I don't like it when you are nice to me

I should have known that advice about courtesy and kindness would be thrown in my face. How can being nice be thrown in your face? You might ask, alas this is how it happens.

Did you know that being eleven is hard? I remember 13, and 15, and 7, and probably 17 being hard, but don't really remember much about eleven. Maybe its a boy thing, maybe its a now thing, maybe its just my kid thing, or maybe it was awful and my Mom'll be calling me after she reads this. Because eleven is hard my husband and I have been having the same conversation with my oldest over and over and over.

He is having some struggles right now. Some are of his own making and some are being brought on by other people. Mostly he is working through the process of finding out who he is, what he likes, and who he wants to be. I'll also admit I have some pretty high expectations of him too. Mean old mom wants him to be a productive member of society. I want him to be able to cut up his own pancakes and butter his own potato as well as occasionally sweep the floor, clean a toilet, and tidy his room. All said I'm sure you can see why it's pretty hard to be 11.

Part of this growing pain experience is having lots of talks about what to do when someone isn't the nicest, how to talk to people around you, and my most very favorite. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU TODAY? I've heard and even occasionally said before "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times." I always thought that saying was meant for things like "Turn the light when you leave the room. Don't forget to flush. Wash the soap out of your hair BEFORE you turn the water off." I didn't realize that it was really for whole conversations you'd be repeating, the entire time wondering what you could possibly say this time to make it all sink in.

It was during one of these conversations that I realized my son might be a little more like me than I previously thought. At one point he started to cry and when we asked why he said "I just don't like it when you are nice to me" Yep, very similar words have come out of my own mouth. Sometimes when the tears are close to the surface or have already overflown their boundaries niceness just makes everything worse. So my husband and I pulled our meanest silly faces and I was reminded that even though by the end of the year he'll be taller than I am, and he has already developed the dreaded "man feet", he is still my little boy.

The things he is dealing with right now are the first of many hard things I won't be able to take away or fix. I want him to know that home is a safe place to feel the way you feel and, no matter what, a place you are loved for exactly who you are. So even if we've already had that conversation a million times, I'll gladly have it a million more because he is worth it.

More than "just a mom"

I was working on a "Mom Advice" post for this past Monday but frankly the day just got away from me and lately I just haven't been able to push to get things done, especially on days when I used up all my get up and go early. I was able to get the grocery shopping done and visit the dentist so the day was still productive and next week you'll get that post that is still sitting waiting for me to finish it. Instead of my usually type of post I got bitten by another idea and it won't leave me alone. It is kind of like when you had to put down that really good book with only pages left because real life came calling five minutes early.

This week I was talking to a friend and realized there are parts of me that almost no one in my current life knows about. Parts that used to define everything about me. Just like it's hard to wrap your head around someone you used to babysit getting married and having kids of their own. It was a shock for me to realize that most of my current friends don't know anything about that girl I used to be. It isn't something I've hidden, but it doesn't come up anymore.

I have been feeling a little bit lost, more so than my usually I hate January blues, and as I've been working on bringing myself back it was refreshing to be reminded of that part of me. I don't like to toot my own horn, but there was a time I didn't have to. People knew stuff about me just because we existed in the same sphere and they saw me do stuff every day.This isn't to say, I'm sad about where I am now. Or even that I want to go back and become or rediscover those other parts of myself. But it was nice to be reminded "hey I used to be pretty great at some stuff." In honor of that, I'm going to take just a minute and let you know a little about the me I used to be.

• I used to me known as "the smart girl" - In elementary school another kid once said to me, "Hey you have blond hair. And your smart. Isn't that pretty amazing?" I wasn't the smartest kid in school and I didn't just breeze through BUT I scored pretty high on the ACT and got a full tuition scholarship to college. I even got my B.S. degree in Political Science (yeah laugh - I do all the time) in only 3.5 years.
• I went to work in a field that had nothing to do with my degree and I loved it and I excelled at it. I can read legalese benefit plan summaries. I read and found mistakes in our mortgage contract. I can remember odd and insignificant details about plans, and history, and random trivia.
• I can totally work almost any system. I like to think this is why I can coupon. Earn maximum amount of points at the Orthodontist. Done. Figure out how to get A's by not completing assignments you don't like and replacing them with extra credit. Done. Find almost anything on the interweb from game helps to how to fix your toilet. Done.

Maybe some of that stuff you knew about me, maybe some you didn't. Truth is, I don't really miss that girl. She was painfully shy. She has horrible test anxiety and lost that scholarship after the first year because of it. She hid pieces of herself to fit in with people who didn't really care anyway. She wasn't comfortable in her own skin.

That girl was good at lots of things she didn't really like. As a senior in high school, I wanted to be a travel agent. But I had a scholarship and so many people told me I was just "too smart" to go to trade school. So I did what was expected of the smart girl. Again I don't regret my path. I worked hard during school and paid as I went and graduated without any debt. I met amazing people and learned things I wouldn't otherwise know. Either way I would have ended up where I am right now. Doing laundry and waiting for my kids to come home from school.

From the time I first wrote about what I wanted to do when I grew up, I wanted to me a mom (and a nurse - ew other people's fluids or a teacher - ew other people's rowdy kids). I don't want to ever stop growing, but I got to be exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up. People may not know me as the smart girl anymore. But every once in a while someone says that I'm wise. I'd rather be wise than smart anyway. And I'm glad that now I make the choices that I want not the choices of what is expected. It's nice to be a grown-up sometimes.