I wonder sometimes if one of the reasons some people age horribly and die, is because they have stopped hanging out with friends.

Of course, if they are REALLY old, they may have stopped hanging out with friends because there's not that much to do in the cemetery.

But for people (naming no names) who are perhaps just beginning to be on the older side, whose friends are still (mostly) alive, it's just as much fun to hang out with friends as it was years ago, when we all skipped last hour Chemistry to pile into someone's blue Corvair and head out to the State Park to meet guys.

When my children were little, and it was almost impossible to get away and hang out with friends (partly because it was purt nigh impossible to get away, and partly because they had small children also; living a hundred or a thousand miles away contributed to the level of difficulty. . . .) those few and far-between episodes of getting together quite possibly saved what little sanity I do have.

When we meet now, and yes, Virginia, we still meet at least once a month, the only thing that's really changed, besides our faces, hair, bodies, and big purses, is the fact that we no longer have little children at home. Some of us have GRANDCHILDREN. Not me, though.

Ahem. Are my children reading this journal?

But the giggles, the nonsense, the silliness, the goofiness, the sheer love and devotion, are all still there in full force; possibly in fuller force than when we were younger.

Yes, definitely. Fuller force.

Maybe because, THEN, we knew what we had but didn't fully understand that it could vanish in the wink of an eye. We were young, we were attractive, we knew it. And it would last forever. How could it not? And NOW, we know what we had and we know what we still have and we understand completely that yes, it could very well vanish in the wink of an eye, and that yes, some of it already has. (We have mirrors.) And even though we no longer have some of 'it,' we also know that, whatever 'it' was, we still have SOME of 'it.' And we aren't afraid to use it, either.

No, not THAT kind of 'it.' Although, now that you mention 'it'. . . . . . . . . . .

Those of you with small children: be sure you make time for your friends. "Hanging out" isn't just for teenagers. You need it more than they do. Hire one of those teenagers to watch the little kids, and go meet your friends for a few hours. Keep doing it until you are dead. I'm serious as can be: hanging out with friends can save your sanity, save your health, save your marriage, and make you a better person from all angles. Do not allow marriage and children to put your friends on the back burner. Keep them close to you, even when circumstance very naturally keeps them apart from you. Good friends won't intrude into your marriage, but they will BE THERE when mere marriage isn't enough and your sanity and your SELF need expression that isn't found anywhere on this earth except in the company of FRIENDS.

Friends will listen to you, give you advice (needed and unneeded), comfort you, hug you, bowl with you, eat cheeseburgers with you, share a giant margarita with you, recommend books for you, laugh (or cry) through a movie with you, and just simply BE there with you, and for you, in ways that no husband could ever be. Not for want of trying or intentions, but simply because women need other women, and not even Hugh Grant or Colin Firth will do, when it's FRIENDSHIP we need.

Um, a handsome, educated Brit can come over and keep me company any time, actually, but even so, it's not the same as good friends who keep you company when not even a homely, ignorant Brit will give you the time of day.

Husbands are good for companionship, friendship, romance, true love, sex, dancing, and partnership, but it takes a woman friend to really, really UNDERSTAND. Women need friends, with whom to have fun with and just hang out with.

Your older children and possibly a husband who won't be requiring any sex for a while, might make a comment about how "hanging out" means something entirely different on an older woman with, um, body image deficiency. Remind them all that they know where the food is kept, and that the sofa sleeps one person very comfortably indeed. And then leave.

Get out there and use 'it.'

Readers may interpret "it" as they please. All answers are probably correct.

Posted by Mamacita at 9:45 PM | | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Due to technical difficulties, life and well...life, MommyBloggers has been down for a while. But guess what...

We're back.

Look for more content soon.

Interested in being interviewed or featured? Let me know!

Until then, peace out...for now.

Oh, and I know comments are still wonky. We are working on that. You can email me at mommybloggers@gmail.com if you want to be one of our featured mom bloggers!

