The Perils of Being the Third Child

“Coming home tomorrow,” the third and youngest child responded to my bi-monthly hand-wave emoji.

Ever the loving parent I responded, “What for?” As opposed to “Great! Can’t wait to see you, oh favorite child of mine.”

“Spring break,” he responded.

I gulped and wrote back, “Great! Can’t wait to see you, oh favorite child of mine.”

I had NO. IDEA. 

But that’s what happens with the third child. Somewhere along the line you just stop worrying about things like spring break. And grades. And curfews. 

When the daughter was in college, I always knew precisely when spring break was. After all, it usually involved a personal loan for something like a plane ticket to Jamaica. And the middle kid, well, when he made the full-court press to go to school in California, we had to set some limits. If you want to come home for spring break, you’re paying. And that was that. We never saw him again. Though, no need to feel sorry for him. He too, has gotten his fair share of Venmo "loans."

When the daughter started kindergarten, it was my first time through the school system and I didn’t know I should launch the parental helicopter by sniffing out the top teachers. But I learned my lesson quickly and became PTA president when Child Number Two entered the ranks. I’m not saying I was granted any favors, but let’s just say he got the teacher I would have chosen had I been allowed to choose. And then when the last one got to school and his perfect teacher was transferred to a different grade just two days into the year and a classroom aide (certified though she may have been) took the job as her teaching debut, I didn’t squawk, I didn’t talk. Because I really didn't care.

When the oldest was in high school, she had to be home at 10:30 on weekend nights. I kid you not. The next was allowed out until midnight. And the third usually went out about then. 

The daughter applied to seven or eight colleges and when one offered her a spot in the honors program with a pretty decent scholarship to boot, there wasn’t a part of me that thought it would be a good idea for her to pass on her dream school (that didn’t give her a dime) to avoid something as trivial as lifelong college debt.

I, along with half the town, was totally immersed in Number Two’s college decision. His debate was whether or not to play football and could not make up his mind, nor did he, until 30 seconds before the midnight acceptance deadline. It was an all-consuming, life-or-death decision. He chose to play football and then chose academics over athletics and transferred to his dream school which just happens to one of the most expensive colleges in the country. 

The third child never had a dream school. His dream was to play collegiate baseball and when he was offered a spot on a Division 1 roster, he grabbed it. Of course, he decided that playing baseball wasn’t a dream come true after all and is now at a college he doesn’t particularly like. But I don’t particularly care.  

Because, after all, he’s the third kid. I know he’s going to come out OK. I know it’s all a crap shoot. You can major in Peace, War and Defense and end up teaching in the trenches of New Orleans. You can go to school in 75 and sunny California and wish you were shoveling snow in Teaneck. You can play baseball for 14 years of your life and then spend the next 14 discovering what other kinds of diamonds the world has to offer. 

Which isn’t to say I don’t worry, don’t nag, don’t obsess, don’t sneak my strong convictions into every conversation and emoji I send.

Which brings us up to now, the second week in March. Instead of sitting peacefully at my desk writing my little ditties, chopping vegetables for my ever-loving spouse’s carnivore-free dinner salads and then sliding into my chair in the living room to watch Scandal and American Crime and The Voice and Girls and Love and Billions and American Idol and every other show I’ve learned to DVR in my empty nest year-and a half, I’m spending spring break frying filthy dirty slabs of chicken, providing perfectly beautiful overpriced fruit, filling gas tanks, making penne vodka with ricotta cheese every other day, falling into the toilet and nodding my head enthusiastically in late-night conversations filled with harebrained schemes and impossible dreams.

Because though I may have been totally oblivious that it was spring break, I also realized that there's a part of me that will never forget how to parent. All it takes is getting back on the bike, kicking yourself into low gear and pedaling slow and steady, up one hill and then another until you get to the point where even poor Child Number Three is convinced that your world still revolves around him.

Spinning Out of Control

Sometimes I do things just so I can say I did them. I’m not talking about bucket list type things like cliff diving at Ka Lae or parachuting from a plane or climbing the Eiffel Tower step by step.  Though if I did any of those things, I’m fairly confident the whole world would know. I’m referring to the mundane things I do as I meander through life that no one, with the possible exception of my sister Emily, cares about. And yet, I insist on droning on and on about my accomplishments, obsessions and foolhardiness.

