family – Waiting on a Word

Mother’s Day Stuff

Two man-made lakes, landscaped with beautiful trees and flowers, sit in the middle of our development. As you can imagine, the mile-long paved pathway around the lakes is a magnet for dog walkers, joggers, bikers, strollers. It’s lovely to have the lakes in our neighborhood and to me, they are the shining point of our development.

That being said, I’m a nervous wreck when the boys are near the lakes.

Historically, my best bet for making it around the lakes with my sanity in check was to pull the boys in their two-seater wagon. At least they were contained and I had some control. But sooner than I’d hoped, they grew big enough that when they crammed into the wagon they were forced to rest their chins on their knees. Suddenly, I was pulling over a hundred pounds around the lake and we looked ridiculous. I had to retire the wagon and my semblance of control.

So if we wanted to walk the lakes, we had to do just that – walk. For a million reasons, I never enjoyed walking the boys around the lake. Mostly because a mile is a long way around with two little kids. We’d make it halfway and someone would be tired, hot, cold, hungry, bored, whatever. And they’d either be painfully sloooowww or way too fast. No leisurely strolls for us. Either I was running to catch them or dragging them behind me. Yelling was often involved. “Let’s go!” “Slow down!” “Wait for mommy!” “Don’t eat the dirt/snow/flowers!”

And the lakes? They’re full of water! With two little boys and only one me? What if they both fall in at the same time? What if they run off the path and I can’t catch them and they get to the street and get hit by a car? What if there’s a sexual predator lurking in the bushes? What are they wearing in case they get kidnapped? What if I drop dead, leaving the boys to cry and wander the lake on their own forever and ever? What if we pass out from heat exhaustion? Hypothermia? Did I bring water? Sunscreen? My phone? Bugs! Ticks! AHH! **

A few weeks ago, JC and I went for a walk and strolled the lakes. I had some thoughts and snapped this picture:

When JC approached the water, my first instinct was to yell at him to get away from the edge. So I did. “Not too close!” I screamed. JC, being the feisty eleven-year-old he is, ignored me. Then I realized.

He knows how to swim. If he falls in, he’ll be okay.

He’s loud as all heck and he knows about stranger danger. If a predator jumps out of the bushes, he’ll scream and together, JC and I can fight.

He knows our neighborhood. If he wanders away, he’ll meet me back home.

He has a phone in his pocket. If he wanders away and manages to get lost, he can call.

If he’s hot, he’ll take off his fleece. If he’s cold, he’ll . . . well, be cold. He can deal with (some) things on his own.

I also realized that it’s nice to look out over the lake. I can take my eyes off him and check it out and he won’t disappear. He can be fifty feet away from me and I don’t have to panic.

Don’t get me wrong – I won’t necessarily relax. Maybe, being a parent, I’ll never truly relax again. But I don’t have to panic, either.

I’m slowly learning to give the boys a little freedom. They’re not going to be kids forever. It goes by quickly. JC is eleven! He’s been around more than a decade! If I keep panicking in his presence, I’ll screw him up. Every parent hopes they aren’t the ones to screw up their kids! Not only that, but I’ll miss out on enjoying him and, in some ways, my own life.

I don’t want to miss out on the good stuff, so I’ll try to contain my overprotectiveness. No promises that I won’t slip into panic mode now and again, but I’ll try not to make panicking the default.

That’s all I wanted to say. Tomorrow on Mother’s Day and every day after, I wish you all panic-free peace with your children. Thank you for reading and have an enjoyable weekend.

** These thoughts may sound crazy to some of you more laid-back parent people, but in my defense, JC did lose control of his bike a couple years back and ended up flying down the hill right into the lake! Thank god I wasn’t there because I’d probably have a heart attack on the spot. My husband fished him, and the bike, out of the water and everyone was fine. Slimey, wet, and miserable, but fine.

On Time and More of It

For those of you who don’t know, I was recently “restructured” out of a job. Remember my lovely job in downtown Trenton? (I posted about Trenton here and here). Well, it is no more.

On one hand, this is not terrible. I wasn’t thrilled with the job anyway and financially and emotionally, it made sense for me to walk away. No condolences necessary, please.

On the other hand, now I have to be concerned about money and making a life for myself, two things I never had to worry about during my thirteen years on the gravy train that is the federal government.

