Big City Momma!

Today's moms are an incredible hybrid of sorts. Made up of one third Super Woman, one third Bat Girl and one third Wonder Woman, super heroes, if you ask me moms are busy super humans. So it's no wonder that moms, after doing everything they need to for everyone else barely have a moment for themselves. And I'm sorry to tell you ladies-it's beginning to show. But fear not-I may have just come up with a solution!

Busy moms everywhere, take notice!

I'm giving my expert beauty advice to moms on the Big City Mom's blog, click HERE. 

And trust me when I tell you-it gets better. And just when you think you got this mom thing down,  you are left missing them when they grow up and fly the nest. So enjoy it while you still can, but make sure you take a little time for yourself along the way.

The Lady In Yellow

She sat next to me on a crowded, skinny, two-seater airplane. She was a larger woman and I noticed her at the gate, thinking quietly to myself that she looked unsure. I wasn't feeling a hundred, so when we got to our respective seats I sat down quietly and closed my eyes. I noticed during take off that she had closed her eyes too. As I stated before, the plane was narrow and crowded so the fact that the larger woman sitting next to me, the lady in yellow, had her elbows in my gut became something that I knew I couldn't control.

Yet I didn't mind. 

As I restlessly slept on the plane I would open my eyes every now and again and looked at the woman next to me. Her skin was as dark as a bar of chocolate but it was luminous and beautiful. Her two-toned dreadlocks were swept up into a bun on top of her head and the sea shells that were expertly woven in between the locks made her appear much more stylish than that of a woman her age. Her fashionable leopard print scarf let me know that this woman knew exactly who she was and what she wanted to look like. But it was her smell that got me.

She smelled like my childhood.

She was chewing on bubblegum that smelled exactly like the bubblegum of my childhood. And that scent? It was so pleasant. I found myself wanting to put my head on her shoulder because she felt safe. The fact that our arms were smashed together because of the close proximity of the small seats didn't bother me at all. I liked her yet I hardly knew her. She was a woman of faith. I could tell because with her she had a 1997 biography of the Reverend Billy Graham and she opened it and began to read it while we were on the plane. I thought it adorable that before we took off she asked me exactly how to put her cell phone into airplane mode. I showed her where to find it in her settings AP. Obviously it was important to her to conform to the rules.

I must have been coughing a bit, because she asked me if I was OK, and asked me if I had allergies. I told her I had been visiting my son in college. He was sick with an undiagnosed strep throat that was mistaken for allergies. It had proceeded over the weekend into a full blown, swollen throat so painful that he could hardly swallow water. The fact that my emergency trip to North Carolina that Sunday to take him to the hospital was not lost on her. We agreed that I spent the most contagious 24 hours with him and I told her I hoped that I would not get sick also. 

We chatted a bit about being a mom and that when your child is sick, it's no matter where you are; you go. I found out she was from Kenya, just visiting relatives in NC and stopping briefly in my home town of Boston before flying to Amsterdam then on to Nairobi. It was her first visit to the United States. She had 3 grown children, each living in different parts of the world, and a new grandchild. I told her jokingly as we landed that she could now add Boston to the places in the US she has been, even for a short time. I helped her with the bags she had stowed above our seats, and I wished her a good trip and safety as she traveled back to Kenya.

Then I said goodbye and walked away from the Lady in Yellow forever. 

But I still thought about her. I'm thinking right about now she must be landing in her homeland, hopefully safe and tired. Maybe her children will be waiting to greet her as she arrives, maybe not. But I want her to know that somewhere, someone is thinking of her and hoping she makes it home safely. 

How The Hell Did That Happen?

Really? It's already over?

The summer flew by and I hardly realized it was over. A waitress at a restaurant last night said to me when I ordered scrod, "Oh cmon, you can do better than that. It's the last weekend of the summer." Then it hit me. It's Labor Day Weekend already? I guess I have been so focused on Frick going to college and Frack's golf that I didn't even give it a thought.

I didn't really do much this summer, but I stayed close to home; close to the heart.  I'm over the BBQ thing and I'm not feeling a melancholy sense of dread like I usually do at this time. I'm actually looking forward to fall. I've got some great things coming my way.