For instance, many people know that I worked at TV Guide Magazine for over nine years and never called in sick. Not once. Not even when I had pneumonia.

And what exactly did that do for me? Nothing. No thank you. No promotion. No Perfect Attendance pin. But, I’ve been able to slip it into conversations with my children whenever they threaten to miss work. Or school. Or practice.

And what exactly does that do for me? Nothing. An eye roll. A slammed door. A “Well, I’m not you, now am I?” smirk.

And, just so I can talk about it, I have an Excel spread sheet on which I have recorded my workout regime every single day since February of 2011. That’s five years. In five years I have never missed two consecutive days of exercise. I have never taken more than three days off in a month. And I often will go six weeks straight exercising Every. Single. Day.

And what exactly has that done for me? Well, I'm still not skinny. My bone-on-bone knees still throb. My arthritic back still aches. But, hey. I’m fit.

Or so I thought.

I have a whole conglomeration of workouts that make their way into my life and subsequently, onto my computer. I walk. A lot. I have different routes I take around town. Once a week I walk with my friend Grace at the park. Or we go round and round at the mall if it's raining. Sometimes I change things up and do the old lady shuffle where I replicate the motions of jogging without actually pounding the pavement. 

I joined a gym with a pool and started swimming laps until I got waterlogged and switched over to Aqua Fit classes, where I feel young and limber and energetic.  I lift weights and glide on the elliptical machine. I tread on the treadmill and simulate hills on Level 10. I row, I climb, I throw weighted balls at sideways trampolines. I’ve taken Zumba class. I even had a personal trainer until our personal rapport got in the way of my crunches. I’ll do just about anything my limbs will allow, except of course for yoga. Because God forbid, I do anything to calm my muddled mind.

But, I’m bored. I’m weary of walking in circles. I’m tired of doing jumping jacks in the water. I’m sick of free weights and kettle balls. It's time for something new.

My friend Theresa was a master Spinner in her heydey. She used to rave about her Spin classes and how fit she got and how many friends she made. I’ve been tempted, but really, I’d rather ride a real bike. In the warm weather I routinely pedal 20 or 30 miles at a pop. I’ve ridden upwards of 80 miles in a day and wondered just how taxing riding a stationary bicycle could possibly be. I mean, I’m in pretty good bike shape for my age and ailments.

Or so I thought.

I slinked into the back row of the Spin studio ten minutes early. I watched the toned and tanned 30-somethings in front of me adjust their seats, secure their filtered water bottles and clip their SPIN SHOES into the pedals. I scoffed at my Nikes in shame. I raised my seat, mounted my bike and spun the creaks out of my knees, waiting for class to begin.

In came Andy. Short, stocky, donned in bicycling shorts, touring jersey and wireless head mic. After some perfunctory instruction for a class that clearly didn’t need it, he turned off the lights, turned up the music, hopped on his bike and we were off.

I loved it.

“Fourteen!” Andy bellowed after three very short minutes.

Fourteen? 

 “Move that little red lever! Gear up! Put it in fourteen. Not six. Not ten. Fourteen. Let’s go! Keep the RPMs between 80 and 90. Sprint!”

And I did. It was easy. For about seven seconds.

I looked slyly to my left and pulled my little red lever down to five.

I vowed to stay for 30 minutes. And if Andy called me out as I tried to skulk out of class, I’d just chirp back that I had a cardiologist appointment.

“Up!” he commanded.

Up?

The class rose in solidarity and start pedaling standing up.

Nothing to it. For about 12 seconds.

Then came the ten-times-in-a-row, fifteen-seconds-up, fifteen-seconds-down intervals.

If standing’s too hard, stay seated,” Andy advised.

You talking to me?

I hoisted myself back up. 

The big clock on the wall ticked oh, so slowly. Twenty-nine minutes down. I decided to hang in for another 10.

“Climb! We’re in eighteen now.”

Are you kidding me?

I flipped the little red lever up to twelve. For ten seconds. Then dropped it down to eight. Then five.

