One of the things no one tells you when you find the love of your life at an advanced age is you may become a geriatric parent. According to the powers that be, you are categorized as geriatric if you have kids after the age of 35. What kind of cruel joke is this – I’m not geriatric!?? So, instead of wallowing in this fact, I decided to embrace it. Being geriatric had to have some benefits, right? Other than the number of years between my kids wearing diapers and me eventually wearing diapers is shorter – I had perspective.
Right. Perspective.
I knew little kids had little problems and big kids had big problems. Maybe this would help some. Another thing I embraced about being geriatric was the humor in all of this. I documented some of this in Facebook. Here are some of my posts with some later reflection.
Original post: Suzy was talking to another mother of twins. The mom said they have a hallway in their house dedicated to stimulating the baby’s senses. We are just trying to get ours to stop drinking the bath water.
Reflection: What a great Idea! There is only one problem – we lack a hallway, let alone a good idea on what to put in it. The only thing I could come up with is taking a piece of wood and putting a bunch of those boing’ey door stop things on it.
Post: Every night my 4 y/o daughter asks her mom to make her into something before bed. Sometimes it’s a cat, a dog, a character from a movie or show. Then she pretends to be whatever she has chosen. Tonight, she wanted to be made into daddy. So, when her mom called her in, she ran in turned around, pretended to toot at everyone, and waft it over to us with her hand. 1) I think she’s hysterical, and 2) I think this is a gross misrepresentation of me. I’m seeking legal action.
Reflection: This still cracks me up, and FYI I didn’t get far with my lawsuit
Post: Apparently, I’ve been demoted at home. I’ve gone from chief taper and gluer of ripped and broken things TO used tissue holder. I may be talking to my union rep on Monday.
Reflection: It’s amazing what talents you discover you have as a geriatric parent
Post: Overheard today in the Roman/Aug house. The 4 y/o son: “Alexa — play songs by Iggy Pop”. I got misty.
Reflection: A good foundation of good music lasts a lifetime. My older kids still listen to some of the songs we listened to when they were young. Sometimes they ask for a song to be played that we listened to in their youth, and that makes me happy
Anyway, another key geriatric choice we made was sending our twins to WLCN for preschool. We both were a little nervous about the whole co-op thing. But have loved every minute of it. We love being in the classroom and seeing our kids grow, learn, and interact with the other kids and the teachers. The teachers are wonderful, caring and incredibly patient. We love them and the school! What a GREAT decision we made!