 Highlights:

• I'm going up to Maine to attend a birthday party for a dog. Yes, a birthday party for a dog, a great excuse to have a party. It should be a good time. 
• Frack got his braces off on Wednesday and damn! if my baby boy isn't drop dead handsome! I keep asking him to see his smile, and it's driving him crazy. Too bad, is my response. I paid for them, so I wanna see them. Kid's got a killer smile, and I keep telling him his face is so much brighter! That's the best adjective I can use to describe it. We told him to get a stick, cuz he's gonna be beating the chicks off with it when he goes back to school. He's also playing light's out golf right now. Kid's a stud.
• Frick is LOVING college and surprisingly, she calls pretty regularly. I'm so proud of her, she is fulfilling her dreams right now and becoming the person she will be for the rest of her life. I miss her like crazy, but I am so excited for her and happy that she is enjoying this wonderful time in her life. I wanna go to college. 

Peace to you and yours for a safe and happy Labor Day. 

So This Is Really It.

This is it.

Her time has come. It's time to leave the big nest and fly. Fly she will, of that I have no doubt. It's me I'm worried about. How am I ever going to get through this? I'm gonna miss her so much it already hurts like crazy. What will I do without my baby girl?

Truth is, I'll be fine. I did the exact same thing that she is doing this weekend 28 years ago and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Part of me is jumping up and down for her in excitement, and part of me is dying inside. She's going to be great. She's going to thrive. She's going to fall in love with her city. HER city, because that's what it is now. And I've never been more confident that she's going to be EXACTLY where she belongs.

The pride is swelling up in my throat, right next to the lump that is omni-present these last days. I know I have to let her fly free. But part of her is holding back too, and I wonder if she's picking up on what I'm feeling. Part of her is scared and part of her does not want to go. But we both know that this is good for all of us. This is what growing up is all about. This is what all that hard work was for. One look at her and I know I've done good. She's awesome, and I couldn't be more proud of who she has become. Keep her safe New York city. She's my whole world.

So, I'm embarking on this journey with her today and because I'm a helicopter hover-er, I'm staying  in the city until Monday. I will not be returning to the bloggersphere until Tuesday, August 28, 2012.

She's going to be great.
I'm going to be a mess.

I'm going to try to play it cool in front of her because this isn't about me.
God grant me the strength to get through.

"Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left to educate themselves."-Ernest Dimnet

You Know You've Been In Uganda When...

Overheard in the car ride home from the airport:

• First question out of his mouth: "Who won the NBA finals?" That's my boy.

• "It's weird to driving in a car." Not only a car, but one that has the steering wheel on the "other" side.

• "I can't wait to take a shower. I haven't taken one for a long, long time." This is a miracle, considering I could hardly get Frack to take one regularly, even when the shower is about 6 steps from his bed. 

• "Are you hungry?" I asked him. "No, mom. The airplane food was so good!"

• "I wrote in my journal every day." You could have knocked me over with a feather. We had the biggest fight over including a small, wire bound notebook in his backpack. "I'll never use it," he said before he left.

• "The best part of the entire trip was when we got to play in an actual soccer game with the kids from the school we were at, against another team from another school. The entire village came to watch the match. We were like super stars." Frack reported that the people in the village they were in LOVE white people because they don't get to see them very often. "And I scored the only goal," he added with a smile. 

• "Yes, mom. I will get a buzz cut tomorrow." Again, shock. This kid is the same kid who could barely see out from under the shaggy bangs that covered his eyes. We had royal battles over hair cuts for picture day, his job and semi-formal dances. If I knew all I had to do was send him to Africa for three weeks...I will happily take him for the world's most expensive haircut today.

• "We talked a lot about our families. I told the group that my mom undoubtedly had our itinerary taped to the refrigerator door and was telling everyone what we were doing every day." he said. Well, it wasn't taped to the fridge...exactly. 

• "First thing I'm doing tomorrow is going to McDonald's and then to see Spiderman,"  he said. And it was then that I knew that my boy was home. Safe, and exactly where he belongs.