So here I am. Kicked off the train right onto my butt. It’s 9:30 on a Tuesday morning and I’m blogging. I’ve been home for a month now, taking it all in, and here’s what I’m ready to share:

It’s weird being home. I’ve worked since forever, besides taking a few short breaks for maternity leaves (if you could classify those as “breaks”) and for studying for the bar exam (which also shouldn’t be considered a “break” since I actually studied all summer).

Why is it weird?

I’m freaked out by the idea that I can use my time as I wish. I’ve never had that before. My time was always dedicated to something– morning hours were for getting the boys where they need to be, then I’d rush to work, then after work I had to get the boys from wherever they were and rush back. In the evening it was a juggling act with my husband over activities, homework, dinner, baths, etc. Finally, bedtime would arrive and I’d have about two hours to decide what I wanted to do.

Now though? I still dedicate the mornings to getting the boys out of the door. After that, until 2:30 when I have to get JC (no more After School Care for us), I have to decide what to do.

Um, yeah, I don’t know how to do that. It’s like when I tried to take “Self-Paced Logic” in college, and had to drop out after two weeks since I hadn’t yet bought the book. Now I’m trying to work out a “Self-Paced Life.” Hmm.

First off, let me give a shout out to all the stay at home moms. I get it now. There’s a lot to be done. But before, while working-for-pay, I didn’t feel the guilt of not doing it as much. I was literally imprisoned by my office, with no chance of parole prior to 5:30 p.m. Now? I sit here typing this blog post and feel the guilt creep up (I should be cleaning something, I should be calling someone, I should be doing something, anything, because I’m on the outside now!).

Of course there are a million things I want to do for the house and family. I’ve done about five of them so far (cleaned out the boys’ dressers, organized the kitchen cabinets, started a renovation project with a contractor, made about a hundred doctor appointments, signed the boys up for activities that we can now do with our new schedules).

There are also a million things I want to do for myself. I’ve done a couple of them (worked on my writing, sort of started a workout routine).

I’m still working out the details of how to actually get stuff done. My dad asked me yesterday, “What have you been doing?” (I think he missed my blog posts- Hi Dad!). The answer is, I’ve been busy, but I’m not sure what I’ve been doing.

I haven’t turned on the television during the day (… not much, anyway. I do enjoy Empire and started House of Cards again), so I’m not sitting here binge watching.

I’ve been working on my writing. I want to start the moving process for my projects- moving from draft to final, moving from the laptop to the world. I also joined an online writing group that takes some time, and I’m helping others with their projects.

I’ve been “cooking.” I use the term loosely. I hate doing it and think I’m terrible at it, although my husband claims I’m doing great (beggars can’t be choosers). I make a kick-ass loaf of bread though:

Kick-ass loaf of bread, from scratch, people.

I walk the dog, a task I dread but end up enjoying once I’m out there. Isn’t she cute:

I food shop during the day, which is probably the greatest luxury ever- working people cannot possibly understand the joy of food shopping on a Wednesday morning at the Shoprite. The difference between the Shoprite on a Saturday afternoon with two kids, and on a Wednesday morning solo, is like night and day.

I also spend some time looking for jobs, which freaks me out and makes me nervous. Dealing with unemployment in New Jersey freaks me out and makes me nervous, too. If you need a reason not to vote for Chris Christie if he runs for President in 2016, look to the New Jersey unemployment office. If he can’t make that work, how is he going to make a country work?

AND, I did this:

photo (9) — My hand (with a photo bomb by this blog post). No, I didn’t get remarried! Look at my nails, friends. The nails.

I painted my nails blue. This is significant because (a) I’ve been biting my nails for the past two years from stress with the crap going on at work and now that I’m home they are growing, (2) I had time to paint them and let them dry, and (3) that’s Wonder Woman nail polish that I bought from MAC years ago and never had a chance to enjoy. I bought the blue (awesomely called “Spirit of Truth”) and the red (amazingly called “Obey Me”) solely because of the marketing. What employed person with money to spend could resist this:

Where am I going with this post? I forgot. I seem to have drifted into my favorite relevantly irrelevant-ness arena, so I’ll just end it with a quote:

“Time is an illusion.”

(Albert Einstein)

Have a great day, whether you are at work or at home, whether you are in survival mode or self-pacing. It’s all an illusion, enjoy what you can.

Snow Day Time Lapse

Time it takes to find appropriate clothing for two boys on blizzard days: 45 minutes.

photo 1 (2) — Two boys= 2 sets of underwear, 4 pairs of socks, 2 sets of thermals, 4 shirts, 2 pairs of pants, 1 snowsuit, 1 snowpants, 2 coats, 4 gloves, 2 hats, 2 scarves, 2 pairs of boots, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Amount of time spent putting said clothes on boys: 15 minutes.

