Reflections on turning 36 by marianne hansen rencher

Ahem. I am 36 today. When I was in college, i thought i would be doing something different at 36. I thought I would be thinner, working at a firm in a large city, with amazing hair and fashion sense. Instead I am the epitome of suburbia. I am married to a dentist. I stay home. I often don’t have time to do my hair and i deal way too much in bodily fluids which are not my own. I am sleeping 12-16 hours a day and i haven’t gone dancing the night before. if i stay up late it is for the silence or because i can’t stop knitting. it is not because i am having a party or to watch movies all night or anything fun at all. once a year i may stay up to watch 24 in a 24 hour period, but even then i fall asleep around 1am. i miss captain kangaroo. i used to watch that every morning as a child. it taught me about ping pong balls.

I received an ipod nano and case and skull candy which I bought myself and I’m going out to lunch with a friend. i have the babysitter coming an hour early so i can walk around a book store and splurge on a $15 bracelet. Kevin did just send a huge bouquet of daisies, so he is saved for one more year. of course the card said it was from James, Katherine and Seth, but i know better. I am 36; you can’t trick me...

none of my friends differ much from me. i no longer know people who sleep where they end up at night or who work half the year to travel the other half by illegal measures. my friends now take cruises or actually buy tickets for trains or rent a car. I don’t even know jack bauer personally.

Beautiful Sleep

I am tired. I am always tired. I can sleep 16 hours and wake up tired. I no longer say, I’m tired, because it should be understood. Kevin does not understand why I am tired. I am going to explain it and see if you can understand it.

I am taking chemo meds which tell me to not operate heavy machinery because it may cause drowsiness or dizziness. Now in my mind heavy machinery is not a car. it is more a forklift or crane. i can be a taxi driver, but not a construction worker. I know a car is heavy; i can’t lift it, but weightlifters can pull them. i have never seen a tv show where a weightlifter has pulled a crane. perhaps i need more than basic cable. a crane is, therefore, heavy machinery.



I am taking other meds which also tell me that i may be dizzy or drowsy when taking them. When combined with the other stuff, I’m sure something is making me sleepy.

I have a 7yr old, 3 yr old and 20 month old. whenever i tell people this, they ask if i am tired. so during the day i am yelling at them and at night i sometimes find myself staying up late because it is quiet. i can have 4 hours of quiet time if i stay up til midnight. nights i go to bed at 10, seth will wake up and cry. i may not go get him, but it doesn’t mean i haven’t woken up.

i feel as though i take uppers and downers. i drink a diet coke in the morning and a tea that is supposed to comfort me before bed. i got nitrus at the dentist and hadn’t felt so relaxed in months. I would like some installed by my bed. just to help me fall asleep at night. and stay asleep. until 2011.

Knit

I knit. I am under 60 and I knit. I even go to knitting group on Wednesdays. It is an amazing night. there are about ten of us. I would like to say that i am the youngest one there, but i am not. there is a recent college grad there who i am trying to understand. she is going to hawaii. her goal before going is to knit all of her tops. she was knitting a tank top last week. not a vest, a tank top. she is knitting a bathing suit cover. i kept imagining her drowning from the weight of the wet yarn. i have knitted a scarf and now i am knitting a square. i belong to their square of the month club. in 12 months, i will have 12 squares which will become a blanket. i will also have learned 12 patterns and will be a master knitter. right now, if i am knitting, i am doing nothing else. i am counting. i try and watch tv or talk to others while knitting, but then i start counting out loud. i watched lost 5 times this week, i figure, from rewinding it to figure it out while counting. i am doing the moss pattern right now which is knit 2, pearl 2. i will learn how to yarn over next week. i figure, if by end of the year, i could pair up with jack bauer on 24 and we could save the universe. instead of torturing, we could put them in the water with a bathing suit cover on that i knitted and when they have almost drowned, we will let them up and have them tell us their secrets. maybe that is torture. but in a cute, handmade outfit.

i bought yarn because it was on sale and pretty but was told I could only make scarves with it. how many scarves do i need? so i am more careful with my purchases. i will now be able to make a hat with some other yarn. i am becoming so domestic. i was mom of the week yesterday and i knit today. tomorrow the world.

Mother of the Day

I win. I normally believe that my children’s biggest obstacle in life is their mother. It is pretty much a guessing game on my part and adaptation on their part. I have crackers and cheese easily accessible so that they can snack any time they want. Same with apples and occasionally fruit snacks. James and Katherine will even feed Seth. Today James told me he could babysit if we paid him because he knows how to make cereal and PBJ.

Today, however, i made the top of the class. kevin’s dad is sick and so he is in idaho with his family. i am alone. today after school i had ballet lessons at 530, james had science night at 645 and I had a photoshop class at 630. i got a babysitter starting at 5. i took Kath to her class, arranged for a friend to take james to science night with a project ready to go (baking soda, citric acid, and vinegar... you get it) and made it to my class only fifteen minutes late and james got a certificate for participating. Granted, i wouldn’t get the award without a babysitter and an amazing friend helping me, but i was still pretty prepared today. of course, i did not feed my kids today... at least i have no memory of preparing food. for breakfast, my kids ate cereal out of the box. we had mcdonalds for lunch provided by another friend who dropped her daughter off for a play date and then the babysitter made mac and cheese, but still... i have a tumor. (hopefully i only have until october to use this excuse, so you may hear it a lot until then)

so cheetos for someone who normally rates sub-par as a mom.

Conversation Hearts

I am in a group that is trying to exercise more and eat better. However, when your kids were home all day monday and tuesday morning you wake up determined that your oldest child is going to school because you can’t handle a day with all three that isn’t saturday or sunday and while making breakfast you notice one of his eyes is pink and you go to your car to run to the grocery store before going to the eye doctor and your battery is dead because your kid left a door open and after you get jumped and go to the store and come out and the battery is dead again and you are going to be late for the eye doctor, you are going to open the conversation hearts and eat all of them. Then you are going to wash them down with caffeinated diet pepsi. and you do this because you don’t have a valium.