Posted by Jenn Satterwhite at 8:27 AM | | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I know! I know! You thought Mommybloggers had died and gone the way of...well, something that has gone away and is not online anymore.

Wrong!

We had technical difficulties combined with busy schedules combined with a massive, major overhaul.

We are back.

We are going to kick it old school.

And?

We are ready to bring it.

Are you with us?

Posted by Jenn Satterwhite at 2:43 AM | | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I keep my photograph albums in my cedar chest. Dozens and dozens of albums, all crammed full of pictures. Beautiful pictures of my beautiful children. . . pictures I loved. . . pictures that were calendar-quality!!!!! Pictures of my babies, and of my toddlers, and of my preschoolers, and of the first day of kindergarten. . . pictures of birthday parties and skating parties and picnics, and playgrounds.

Mostly, pictures I hadn't seen in years. Some of them? I'd forgotten they even existed.

That's why I was so excited when I got my wireless digital picture frame last Christmas. I'd wanted one desperately ever since I first saw one on display at Sam's Club.

As soon as it arrived, I opened that cedar chest, got out all of those wonderful pictures, started scanning them, and then I put them all on my FrameChannel account.

I took the frame out of the box, wrote down the serial number, and typed that in on FrameChannel. Bingo.

I've got over eight thousand pictures of my beautiful children in a random, looping slideshow, on my wireless picture frame.

It's the showcase of the living room. Nobody can walk past it without stopping and watching for ages. The frame even plays my Mp3's, so I've got a soundtrack to the memories of my life running 24/7 on the back of my piano.

This isn't an advertisement or anything. It's just a statement about the most awesome material object in my house.

When I stand and watch my wireless frame, I am watching my children grow up before my very eyes. I also see my parents, my siblings, our vacations, our pets, and, and, and. . . you name it. If it was precious to me, there's a picture of it on my wireless frame.

The sensation is indescribable. When I look at all of those pictures that had lain hidden for so many years, the sensation is just simply, well, indescribable.

My kids are in their twenties, but not on the back of the piano. There, any time I want, I can see my babies.

My parents. My brother. My sisters. All ages of them.

Any time I want.

If you are looking for a gift for someone you love, you might consider a wireless or digital picture frame. Seriously, if my house caught fire and all the humans and cats were safe, I'd run back inside for that frame. It's like another family member, because it's ALL my family members.

I love it. Sometimes, late at night when nobody's watching, I look at it and cry. Not the bad kind.

Posted by Mamacita at 5:54 PM | | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Little wonder that our students are so confused about what they're "supposed" to look like these days. Teen magazines that used to give us ADVICE about our appearance are now telling kids that unless they look like (insert talentless celebrity here), they're hideous. AND, many kids have no home backup to instill some self-respect and common sense, so they believe this stuff. Many of the mothers who are supposed to be the voice of reason, believe this stuff. Sad but true. . . .

Trends come and trends go. Rubenesque women used to be the epitome of feminine beauty. Adult women built like eleven-year-olds (Twiggy) were popular. Breasts are flattened by a board placed strategically under the underwear and tied into place. Breasts are bigger. Breasts are pointy. Breasts are smaller. Hems are high. Hems are low. A waistline is hidden. A waistline is enhanced by a corset so tight a woman can't even put it on by herself; she needs a winch fastened to the bedpost, later spelled wench and transformed into a person. How empowering it must have been, for women to finally get clothing they could put on all by themselves!

Now, supermodels are built like concentration camp prisoners, and the walk down the runway looks a lot like the walk to the Belsen showerhouse. * These women look like a sneeze would blast them backwards like a bullet from a gun.

(You know, Victorian men must not have seen very many naked women; otherwise, why and how could a man have possibly believed women were supposed to look like a wasp?)

There were fancy schools in Victorian England that had a rule that each young woman must have a 17-inch waist, just like Scarlett O'Hara.

It wasn't just in England, either. Laura Ingalls Wilder (one of my many literary idols) writes that her mother reminisced to her daughters about how, when she was married, her husband could span her waist with his hands. This, while advising her daughters to wear their corsets even while sleeping or ". . . what your figure will be, goodness knows."

