This past weekend I got to go to Chicago for a girls trip to hang with my sister and celebrate my sweet friend Jenni as she is set to get married in 3 weeks. It was a fabulous girls weekend with brunches, bloody mary bars, wine on patios of Chicago condos, and a little shopping. Pretty much the stuff dreams are made of when you are a stay at home mom, considering my idea of excitement is going to Wal-Mart alone to peruse the clearance section.
The weekend also reminded me that I am NOT 21 anymore. Heck I'm not even 25 anymore. I'm old, I am exhausted, and I need 8 hours of sleep.
Getting old creeps up on you. It all starts with a night post-college, you don't see it coming- you have a casual 2 glasses of wine while watching the Real Housewives marathon and wake up with a twinge of a headache, craving a bagel the size of Manhattan. "What is going on here?" You ponder to yourself. I used to be able to have 2 glasses of wine just while I was applying my blush in college. And that wine was Franzia, and now I'm drinking expensive, classy bottles, like Yellow Tail. Then it hits you. You're just old. You really can't have more than one glass of wine without feeling like you got run over by a semi trailer and wanting to take a mid-morning nap by 9 a.m. Things have changed, lady. You're getting up at 6 a.m. with a toddler who thinks it's fun to attempt to swing from the chandelier all before 6:17 a.m.
Why do children wake up with such boundless energy? I don't feel like talking to any human before 9 a.m., and my 3 year old bounds out of bed with plans on how to change the world.
Me: "Brooks, do you want yogurt or cereal for breakfast?"
Brooks: "Mom I would like the vanilla yogurt with the picture of the baby on it because it reminds me of when Luke was a baby and he was sooo cute and cuddly and that makes me happy and feel fuzzy inside and also can we go to the park and the dollar store and the museum today so I can learn about numbers please thank you so much I love you and I love zebras."
Me: Blank stare as I overpour milk into my coffee.
Because of said children, I actually feel like so many years of sleep deprivation have accumulated on my body that at this point I'm feeling like I won't catch up until I'm in my 50s, at which point I'm sure I'll be having burning hot flashes and not be able to nap. Fabulous.
Last New Year's Eve, my husband and I spent the joyous event partying hard. NOT! We were snuggled cozy in our bed, old people pajamas on, watching a concert on TV. The ensuing comments just proved how old we had gotten.
"I mean how much money is spent on just the background of that stage?"
"I would be so tired if I had to stand up this whole concert is that area standing room only?"
"Did this concert not even start until 9 pm? I would not make it."
That's when we realized we were an old couple. And we didn't even care. Things started to take an interesting turn from there. We began to divy up weekends where we might be able to sleep in until 8 a.m. like we were talking about war strategies. We began to eat frozen pizzas in bed, splitting them down the middle without a care in the world, and stuffing our faces while we watched marathons of Breaking Bad on Netflix. There hasn't been a second in the world during our marriage I haven't wanted to make out with my husband, and these frozen pizza sessions didn't even change that. To my surprise, you can actually cuddle and pig out at the same time. It just takes dedication. We had just accepted that we were in our THIRTIES (that once forbidden, scary word), and the scariest part is, we liked it. Our date nights turned into sneaking in a bowl from Chipolte to the movie theater, so we could pig out more in public. We quickly realized the crunch of the chips was going to out us, so unfortunately, that was a one-time thing.
So here I stand, 31, with a beaten-down metabolism, but an appetite that won't stop. It's an interesting phase in my life because I know for a fact that I will mutter at my 40th birthday party (likely a frozen pizza eating session with a $15 bottle of wine), gosh, I would give anything to be 30. So I guess I should enjoy the moment, and my crazy 3 year old who never stops talking, and my crazier 20 month old who only has 5 words and gets by on grunts and smiles.
Let me just make one thing clear about this aging process - I sure as heck hope they have a solution for me to be able to eat donuts all day and still be skinny by the time I am 40. There's a science lab working on this specific endeavor somewhere, right? I think maybe we need to pull a few people off of the border control crisis and make sure we are covered on donuts that burn calories. Priorities, people.
It's hard to get old but the good thing about coming back from Chicago was I have never been more excited to see my family. I am now realizing that I have my own little crew, and they're waiting on me to get home, squealing with delight when I walk in the door. Maybe this whole aging thing isn't so bad. If I could just get a calorie-free donut and a good nap......