Size of snowsuit that you are cramming your nine-year-old into: 6/7.

Time it takes for little one to decide he has to pee after said clothes are in place: 1 minute. Time it takes him to unwrap and actually pee: 5 minutes.

Time spent arguing with eleven-year-old over which pair of gloves he will wear: 3 minutes.

Time spent outside in 24 degree weather: 20 minutes.

photo 2 (2) — JC and M, adventures in the snow.

Number of times you open the sliding glass door to yell at children: no less than 20. (Do you care? No, because at least you are inside.)

Number of times husband complains that you are letting the cold air in: no less than 20. (Do you care? No, because at least you are inside.)

Number of times you yell at children for throwing snow at each other and dog: no less than 10.

Time spent undressing freezing cold, suddenly starving children: 10 minutes.

Time for various layers of clothing to dry: 2 hours.

Portion of kitchen covered in wet clothing: 50%.

Time between stripping children and first cries of “I’m bored” : less than 5 minutes.

Time it takes for parents to pop the cork on the wine as soon as kids hit the sack: 30 seconds.

Here’s to Spring!

Serenity

The Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge: Serenity

Serenity: The state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled.

Have a nice weekend!

Why I Have Grey Hair…

JC, my eleven-year-old, had a noun test today in his Language Arts class. He had to be able to identify different types of nouns: subjects, subject compliments, direct objects, indirect objects, and objects of a preposition.

Let me tell you, Blogtropolis. I write for a living and I couldn’t identify these nouns if my life depended on it . . . until Sunday when I had to learn them for Fifth Grade.

JC loves to write and tells a great story, but he wasn’t keen on spending his weekend learning his noun types. Subjects he had no problem with. Subject compliments were another story.

Subject compliments follow a linking verb (is, are, was, were) and describe, or compliment, the subject. The subject compliment = the subject. We tried some examples. The lizard is an animal. Go on! You try! Label the nouns . . . *Jeopardy theme plays* . . . The answer? Lizard is the subject, with is as the linking verb, and animal the subject compliment. Animal = Lizard. Good job!

After what felt like a gazillion hours, JC started to understand. Then he started to get grumpy. Then he wandered into the bathroom for a half hour. Then he was hungry. We still had a handful of other nouns to learn, not to mention other subjects to study. When we got back to work in the gazillionth-and-one hour, I created a few examples, then asked him to write a sentence with a subject compliment. This is what happened:

photo (2) — **His sentence: You are really exhausting.**

Hmm. Really?

This resulted in a five minute break for an argument:

Me (a.k.a. the “princess,” according to my sample sentence- I need to have my fun, too): That’s fresh! I’m exhausting? Do you think I want to spend my day studying nouns? I passed fifth grade a long time ago. And by the way, “exhausting” isn’t even a noun.

JC: Well, I don’t want to study nouns either. And “exhausting” IS a noun.

Me: It’s not a person, place or thing. It’s a describing word.

JC: It’s a thing, and you’re it.

Me: Wrong. Try again.

Here’s what he wrote:

photo (1) — **His sentence: You are so rude. My correction: You are a rude mother.**

Sigh . . .

Me: “You are so rude” is incorrect. Rude is not a noun. What you should have written is: “You are a rude mother.”

Hey, you know what they say. If you can’t beat ’em . . .

Subject compliments were conquered by the end of our study session and JC and I made up. Direct objects and indirect objects were difficult. Objects of prepositions were impossible, since JC doesn’t know his prepositions. Finally, when I needed a break and some coffee (I swear, studying with JC was like pulling an all-nighter in college- I was tempted to go to the 7-11 with a handful of quarters for a Super Big Gulp and some Vivarin, circa 1990), I stuck him in front of YouTube to watch videos of very nice people explaining this stuff way better than I.

JC took the test today. He thinks he did “fine.” I’ll let you know. However he did I’m sure that “You are a rude mother” was not one of the problems. If it was, though, he better have gotten it right! If not, he is toast! (He= subject, is= linking verb, toast= subject compliment- Bam!)

Meet Kiri!

We picked up Kiri from the airport on Thursday. She’s a ten-week old Kai Ken puppy from Michigan. She’s incredibly cute and awesomesauce but I feel like I have a newborn again! I’m trying to get back here to writing and WordPress because I really miss it. Once Kiri Kai Kai Princess Baby gets on a schedule, I will tell you about our adventures and the Kai Ken breed and get back to regularly-scheduled programming!

i leave you with another pic. Have a nice night!