Mothers nowadays dress their small daughters in clothes that a high-class prostitute wouldn't be caught dead in. I am, more and more, thinking that school uniforms might not be such a bad idea.

At the turn of the century, schoolgirls wore pinafores over their dresses to help keep the dress clean, but also to hide the curves and allow the girls to be children a little longer. Remember Anne Shirley, Diana Barry, Jane Andrews, and Ruby Gillis? (Oh, I hope you do!) Emily Starr? Marigold Lesley? Pat Gardiner? They all wore pinafores to school every day, and after school, too. When the pinafores were removed for parties, etc, these girls looked like young women, but because they were still girls, really, the pinafores were worn all other times. Anne Frank, at 13 or 14, still referred to herself and to Peter VanDaan, who was 16 or 17, as "children." Now, there are "mothers" - and I use that term lightly, and, in fact, it's part of a compound word - who put skimpy, suggestive clothing on their innocent children and expect the world to approve and the perverts not to look!

"Ladies," - and I use THAT term loosely, too - if you allow your child to go out in public wearing Daisy Dukes with "Bootie Cutie" embroiled across the butt, you don't have far to go to find the pervert in this picture. It's YOU. Are these the same "mothers" who wear tight, short, revealing clothing and then get all astonished and furious because people are "looking?" Probably. Stupidity reveals itself in many forms.

People have always done ignorant things to their bodies in order to conform to society's current popular trends. That means, there have been stupid people for generations!

Big booty used to be all the rage, and emphasized with bustles. Now, a big butt is a sign of sloppiness and obesity, and whether or not her butt looks big is something most women worry about daily. Fear of a butt that's large enough to actually sit on comfortably sends otherwise sane and intelligent women to the liposuction clinic to get all that sucked out, that they might be "beautiful." Balancing precariously on a protruding tailbone doesn't seem either attractive or comfortable, but that's how supermodels have to sit these days because they traded their cheeks for a check.

Tiny feet were a symbol of rank. High-born Chinese women suffered intense pain all their lives, and had to be carried because they could not walk normally on the new-born-size buds that were what had become of their feet. Women used to lie about their shoe size, because small feet were, and still are to some people, a sign of beauty. Now, a woman who wears size eleven or twelve shoes isn't the exception at all.

Hands were to be kept soft at all costs. Soft, smooth hands indicated servants to do all the work, which indicated money, which indicated good marriage fodder.

There are so many silly interpretations of beauty that I could never go into them all in one post. Besides, I don't want to.

Clean, kind, honest, ethical, intelligent, humorous, witty, and brave. What outside feature could possibly outrank that? I suppose really shallow people would disagree, and I have a hard time overlooking my own, shall we say, "shortcomings" in the beauty arena, but truth be told, beauty fades and these other qualities are merely enhanced.

Oh, and while it may be true that the old standards of feminine beauty were set by men, I honestly believe that now, women set the standards for beauty. I also believe that women are not very nice to each other when it comes to what's "beautiful" this week, and what's "passe."

Remember Marilyn Monroe? Remember how beautiful she was? Size 12. Elizabeth Hurley has been quoted as saying, "I'd kill myself if I was that fat. . . she was very big."

I'm not finished yet. I also believe that we women need to start pointing and laughing at 79-pound toothpicks sashaying down the fashion aisle in between bouts of rehab, instead of throwing our money at them and their keepers: the jokers who get rich because somewhere, a woman spends a hundred thousand dollars on a half-yard of fabric, two safety pins, a button, a necklace made of real diamonds that looks like it was strung by an Alzheimer patient on the front porch of a nursing home, assisted by a four-year-old, a hat made of 19 cents worth of purple felt, a feather, and an old rusty key, and shoes consisting of a paper-thin sole, a ten-inch heel, and a single clear plastic strap across the top, in which one cannot walk. As long as there are women who will buy this hideous, overpriced scheisse and wear it, there will be women who pretend to believe that it's beautiful.

