New Phase in Life

Since moving here to OH, I have been struggling with entering a new phase in my life. I've been a mother of older children and in my 40s for a few years now. But back in Tewksbury, I was able to avoid admitting that I was aging because members of my mother's group often had younger kids and even the ones with kids my kids' age, were still about 10 years younger than me. In fact, through my entire motherhood, I've been about 10 years older than my peers. This has helped me think young, I tell myself.

All the mothers' groups rejected me here. :-( Some didn't like that I worked and others didn't like that my kids were past preschool. OK. I'm fine with it. A couple sessions with my therapist and I'll be fine. Really.

I found New Neighbor's League and felt better that at least I can get out of the house and socialize. I attended my first event and felt a bit down. All the women I met were old. The entire room was old save a few faces across the room. OK. I'm being mean here. They were not all old. But they all seemed to be at least 10 years older than me. Ah. The shoe is on the other foot now. But I am finding it hard to "act my age."

Another new stage is entering a child into middle school. Last night was the open house. DH was out of town, so I had to drop the kids with my lovely, wonderful neighbor. Yes, the one who took care of Nova while we went out of town. I arrived at the event a few minutes late after dropping the kids off late and getting Nova out for one last potty break before leaving her at home. A few other parents stood outside the Gym with me. We were the overflow. We struggled to hear the principal speak about how wonderful the teachers were. They dismissed us to our children's advisory teachers. But where? Advisory is like homeroom, but the teacher is expected to do a bit more than take attendance. She/he is expected to advise.

We had no maps (except for the parents of the nice kids who brought their maps home to share. My kid was purposely not nice.) We only knew the names of the advisory teachers. This was not a good idea overall. It led to a lot of pushing and shoving. And I might add here that the school is a really weird layout. It was originally a completely open space/wall-less building. They gradually sectioned it off into pie piece shaped classrooms arranged around smaller circular rooms. An absolute mess for changing classes.

After asking for directions (because I'm not a guy), I found my way to the advisory room for Firstborn where I got a map and class schedule.

The good news, Firstborn's advisory is very nice. One of the nicest groups she has had. They even helped her set up the classroom on the first day. It is a mixture of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders and they are all like a team.

Next I moved on to gym where I found out that Firstborn has a woman gym teacher even though all the boys think the male gym teacher is theirs and the girls all think the female gym teacher is theirs. He takes 7 weeks of daily gym, has 14 weeks off and then takes 7 more weeks of daily gym. Interesting plan. They have to run a mile once a week and they have to change clothes for gym but they don't have tacky uniforms like we used to.

Then came science where his teacher has broken them up into Survivor-style teams and they have each picked a team name. She promises no one will be voted off the island. They are mostly exploring science this year. Firstborn will find this quite easy.

In science, I ran into a woman I had been standing outside of the gym with at the beginning of the night. We compared schedules and found that we were in different classes next, but ran into each other again at "lunch." She promised she wasn't following me, but struck up a conversation. We both had English Language Arts with Firstborn's advisory teacher after lunch. They didn't ring the bell at the end of lunch so the two of us walked into ELA late, looking sheepish. How did those other parents know that lunch was over when we didn't? I hope we don't get a referral over this (that's what they call their discipline warning system).

During our "lunch" this woman and I talked a bit about our kids, both sons. She commented that she was desperately trying to find another one of the "younger moms" to lean on when she found me. I laughed. I've never been one of the younger moms at a school gathering. I explained this to her and she insisted that I looked much younger than the others. I told her I was in my forties and she looked at me in amazement. I think it was that deer-in-the-headlights look I was sporting that threw her off. She thought I was in my early thirties. What can I say, I'm well preserved.

So for one more night, I can feel younger than I really am. This helps when recovering from the first open house at middle school. I had heard about these. Now I got to experience one. It was chaotic, but I like this crazy woman who followed me around all night and told me I look young.

First born is doing well in middle school. He was really ready for it. I'm glad I got to see the new-improved (with walls) school and meet his teachers. It makes me feel a bit better to know that they all seem nice and all have a sense of humor. I can rest now.