The torture went on and on and on. Up and down. Gear up. Up. Up! Faster. Faster. Faster! And, recover. For a nano-second. Then Up! Eighteen! Position three! Which I gathered had something to do with hand-on-handlebar position. Position two! 100 RPMs. Let’s go! It’s called exercise for a reason! Boom. Boom. Boom. Music booming to the tune of my beating heart. Sweat flinging. Palms stinging. Legs aching. Back breaking.

And yet, I toughed it out, way too embarrassed to get off and go. So I just kept pedaling. And pedaling. And standing up. And sitting down. Until I made it through the full hour of spin class.

The first thing I did when I got home was add SPIN to my Excel sheet, knowing full well I'd never, ever do anything that strenuous ever again. But then, just for laughs, I went on Amazon and searched for Spin shoes. I really did.

Because maybe, just maybe, I'll go back again. And maybe, just maybe, droning on about all my recorded accomplishments, obsessions and foolhardiness will end up doing something for me one day.

And if not, at least I've kept myself entertained in the process. 

Kids These Days!

“I’ve got a proposition for you,” said the well-dressed Millennial as he sidled up to the mahogany bar where two middle-aged women sat sipping their Manhattans, one straight-up, the other with an extra cup of ice on the side, 200 miles south of the city for which their cocktails were named.

The one woman subconsciously smoothed her slightly-pilled Annie Sez sweater, tugging it over her spreading hips while the other let out a “this is gonna be good,” chortle.

Meanwhile, their two, once-naturally, blond-haired friends were leaning up against a table on the other side of the room, nursing their respective rum and coke and chardonnay, having neither the desire nor the fortitude to fight for a stool that swiveled into a sea of under 30 year-olds bellying up to the bar.

But of course, one of the swiveling women was me. The other was my friend Ann. Contrary to popular belief, we procured our spot at the bar to help ease our arthritic knees and searing sciatica, not for the easy access to the bartender. Though, admittedly, that was a bonus. 

It was the Annual All Girls’ Weekend, something my college friends and I have been doing for a good 40 years. For the first 25, we rotated houses for a 24-hour visit, kicking husbands and kids out for the night, sleeping in twin-sized beds and sharing family bathrooms. But eventually we realized that one day wasn’t enough time to catch up on a year of each others' lives, so we changed our parameters. Now we meet once or twice a year, renting off-season beach houses or remote mountain retreats during peak leaf-peeping season. Either way, we do it frugally, with three nights away costing me less than what my kids, who no longer live at home, cost me in one day.

We have a pretty simple agenda. We eat. We eat more. We drink. We shop. We hike. We talk. And talk. And talk. And talk. And laugh. We laugh until one of us (who shall remain nameless) pees her pants. We write down our goals for the year which run the gamut from the monotonous lose 10 pounds (or 20, or 30) to getting the dog certified as a therapy pet (no, not me) to venturing out of one’s comfort zone. We review the goals every year, give each other affirmations and love and leave with rejuvenated souls.

We usually go out for dinner once during the weekend and the rest of the time eat dishes we've brought from home. We always consume way, way too many calories.

So, there we were last weekend in Dewey Beach, Delaware for the Annual All Girls’ Weekend. Being somewhat of a local, we wrangled a restaurant recommendation out of Leslie’s oldest son who heartily endorsed the Dogfish Head Brewery in downtown Rehoboth. 

It was hopping for a Saturday night in February and we were told we’d have to wait an hour for a table. My thinking was, if there were that many people waiting that long to eat, it must be worth it. And I know from many group experiences that by the time we agreed upon and arrived at another place, we would have wasted the hour that we could have spent sipping cocktails with crowds of drunks who looked suspiciously similar to the kids we had just finished raising.

Well into our second drinks, with the band setting up in the corner near Peggy and Jeanne, the handsome Millennial and his well-coiffed date approached us at the bar.

“I’ve got a proposition for you,” he said and we leaned close because our ears aren't what they used to be, especially with the barroom background noise.

“We really want your bar stools,” he said. “We’ve been here for a while so our table should be called really soon. You can have our table if we can have your bar stools.”

