amenopausalmom.com

Date nights have changed over the years, haven’t they married/single/divorced mothers?

Face it: Gone are the gropings in the back of the car. The steamy windows. The underpanties draped over the rear view mirror. The only time any of this happens is when I’m trying to change my daughters’ clothes after a long day at the beach, and I’m generally screaming at the top of the lungs in an angry voice while doing this.

No, date nights have changed now that we have two young kids.

Dinner out doesn’t happen, unless the two are in tow. When we do go out, we chug our wine so that the girls don’t accidentally spill it as they grab bread and salad and other food from the table as soon as the waitress sets it down. (You’d think they never eat, but my grocery bill can prove otherwise!)

The movies? Please! The last time my husband and I saw a movie alone was right before the birth of the second daughter. That night lasted five hours (movie AND dinner!). We had to rush home to not surpass that fifth hour since the babysitter cost $12 per hour and we were already well over $100 for the dinner, movie and sitter that night.

Last night my husband and i had date night. It went something like this:

1. Cheap but good bottle of Cabernet
2. Our swing out in the backyard

It started out slowly, as though it was our first date ever. We chatted about silly things, like how our garden was doing, and whether or not the cantaloupe plant would survive.

Then the wine loosened our tongues, and suddenly there we were, all alone on the swing, the wine warming our throats.

Funny how you can be in one place physically but in another place altogether on another level.

We weren’t in our swing in our backyard. We were in a tropical paradise, the two of us, with no worries in the world. We were laughing and joking about things that didn’t have the words kids, temper tantrum, diapers or bills in the sentences. We joked about when we first started dating. We laughed about my husband’s old roommates, all of whom were crazy. We talked about the long commute we used to have just to see each other, when we were both finishing up graduate school and living an hour away from one another.

Suddenly, our life was just about us, the two of us, right there and right then on that backyard swing.

The bottle of wine gone, we climbed into bed. It was almost 11. Late for us. You know, we have kids; we always have to get up early these days.

And early it was. At 4 AM the baby let us know that she needed something. What, we weren’t sure, so she ended up in bed between us, her little fingers and toes seeking our warm bodies, bringing us together. As I lay there trying to get back to sleep I realized this:

Date nights have changed, as have our lives. Those carefree days are gone. Now we are inundated with responsibilities and burdens so heavy that sometimes our backs feel as they are about to break.

And yet, these are the best of times.

I would so much rather spend the evening talking on the swing than groping in the backseat of the car.

I would so much rather get woken up by a precious, delicious little baby each morning, even if it is only 4 AM, than sleep until noon and wake up alone.

Menopausal Mom may sometimes complain about temper tantrums, poopy diapers, seemingly unsurmountable bills and other atrocities that being a grown up brings (not counting wrinkles, C section scars and flab!), but this time, this backyard swing time, this wake up at 4 AM to a crying baby time, is the best time in her life.

And she wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’ve spent part of this week cleaning out my youngest daughter’s closet.

We are finished having kids-she is our second and last. At eighteen months old, she is a beauty, a delightful chubby baby filled with sweet sugar and kisses and hugs.

Just typing about her makes me want to cry (damn hormones!)

Last night she had difficulty going to sleep. This happens from time to time. Normally she’s a great sleeper. Put her in her crib with her Eeyore stuffy and off she goes. She’ll talk to herself for a bit and then, boom, out she goes.

Last night was different. She cried for a while so I went into her room to hold her, to rock her to sleep.

It was then I realized how big she has gotten. She’s so long that I have to extend my arms wide, and she’s so heavy that I don’t know for how much longer I’ll be able to hold her like this.

It made me cry.

What happened to my little baby? My last baby? Where did the time go?

I find that now that I have babies, time flies. I’m getting so much older so much faster, and my girls are growing so quickly that I can’t keep up with them. They enter a stage and then, like magic, that stage is gone and another has come.

I want to stop time. It’s hard to watch it go. Life moves along so quickly, and then before you know it you are old and your bones creak and your children have children of their own.

Before long, you can’t hold your babies in your arms and rock them goodnight.

Now, that’s a tough pill to swallow.

Okay, let’s preface this post by making a few comments.
1. I live in Southern California.
2. Everyone in Southern California has boob jobs. I mean everyone. Even the men.
3. I was not born well endowed in the, ahem, chest department.
4. I’m menopausal, hormonal and almost 40. All of this, unfortunately, also equals that lately, at times, I’ve been feeling a little well, not so hot and, sigh, freaking OLD.

In all honestly, boobs aren’t a huge thing for me. I was born with an athletic (aka stick-like) figure. I have never been NOT able to jog, run, jump or play because my ta tas were too big. Yep, never been a problem.

Now, after having children and nursing one for 8 months, the other for not so long (will post more later on the entire nursing experience), my ta tas, thankfully, didn’t take too hard of a hit.

Look, I worried about it. Every woman who is getting ready to drop a baby and stick it on her chest will probably, at some point, worry about it.

We are human. We want to look good. ‘Nuff said.

Anyway, I was lucky. The girls stayed pretty much the way they were from the first time until the second.

Let’s also say I had children later in life, so the girls weren’t all that perky from the get go.

With all this big boobs around town I’ve been thinking, hm, briefly, minutely, should I?

I won’t. Why? Well, for one thing the pain. I don’t like pain. I’d rather be stuck inside a small closet with both girls for 8 days than go through physical pain.

Oh, well, wait, I take that back. Give me the pain.

Still, don’t want it.

Then I worry what my family will think. I know what my mom would say; she made that clear long ago when we first moved out to LA LA land.

No, the extended family. Hushed voices around the dinner table when I walk in for the first time, my new boobs entering the room well before the rest of me (Because hey, if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right).

I worry about my girls, though, most of all. They don’t have to know of course, though the four year old notices any pimple, bump or other unexpected and abnormal bodily feature on me the moment it appears.

What would I say to them? What kind of point would I be making if one day I woke up with huge boobs and they are blessed with my small chest?

Mommies breasts just weren’t big enough?

They were big enough to feed my girls.

They were big enough to grab the attention of my husband.

With a push up bra they are big enough to fill most shirts AND show a bit of cleavage.

So, dear readers, I won’t be going under the knife to enhance or otherwise alter the upper portion of my body.

If you have, no worries. I have nothing against breast augmentation. I write about it for a lot of companies in my other life, my working life.

I have friends who have been surgically enhanced (and not just in the breast department, either).

I’m okay with it. It’ s just not for me.

Now, a chemical peel for these damn wrinkles is another story. You’ll have to stay tuned for that one, though.