditto with the dentist. And apparently no matter how diligent you are about flossing and brushing when you’re young, you’re still going to have nasties like receding gums and bone loss. What’s the point? I think of all that time I wasted flossing.
· People start referring to you as “middle-aged.” Huh? My parents are middle-aged. Oh, wait. They must not be.
· You’re 10 years from receiving your AARP card in the mail.
· You have a standing annual appointment with the mammographer.
· You start looking forward, sort of, to your first colonoscopy.
· Kids in their 20s really start to annoy you with their frequent reminders that they weren’t born when the Iran hostage crisis happened.
· You start referring to people in their 20s as “kids.”
That said, I wouldn’t really want to go back.
OK, I’m lying. I’d go back to 35 in a heartbeat.
But there are good things about turning 40. Like if you’re myopic, your eyes might improve, or at least your distance vision could. And if that happens before you need bifocals, your eyes will be at their lifetime peak. So you should take advantage of the relative cheapness of single-vision specs while you can.
And at 40, you find you really don’t care so much what other people think of you, which is freeing. You gave lip service to this when you were in your 30s, but you’re fully embracing it now.
And you find you have learned some things during your 22 years as an adult, things that make life easier now, like not getting so stressed out over things you can’t control. And realizing there’s very little you can control.
Like the aging process.
Gray hairs are coarse and don't behave. Chin whiskers come out of absolutely nowhere. The monthly water weight gain that came and went now comes and stays. Staying up late is not nearly as attractive as it once was. I probably have more but I'm at work and it's time for my nap. :)Oh, I could add and add and add to this list. *People call you ma'am. *doctors say things like, "at your age..." *your kids ask you what things were like "back in the day"...I have no idea what you are talking about. oh yeah, you only remember the good stuff. Limited memory capacity apparently. Nobody told me that after 40 I would be surprised that I learned something along the way and sometimes I would appear wise, not just a wisea**.If it stops growing, it's dying. I'll never forget when I was like 20 and my dr. told me that.....so I'm like, gee thanks, and he's like, "well, you're not 18 anymore".You start hearing your favorite songs from high school on the OLDIES station. And I'm only in my early 30s.I appreciate your comments. I'm there (in five months). I'm excited and scared at the same time. Thanks for thinking of me--by the way.I'm with moosebane. Grey hair that doesn't behave, and chin whiskers that came out of nowhere. DS 13 recently compared his facial hair to mine and he just started shaving. When I had just turned 40 to many years ago, the first thing that brought it to my attention was when the eye doctor asked me if I had trouble reading. At the time DS was a baby, so my response was, who has time to read. Later I realized "Sh** there go the eyes, and it has been down hill ever since. What ever happened to the phrase we're not getting older just better?Just wait til you're 42 and the teenage boy at the grocery checkout offers you the senior discount, "If you happen to be 55 or older, ma'm." Of course, I should have seen it coming: When I was 37 and still sore from having given birth a few months earlier, someone complimented me on how cute my grandson was. Uh.... thanks?
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