Now something happens when you’re thrown into a room with kids half your age. You either feel grossly out of place or feel like you’re blending right in. Clearly, we were perceived as peers, possible cronies, fun-loving people who this attractive couple would simply die to hang with.

Me, ever-eager to make a friend jumped right up.

Ann, ever-wiser chimed in. 

“Wait a minute,” she said. “You want to give us your table? There are four of us and only two of you. Your table's not going to be big enough for us. And besides, we want to sit upstairs.”

The couple hemmed and hawed and I said, “Take our seats, it’s fine.”

Ann looked at me quizzically but followed my lead. 

“You sure?” they asked. 

“Yeah, no problem,” I said, certain I’d be Facebook friends with them by the end of the evening.

We got up and joined our aching-boned, middle-aged friends by the table on which they were leaning. 

“Are you guys crazy?” Jeanne asked. “You gave them your seats?”

“I guess I figured if they had the nerve to ask us, they deserved them,” I explained. But then I started stewing.

“Would you EVER have asked two old ladies…” I began.

“We’re not OLD!” Ann roared. 

“OK, whatever. Would you ever have asked two ladies who are clearly older than you are if you could have their seats? And furthermore, would you have TAKEN them if they had offered?”

“Never,” Jeanne agreed.

“They probably don’t think we’re as old as we are,” the ever-positive Peggy suggested.

“Yeah, like they think we might be 50?” I quipped.

“Maybe,” Peggy said. 

At which time, two sloshed fraternity boys appeared.

“When did you all graduate from college, like five years ago?” one of the Theta Chi’s slurred.

“See!” Peggy said.

Our table was called shortly after, ending our fraternizing with the frat boys. But I couldn’t get over the Millennial and his date taking our bar stools. I fussed and I fumed and I declared that they should have at the very least bought us drinks.

I contemplated texting my kids and asking if they would EVER take a grown-up's bar stool. But then I pictured them shaking their collective heads somewhere out west, down south and across the state, wondering what could have triggered this most recent tirade. 

And then I thought about the subsequent Instagram photo that I'd post of the felonious couple with the caption... Would you EVER?

But, for once, I thought before I typed and put my phone away realizing there was a really good chance that one of my favorite Millennial followers would like that little photo and add a comment saying something like, "Hell, yeah!"

And that would simply break my heart.

I Got the Music in Me

I have spent my entire life trying to be cool. And I am fully aware that the least cool thing you can do is admit you are seeking coolness. But, I’m nothing if not honest.

Coolness is a basic innate swag. Either ya got it or you don’t. But, there are certain things you can do to up your coolness culpability. Like trading in your Jansport for a Hershel backpack, your Skechers for Nikes, your minivan for a Prius.

And you can listen to music.

My ascent into the music world began in 1973. I spent $5.00 to sit in the rafters of the Spectrum in Philadelphia and belt out, “She’ll have fun, fun, fun till her daddy takes the T-bird away!” with my older sister and a couple of friends whose parents were oblivious as to what could transpire at an over-sold music venue in the mid-seventies.

It didn’t take me long to learn that though the act of going to a concert upped my ante; going to a YES concert with Penny (aka Patty) was infinitely cooler than bragging about bopping to the Beach Boys.

And so began my descent into the depths of rock. I went to every show for which I could get a ticket. I saw Electric Light Orchestra, Queen, Genesis, J Giels (because Bob Shalita was going), REO Speedwagon, Neil Young, George Harrison, Badfinger (because Day after Day, any day we'd follow Const DePaulis anywhere) Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Traffic.  I segued into adoring the Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, The Clash and Patti Smith. In college, I started going to multiple-day music festivals with the likes of Steve Goodman, Bonnie Raitt, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Earl Scruggs, David Bromberg, Aztec Two Step and my all-time favorite, John Prine serenading me into oblivion.

I was incredibly cool.

As I matured into motherhood, I found that I much preferred watching American Idol on TV to standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a crowded concert hall hoping for a glimpse of a guitar hero. I soon channeled my inner cool into being the ultimate youth sports fan and PTA parent.

Definitely not cool. But we give up a lot for our kids.