Gram’s Patriotism

Happy 4th of July!

I wanted to share a quick post tonight about my paternal grandmother, Dorothy. Her life was a story, but tonight I want to share something I learned about her in her death.

When “Gram” died a couple of years ago at the age of 88, she had planned her entire funeral down to the smallest detail. She’d picked a casket, a dress, planned the wake and the funeral mass. She’d done it all– except name someone to do her eulogy.

My brother and cousins were either too distraught or too intimidated to do the eulogy so they recruited me to do it, the eldest grandchild. I drafted a five minute speech summarizing my forty years of memories of my grandmother. When I was finished drafting it, I gave it to my dad to review for dates, names, and other information I wasn’t sure of.

Dad came back with comments like, “well, why didn’t you say [fill in the blank]” and “why didn’t you mention [fill in the blank].” Of course, his memories and knowledge of his mother were different than mine of my grandmother, but it was my eulogy, not his, so I pretty much stuck to my guns. Except for one thing.

He asked why I didn’t mention that she was patriotic.

“Huh?” I said. I’d never really thought of Gram as patriotic. Sure, she bought poppies from the vets on Memorial Day and hung them on her car’s rearview mirror. And yeah, I guess I’d seen flags around. I probably could connect her obsessive interest in news and the justice system to patriotism (she watched every minute of the O.J. Simpson trial and often had Court TV or CNN on the television). I didn’t really get it though.

Then my dad pointed out what I already knew. My Grandfather was in World War II during the early years of their marriage. Twenty years or so later, my grandmother’s only two children went into the armed forced during the Vietnam War– one enlisted and one drafted. I can’t imagine what she went through during these periods: first, as a young bride and mother praying for her husband’s safe return; and then, a mere couple of decades later, watching both of her sons go to war. Having a husband at war must have been horribly difficult, but to have to do it over with your children just seemed cruel. All those years were spent hoping and praying for the three men in her life, not knowing how they fared and not having any control over the outcome.

When I thought about this, I wondered how she didn’t go crazy. Why she wasn’t angry. I’d never once heard her complain about the war years and she never talked about the worry or stress she felt over the safety of her husband or sons. How did she get through?

The only answer I could come up with was faith. Faith in God, but also faith in her country– trusting that those in charge would make the right decisions and keep her family safe. Patriotism is not only loving your country, but believing in it and trusting it to take care of us.

After I delivered the eulogy and the service ended we all started to leave the church. As she had chosen all of the music for her funeral mass, Gram had chosen the exit song, too. She’d picked “God Bless America.” A few days earlier I would have been surprised by her choice but that day as I walked out of the church with my family, I understood and I felt proud.

Have a nice night and thanks for reading.

The WordPress Family

Did you know that Clark Kent – yes the Clark Kent – lives in Ohio? He also blogs on WordPress. Okay, I’m not really sure who this elusive Clark Kent is, but I know this . . . Clark posts beautiful, inspiring posts about soulmates and grace, love, and humanity. He recently dinged me for an award: The WordPress Family Award. I am truly grateful. You can see his post and peruse his blog here. Thanks Clark, for the honor you have bestowed upon me.

So, the WordPress Family Award! I hadn’t heard of this one until Clark passed it along. Turns out it was just created on March 4 by a blogger named Shaun, and the best thing about the award – you don’t have to be nominated for it. You can go pick it up for yourself here on Shaun’s blog.

Discussing the award’s origins, Shaun writes:

This is an award for everyone who is part of the “WordPress Family.” I start this award on the basis that the WordPress family has taken me in, and showed me love and a caring side only WordPress can. The way people take a second to be nice, to answer a question and not make things a competition amazes me here. I know I have been given many awards, but I wanted to leave my own legacy on here by creating my own award, as many have done before. This represents “Family” we never meet, but are there for us as family. It is my honour to start this award.

The Rules: (1) Display the logo on your blog (Check!) (2) Link back to the person who nominated you (Check!) (3) Nominate 10 others you see as having an impact on your WordPress experience and family (See below!) (4) Let your 10 family members know you have awarded them (Will do!).

I thought I’d take this opportunity to first, agree with Shaun that although when I started this blog I was nervous as hell hitting that “publish” button, you have all been so nice and welcoming that you make it easy and enjoyable. So thank you, and may I hear a collective “WORDPRESS BLOGGERS ROCK!” Woo-hoo!

