A Mom, a Blog, and the Life In-Between

Monday, January 15, 2007

What I Learned This Weekend: I'm Too Old For This Shit

This weekend was full of lessons for me. Between picking out new living room furniture at Rooms To Go (they finally admitted our sofa was in fact a POS and agreed to replace it), going crazy with the move and working at a nightclub for a local rapper's birthday party, the weekend was ripe with things for me to learn. I'm a wiser woman now, and I share both my newly acquired wisdom and random weekend facts with you.

1. I can no longer deny the ugly truth: I am a procrastinator. I move in 5 days and have not packed 75% of my house. Well, like 40%, but it's the 40% of the house that contains the most crap.

2. Trips to Target needed to get everything we need: 3 so far.

3. Things we still forgot: 4, possibly 5. Most likely 6.

4. Number of times Ben told the RTG salesguy "yeah, but we've had such a bad experience with microfiber that I'm scared to go through this again, and on the other hand, leather might crack or fade" even though the guy had already explained that HE HAD NO MAGICAL GUARANTEES AND THE SAME WARRANTY APPLIED: eleventy billion

5. My nieces and nephew are turning into really cool big kids. I totally miss their baby years and relive some cute memory every time I see them, which makes my eldest niece look at me like I'm insane, but still. Great damn kids.

6. One of the best things about living in Miami (and my life) is Sunday morning breakfast out in my parents' covered terrace, with the family, a great breeze, moderate sun, fantastic food, and lots and lots of general lazying around the back yard afterwards.

7. Patio furniture is expensive. Too expensive for me to justify right now.

8. It never fails that when parents with kids of similar ages meet, the comparisons begin. There’s some comfort in knowing your kid’s not the only one who throws his food, bites and doesn’t yet master certain skills. Even if we hate to compare, we compare. It’s unavoidable.

9. My kid finally gives me a full night of sleep (as in, NO waking whatsoever), and instead of being grateful, Ben and I freak out and think the worst. So we check on him. And poke him. And wake his butt up. Only to retreat back to our room, hoping he didn’t notice us.

10. And finally: I’m too old for this shit. “This shit” being my spending my Sunday evening in a club full of 15-year-olds. I mean, I was yawning at 9:30 p.m. And when did I become so conservative? There were girls dressed there like full-on hookers. Seriously. Some were typical teenagers trying to be cute and girly, but others were in micro minis and crop tops that also exposed half their boobs. I’m not exaggerating. The worst part is that I just described a girl who was there with her mother. What do you think she looked like? That’s right, her pimp.

Overall, though, it was a fun thing – it was nice to get out and check this scene out for myself – a real departure from my regular life and even what my teen years were like. My first thought, though? I can see why this audience is a marketer’s dream. They wore better clothes than me, flashy jewelry and carried the latest gadgets. I didn’t stay the whole night (I was struggling to keep my eyes open by 10:30 p.m.), so I missed it when things really got fun, but well. I’m just too damn old to keep up with this kind of thing. Then again, this was a party for a young crowd, involving a genre of music that I don’t even listen to.

The best part, though, were all the moms and dads standing around, pressed up against the walls, huddled in corners. We hear too much of kids going to parties and doing crazy, stupid shit, and people always ask – where were their parents? So kudos to these parents for being there. I’m sure the kids were doing their best to avoid them and probably wanted to die whenever their parents approached them, but now that I’m on this side of the fence, I have to say: thank G-d there are still chaperonas to be had!