What we need is someone to stand up and say, "The Emperor is naked." Because, my friends, he is.

*I am NOT being disrespectful here. I am being descriptive. It's a visual thing.

(Previously published on Scheiss Weekly)

Posted by Mamacita at 5:45 PM | | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I have a cherished memory. I was in my early twenties and working in New Brunswick at a summer English language program for adults. Students came from all over the world (but mostly from Quebec) and lived in residence on a university campus.

The staff, most of whom were young, lived in residence with the students and were (in addition to teaching all day and coordinating recreational activities) in charge of patrolling the halls at night to ensure that only English was being spoken (every student signed a contract to that effect and agreed that if they were caught in violation of this rule three times, then they would be sent home. I have never heard of a university based program to be as tough as this one. But it worked). Most of us loved the work but it was intense, exhausting (the hours were very long) and, at times, very stressful. And it was exactly the environment that fostered strong bonds between staff members.

One evening, most of the staff were told that we could have an unexpected day off. At eleven o'clock that night, a bunch of us piled into two cars and drove all night to a friend's cottage (stopping only for gas and to take pictures at the world's longest covered bridge). We arrived at dawn (I couldn't tell you where exactly, but it was beautiful), and a few of us immediately went to put on our suits and go play in the rapids. I remember laughing and playing in the cool water as the sun came up, then crashing for a couple of hours on the cottage floor. Later that morning, we all went for a paddle and I remember drifting lazily in the sun (I am still a very lazy paddler).

We left after dinner that night, to be back in time for work the next morning.

I have lost touch with all of my friends from that day but the memory remains a special one, as a time that I was joyfully living right in the moment.

I was feeling a bit sad the other day as I reflected that I am unlikely to ever have that kind of experience again, what with responsibility, health and (let's face it) age all working against me.

But then I realized that such joyful moments occur routinely, I just need to remember to be open to them. And my kids help a lot with that.

A couple of weeks ago, S. had his birthday party. This was the first such party he wanted in years, so we agreed to go all out and have it at the movie theatre. They were such a nice group of kids and had a great time being silly together! And as I looked down the aisle and took in nine enraptured faces (we saw the new Indiana Jones movie. Good fun), each kid balancing popcorn on skinny knees, I realized that I was having one of those moments. Pure joy.

Cross-posted to Not Just About Cancer.

Posted by Laurie at 7:41 PM | | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As I've told you before, I'm an only child.

As a matter of fact, my mother and grandmother were only children, too.

Aside from the whole "small family reunion" thing, a downside to all this only daughter-ness is that I don't always know how boy children work.

My oldest child is a girl. I've been a girl. I "get" the girl thing.

The boy thing?

Not so much.

My middle child, a boy, is nearly 12 years old, and my oldest is a girl.

She's 13 and is a very dominant personality. It is impossible to ignore her, and sometimes I get so caught up with her, that I forget he's growing up, too.

Earlier today, he responded extremely rudely to something I said, so his punishment was that he wasn't allowed to go to the store with his dad and brother to pick out a movie. He had to stay in his room instead.

He is also very, very, very, very, very bull-headed, (has been since he was a wee child) and he still didn't respond appropriately to me when I went to talk to him.

Did I mention the bull-headed part?

Anyway, I went back and explained to him yet again why he was being punished, and yet again he responded inappropriately.

Here I was trying to talk to him to finish it up and let him out of his room, and he would have nothing of it.

I walked away wondering if the hospital had given me the wrong child 11 years ago and then it dawned on me: he's nearly a teenager.

I guess he never ages in my head since I'm often caught up with his sister. Then, I'm surprised when something like this happens and I remember he's no longer 8 years old.

I recognize that I need to do something about that, but I may just toss him out the window, instead.*

Yep, he's almost a teen.

(* No teens or pre-teens were harmed in the making of this post. It is a joke. I wouldn't throw him out the window, who would mow the grass, then?)

Posted by Busy Mom at 7:37 AM | | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)