Second, I want to use this award to thank those of you who read and comment on WOAW regularly; who help me when I have a technical glitch; and who have recognized WOAW on their own blogs. It’s much appreciated. Therefore, I decided to bend the rules a bit and nominate the top commenters on WOAW (according to today’s stats), who host some of my favorite blogs, for the Family Award.

Nominees for WordPress Family Award

1. Dylan at Eyes Through the Glass- A Blog About Asperger’s. Dylan is an Artist and a Writer who has been Freshly Pressed twice. When he mentioned me as one of his favorite bloggers, and included me in his Daily Prompt post this weekend, I was truly honored. Dylan’s blog is an open, honest account of an adult living with Asperger’s. He also mixes in his artwork, and recently featured his short story, The Castle Aspergis. His blog is one of my faves. Thanks, Dylan for sharing your life.

2. David (my Justin Timberlake) over at Sounds Like Orange. I am fairly certain that I can count on his gravatar picture of an orange to show up at some point during my day, either liking or commenting on one of my posts, or popping up in my inbox announcing one of his new posts. David’s passion is music. Not particularly Justin Timberlake (although he has admitted to enjoying Adele) but really interesting, good . . . different (to me at least) music. I can always count on David for a helpful, insightful comment, help with my son’s math homework, and creative perspectives on life (ex. “an elephant making lasagne” to describe a script). Also, when one of my posts disappeared, David noticed and emailed me. Even though he had taken the day off, when I emailed him back with “HELP MY POST DISAPPEARED,” he ever so calmly walked me through the fix for the glitch. Much appreciation and many thanks to the colorful, wise, and sometimes angry Orange.

3. Megan at The Underground Writer. Megan found me somehow and the next thing I knew, we were emailing about kids spilling Ensure shakes in the refrigerator (trust us, very difficult to clean up). Conversation soon morphed into an exchange of Seinfeld quotes and suddenly I have a new friend. We email just about everyday now and we’ve shared our writing and thoughts and dreams. Someday, we’ll have to actually meet! Despite being a busy mom of two, Megan writes thoughtful, fun posts about life. One of my faves is about the different techniques that old men use to make the moves on younger women (read it here!). Thanks, WordPress for hooking us up, and thanks Megan for being you.

4. Sweetness at Chronicles of a Public Transit User. Seeing a new post from COAPTU makes my day because: (1) I know it’s going to be a quick, funny read, (2) usually including a real-life pic, (3) of something utterly ridiculous, (4) that makes me grateful for my minivan. Ask any COAPTU follower about their favorite or most unforgettable post and they’ll say this one, which ends with a Seinfeld reference: “This guy was definitely not the master of his domain.” EWWWW! This blog is a great follow.

5. Al at Once Written. I’ve referred to him as my George Clooney of Blogtropolis. He and I don’t always agree, but I appreciate that he’s not afraid to touch on the difficult issues– Boston, Same-Sex Marriage, religion, education– and the no-so-difficult issues like reality television. My favorite post is this one honoring his dad on the two-year anniversary of his dad’s death. Al’s one of my top commenters on WOAW, and as a busy father, husband, animal owner (ask him about his pets . . . go on!) and surgeon (yep, he’s a blogging doc) who dabbles in running on the side, I appreciate his time and insight. Go check him out!

6. Kate at Did That Just Happen Blog. Kate is a single mom to a teenager (who she’s teaching to drive– AHH!) who lives in Texas. On the lighter side, she’s obsessed with the television show Supernatural and finds her crack at Taco Bell. Currently though, she is going through a difficult time with a family member’s medical issues. Despite this turn of events in her life, she manages to make time to post, respond to comments, and keep up-to-date with reading her WordPress blogs. She’s been forthcoming and honest about her experiences, the good and the bad, and reading her blog makes you feel like you are part of her life. This Award is perfect for her and I am happy to nominate her.

7. Ish Ism. Drishism is a graduate student in the Pacific Northwest who runs marathons, hikes, adores his wife, takes awesome pics, and backyard farms. He posts it all, from possums getting into the chicken coop to nominating his wife for Wife of the Year. He’s a busy dude, to say the least, but he always manages to stop by WOAW and like or leave a comment, which I much appreciate.

The other top commenter on WOAW is my mom. But she doesn’t have a blog so I can’t nominate her for the WordPress Family Award. I’ll buy her a cupcake or something. 🙂

Thanks for reading and allowing me to take time to appreciate my blogging family. Have a nice night!

