This has been the summer of me as a middle mom. It's the first summer I've realized how old I am. It's the first summer I've realized my kids are not babies anymore. I mean it's obvious they haven't been babies for a while but the day it just suddenly happens is bizarre. You start to notice all the moms with little kids, you start to obsess over how adorable they are. You go home and scroll through your millions of photos of the kids with little voices and little faces. I guess I shoulda realized it sooner, I mean who am I kidding? My firstborn is going into high school next year! But for so long, this was my entire life and entire identity, that the epiphany of oh, I'm onto another season, has been really eye opening and jarring, jarringly shocking.
Those charts I made so many years ago, for chores, for things to do, they're finally coming into fruition. We have a system, my friends! It only took us ten years, but by golly we have one and it is pretty darn freaking fantastic. My kids know there's no screens Mon-Thurs, and they work to finish things everyday. In many ways, I feel like I'm running a little Daisy Camp at home. We have categories that have to be met before they can go out with friends, and each dot sticker they earn for the categories rewards them with 5 minutes of screens Fri-Sun. But on Wednesdays, we all go to piano together for 135 minutes, so I let the kids have at the screens when they're not at the piano with our teacher. It is a free for all hump day hot mess and the kids love it. The rest of the time, they're trying to do their stuff to earn more video game time.
It's also weird that my kids are pretty independent now. My kids can make their own lunch. My kids can take out the trash. My kids can clean the toilet. My kids can sit and write a story. My kids can stay home if I need to shuttle someone to a camp nearby. And most importantly, my kids can walk by me or sit in the car with the AC on if I need to run somewhere without me thinking CPS is going to come get me (especially when Jordan's in the car because he definitely looks 16).
I can also listen to an old song and pinpoint exactly where in my motherhood stage of suffering I was in. Today we heard I Knew You Were Trouble by Taylor Swift and I started to tell them how funny it was that Jordan used to sing to this song and I had a key memory pop into my head of me getting gas while he sat there trying to say I knew you were trouble when I met you. How did we get here? How is Taylor's prolific career essentially a timeline of when I became an aunt and then a mom.
I've also been noticing so many mustaches everywhere. That's probably what it felt like in the early 2000s to older people who started to notice tattoos in the workplace. I notice mustaches everywhere. Oddly enough we had a mustache obsession in the early 2010s but it was more in jest than on people's faces. We donned them in necklace form, tattoos, on tumbler cups, on invitations and definitely in photo booth props. But to now walk around and recognize that mustaches are THE it symbol of youth and coolness is beyond me. Is this how people felt when man buns were a thing?
I really like blogging. Writing down my many thoughts. Somewhere in my creating, I started going to short form reels and short videos with tips instead of really taking the time to explain something like I used to. I think we need a return to simpler long blog post times. So for my 2025 middle mom summer, I will begin blogging every day again. I also have other fun goals:
1) finish my woobles from last summer
2) learn how to use the pressure washer
3) learn how to use the grill
4) learn how to change a tire
5) get licensed as an insurance broker
What? Yeah, life changes fast. Here we go!
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