As those same kids got older, I realized it was important to keep current. Learn their culture. Try to understand their love of expletive-infused rap songs.

And so I turned off the all-news radio and found WFUV, Fordham University’s progressive radio station. I'll Shazam songs and text my daughter links to new bands.

“Mom,” she’ll answer. “Mumford & Sons are hardly new.”

But I keep trying. I watch every single one of those screaming shows on TV. I giggle at Blake Shelton’s brazenness and swoon over Keith Urban’s accent. I watch while texting back and forth to my friends Laura and Jean, proclaiming my love and support for indie artists with sweet stories and pretty faces.  And inevitably they reply with, “She was totally off pitch!” Or, “He was absolutely horrible.”

“But she sang a Stevie Nicks song!” I’ll protest.

“Everyone sings Landslide. And that was the worst rendition I’ve ever heard.”

“REALLY? Why? How can you tell?” I wonder.

“Can't you hear?” they exclaim.

And just like that, my secret is revealed.

It’s hard to be musically cool when you’re tone deaf.

But, I continue to fake it.

Last night I watched the Grammy’s. I judge artists’ worth on listening to lyrics since I can’t master the melody. I didn’t know that Adele’s performance of All I Ask was anything but stellar until I read it on Twitter. I loved Justin Bieber’s sweet words, “My Momma don’t like you and she likes everyone.” I wasn’t cray cray about Tay Tay’s Out of the Woods, just because Bad Blood is oh, so much more relatable. And I won’t even go Gaga because I recently learned that she apparently has an incredible Star-Spangled voice beneath her freaky façade.

I know it’s so much cooler to like Kendrick Lamar and his butterfly pimpings than Taylor Swift’s red lip primpings. And it’s not because I don’t like rap. I used to get quite a kick out of ‘Lil Wayne’s plays on words, dirty as they may be. And listening to Eminem was like reading a novel that you just can’t put down.

While I watched every minute of the Grammy’s last night, I realized just how uncool I really am. I was genuinely happy for Meghan Trainor. I cried when Taylor Swift cried as her BFF Ed Sheeran won Song of the Year. And my heart pounded as if she were my own daughter while I anxiously awaited the Album of the Year reveal.

And though, there are obviously many, many other people in the world who love the mainstream singers like I do, I know it would be infinitely cooler for me to favor The Weeknd and the lack of feeling in his face.

But for now, I’m going to keep on listening to the words, keep on trying to hear the beat and keep on hoping that one day I'll be content in my coolness. 

Kind of like LL Cool J.

Making a Big Deal of My Birthday

 Today is my birthday.

While I’ve never been one to lie about my age, I’ve found that as my wrinkles deepen, I tend to omit more than admit. I hear myself saying things like, “Well, now that I’m in my 50s,” blatantly leaving out the word “late,” as in late-50s.  And then I laugh at myself, knowing that not a single person in my life has ever befriended me, nor unfriended me because I was five years older, or younger than they thought.

And so, I say out loud and proud:  Today I turn 58 years old.

There’s nothing special about 58. My Golden Birthday is long gone. My milestone birthdays are all just foggy memories. We just had a 90th birthday party for my mother. Perhaps, I think wryly, that's the next big birthday to look forward to.

And then, I got excited, realizing I was turning 58 years-old. And that I was born in ‘58.  There simply had to be a name for this phenomenon! And so I googled. And discovered that, yes indeed, when you turn the same age as the last two digits of your birth year, it is called something.

This is my Beddian Birthday Year.

And if that’s not something to look forward to, I don’t know what is.

I celebrated my Golden Birthday when I was nine years-old. That’s the year in which your age matches the date of your birthday. It's a big deal to some. Perhaps not to a toddler who can hardly expect to appreciate turning two on the 2nd of a month. But certainly, someone turning 24 on the 24th would welcome the day with multiple Jager Bombs or Fireball shots. Or both. 