Dear Lego,

I love you. I really do. You amaze me on a daily basis with your ingenuity. That in this day and age of high def and iPads you can keep kids’ attention with simple, plastic interlocking 3-D shapes, is astonishing. That you can create this:

. . . blows my mind. Really. The limits of Lego creativity know no boundaries. There’s Hogwarts, and the Death Star, and The Battle of Helms Deep. The Friggin’ Battle of Helms Deep! Wow.

I appreciate that one Lego set can keep my son busy for hours. I’m quite certain that there is an educational benefit to the kids as well. Something about spatial relations, geometry, blah blah. You would know better than I.

All you creative types over at Lego headquarters in Denmark, drinking your Carlsberg beer and eating your smorrebrod, designing and marketing these Lego sets are geniuses. PURE GENIUSES.

Therefore, I need your help, because THIS makes me want to check myself into the insane asylum:

Can you come up with something to deal with this please? Some sort of Lego Vacuum would be nice. Or a Special Lego Broom. Anything. You’re the Geniuses, so come on! Help a mom out! You sell it, we’ll buy it. Trust me. We’re spending $400 bucks on a Star Wars Super Star Destroyer, so don’t you think you could make a fortune with some sort of Lego Clean Up System?

I’ll expect something by the start of the holiday season.

Thanks for your help. Really, I love you. But I need you to fix this mess in my basement.

Sincerely,

Parent of a Kid Obsessed with Legos

The Rhythm of the Seasons

As my husband drove our family to North Jersey for Easter dinner, we listened to sports radio, a-flutter with news of basketball (both college and the NBA) and opening day for baseball. We chatted that we couldn’t believe that baseball was starting up again, and that tomorrow is April. “The rhythm of the seasons,” my husband said.

I thought about that phrase over and over as we drove up the Turnpike. I remembered the days when the years went by so slowly. The school year seemed to last forever. December and Christmas always felt so far away. The time between birthdays stretched endlessly.

Baseball already, I thought. How did that happen? The season just ended yesterday. Didn’t I recently put away the Christmas decorations? Now there we were, going to Easter dinner. Sports talk continued. March Madness again? Another Final Four? Another NBA post-season? Why is everything happening in the blink of an eye?

I thought of the words again. The rhythm of the seasons.

The seasons keep turning and dragging us along with them, whether we are ready to move on or not. Time relentlessly moves forward without granting a pause or a break to catch our breath. The rhythm keeps the beat steady, even when our minds and bodies can’t keep up with the song.

As we approached the Meadowlands on our trip today, we traveled along the New York City skyline. I automatically gazed to my right to check on the Freedom Tower, a work still in progress. I thought about my nephew– he was five when the Towers fell, and soon he’s graduating high school. My husband commented that each year that he teaches his high school kids, it gets more and more difficult for them to remember that day. They were babies.

Yet I remember that day like it was yesterday. Every detail. I can tell you exactly where I was on Rt. 280 East and exactly what Howard Stern was talking about when he and I both learned of the news together. I remember what my husband and I, newly-married at the time did that night. I remember the calls I made and the people I worried for and I remember the news. The never-ending news that so many of us obsessed over.

Now almost twelve years later, I am still moved by that site every time I travel the Turnpike. Reflexively I look to the site, where it seems like just yesterday the smoke rose into the sky everyday on my commute to work. These days, instead of smoke the incomplete Freedom Tower creeps upward into the sky, desperately trying to stand tall and help us move on. Somehow, in my memory, I can recall details from 2001 even now in 2013, but I can’t recall how I got here. How did we move on from that? I am not sure we have or ever will.

But the rhythm of the seasons carries us through life. Now though, instead of wanting to push the years through, hurry the birthdays, and build the new tower, I want to slow it down. I want to hit “pause” and take a breather. I want to turn the ballet of my life from an allegro into an adagio and concentrate and remember and experience the detail in terms of quality instead of quantity.

But maybe that’s not how life works. Maybe as we get older, time travels by more quickly because that’s just how it is. There’s no brake pad, no downshifting.

Is there a secret to slowing it all down? If you know the secret, I’d appreciate your advice. I’d sure like to slow down my kids because those buggers keep growing. I want to slow down my birthdays, because I’m not getting any younger. I want to slow down the baseball season, because I don’t want to blink and have to decorate for Halloween, then Christmas, and then think about Easter dinner again. So where’s that “pause” button, Blogtropolis?

Thanks for reading and tolerating my pensive mood.

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