My parents left me on my Golden Birthday and I was old enough to know it. They hired Mrs. Horrisberger to come stay with my three sisters and I while they explored the bountiful golf courses of Bermuda. It was heart-breaking to turn nine years-old with a wicked old witch of a babysitter. But, my friend Margaret and I tortured her appropriately. In subsequent years when my parents went away (not on my birthday), Mrs. Horrisberger was inexplicably unavailable and the job was eventually turned over to my 16 year-old sister. After all, what could possibly go wrong? We had a Great Dane to ward off any potential problems.

Though I still remember being deserted on my ninth birthday, I’ll never forget receiving a telegram from my parents in Bermuda. An honest-to-goodness telegram.

It would be the equivalent of perhaps a JumboTron shout-out today. They also brought me back a yellow mohair scarf and a deck of playing cards with a picture of a Bermudian Bobby on them. I still have those cards, 49 years later.  

My mother used to hide our presents and we would have to hunt them down on our birthday morning. On my sixteenth birthday I was a bit forlorn when I was told, “That’s it. Just two gifts this year.”

In one box was a royal-blue and white checkered mini skirt. In the other was a matching blue short-sleeved top. Polyester, of course. It was 1974.

“Check the buttons,” my mother said.

And there in the third button hole of the blouse was the sapphire ring that her mother had given to her on her 16^th birthday. Never once did I consider passing it on to my daughter, but rather, have worn it every single day for 42 years.

I turned 21 while attending West Virginia University. I was living with Fran, Linda and Kevin (who has just resurfaced after being MIA for a good 30 years) and various dogs and puppies. Wanting nothing but the best for my friends, I insisted on serving only Beck's beer. I had 17 friends drive from Shippensburg, the school from which I had transferred, and crammed them into our small apartment with dozens of other happy people who wanted to take part in my initiation into adulthood. And when the three kegs were kicked, we ran to the corner bar where a selectively-oblivious bartender allowed us to roll another barrel right down Grant Avenue so the party wouldn't end before dawn.

In our mid- and late-twenties, we went to Pat Malley’s parents’ Poconos house every year to celebrate my birthday on February 9^th  and Pat's on the 11^th. When I turned 30, we were 45 minutes into the drive when my spouse-to-be, though we were not yet betrothed, realized he had forgotten his wallet in my living room. Taking the opportunity to pee, as he knew I would, I  ran inside to get it and was greeted with 75 people screaming “Surprise!”

When I turned 40, my daughter had lice. And, so did I. I still consider those three months of nitpicking the worst parenting experience of my life. And knowing my spouse as I did, for we had been married nearly a decade by then, I fully expected another surprise party. He thought I was over-reacting to the whole situation and I was petrified that he may consider having it in our louse-filled house. But even at the height of my angst and depths of my despair, I refused to ruin his big surprise. So I kept my mouth shut around him and fussed and fumed at work, begging and begging until my friend Laura finally gave me a hint, and only a hint. She promised me that there would be no party at my house. And there wasn't. It was in the back room of a local restaurant and my friends, who came from as far away as Seattle, miraculously all booked hotel rooms. Not even a sister stayed at my house.

By the time I turned 50, I had become such a scary person that my spouse agreed to let me plan my own party in my own house under my own terms with the hope that when I turned 60, we’d be so rich and I’d be so calm in my empty nest years that we could rent out the ballroom at the Marriott, finance the flights of my far-flung friends and pick up the tab for the block of hotel rooms.

Well that's not obviously not going to happen in this lifetime.

So I'm just going to have to make the most of this, my Beddian Birthday Year.

The Beddian Birthday, I have learned, was named for Bobby Beddia, a NYC firefighter who made a random comment to a mathematician about how lucky he was to be living his birth year -- he was 53 years-old, and born in 1953. The mathematician noted that no one had made this connection before (really?) and went on to concoct some sort of equation about how and why and when it happens and what years it can't. Having barely passed third-grade math, I didn't pay much attention to all those numbers.

But I kept reading.

Lucky Bobby Beddia was so lucky in fact that he was tragically killed fighting a fire on the very day he made his profound pronouncement about turning the same age as his birth year.

Kind of like me writing a blog about turning 58 when I was born in '58.

Happy Beddian Birthday to me and to all my 58 year-old friends. May we all live to tell the tale of how we not only survived, but thrived in this, our once-in-a-lifetime Beddian Birthday Year.