Top Ten List: Scenes from a 16th Birthday Party

10. For the first time, guests can drive themselves to the party.

9.  Mimicking adults at social gatherings, the boys will start off in one corner of the room while the girls will be in the other.

8.  There ARE boys at the party.

7.  All conversation ceases the moment the adult enters the vicinity.

6. No matter how loud the music, the volume of the talking will rise to meet or exceed it.

5. Because they will nosh all night, there is no such thing as leftover pizza.

4.  The level of amusement her friends express toward the mother’s humor is in direct proportion to the embarrassment the birthday girl expresses toward the same.

3.  The cost of the guests’ collective electronics is more than the price of your first car.

2.  It’s a valid concern that forty-eight cans of caffeinated beverages and six bags of fluorescent orange salty snacks may not be enough.

1. Little Mermaid decorations and gifts from Build-A-Bear are as big a hit today as they were ten birthdays ago.

Sixteen Candles

There was no question in my mind as I grew up that I would go to college, get married, and be a mom.  It was simply understood that it would happen, and I had even plotted out a timeline to follow in order to accomplish those goals at the optimum ages.  I'd graduate at 22 years old and start working immediately, be married at 25, and pop out two children before I turned 30.  I would gleefully change diapers and raise children while keeping a home that would make Martha Stewart jealous.

You know what they say about making plans...when you do, God laughs.

Oh, things got underway relatively easily.  I applied and was admitted to University of Michigan, and after a minor issue first semester (the issue was called ACADEMIC PROBATION for failing calculus)...found my groove.  I decided to become an English teacher.

And that's the first place where the plan began to fail me.  I was accepted into the teaching program late, and that meant using my third year at U of M to mostly pass time while I was waiting to start the two-year certificate program.  I got a part-time job in a small local produce store, signed up for blow-off classes (I paid U of M tuition for ASTRONOMY?  Really???), and spent every possibly waking moment I wasn't at work or in class with my boyfriend.

And then my father died.

After that, I spent a lot of time in bed.  I only had eight credits that semester, blessedly, so there was actually very little to miss.  But I missed most of it anyway.  I had skipped enough of a survey history class on the Vietnam war that I had no real notes to study.  I had to beg for the information from my brother -- coincidentally in the same section as I was.  My total lack of responsibility also necessitated the mother of all cram sessions the weekend before the final as I tried to read all required texts in 48 hours.  Miraculously, I earned a B+ in that class and could put that awful year behind me.

Things seemed to get back on track after that.  I settled into teacher training, four-pointed my last two years of classes, and finally felt like I'd found my place in the world of classrooms.  The college boyfriend and I parted ways, I started dating my best friend, and we were soon engaged and married  by age 26 -- a year later than my plan, but I could live with it!  We socialized often with my college roommate and her husband, spending weekends camping, playing games, helping work on their house, or just hanging out being young and free.

Soon, however, talk of babies entered the conversation.  Remember the master plan? I was to have had all children birthed by age 30.  That milestone was approaching, and I hadn't even started the project!  Our friends got pregnant first, and that put the pressure on us to really get serious about procreating.  I figured it would be super easy, too...after all, my mom had seven kids in eight years.  Surely there was nothing to it.

Here I am holding our friends' baby literally minutes after she was born...Jan. 1995

  

Except there was...there was a lot to it.  For one thing, I insisted we buy a house first. That delayed the process for a few months, though we were haphazardly attempting to start our family anyway.  Once in the house, we continued in earnest.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.  Just when I was certain I could never get pregnant...well, I did.  I was ecstatic the day we found out...we had tried for so long -- almost a year -- and I was eagerly anticipating what a glorious time I'd have during this special experience.

Can you hear God laughing at me again?

I won't go into the details of the pregnancy and birth except to say that I never share my stories with new moms-to-be.  Like everything else in my life...nothing went according to plan.  There were issues and complications all throughout the pregnancy.  I failed childbirth miserably, and had my case taken place decades earlier...my daughter and I would surely both have died.  At one point during labor, I sorta wished I could just quit and die valiantly trying to do what so many women do with a slight cough and maybe a sneeze. However, after 48 hours of labor and the inevitable c-section, we finally got this:

The first Simonte grandchild...born May 17, 1996.

Sixteen years ago today, I became a mom.  Now, you're probably looking for that sappy, cliche, sentimental platitude where I say it was the best thing ever to happen to me...that I loved her instantly...that I happily shed my old life and fell into motherhood with joy for every waking moment.

Keep looking.  You won't find that here.  That's right...my plan failed me yet again.  Sent home 48 hours after surgery under orders of what was surely a Nazi run insurance company plan, I was in rough shape.  The baby was jaundiced, contracted thrush and transmitted it to me during our quickly failing nursing attempts.  I didn't want company, and I remember sobbing to my mom over the phone after sneaking out of a visit, crying pitifully that, "I don't even think I love her!  And she's always here...she NEVER LEAVES!"

Ooohh...yeah...I was a mess of hormones, drugs, pain...I wasn't sleeping...I had the lactation consultants all up in my rack touching me...it was pretty awful.  But like any phase of life...it passed.  A few weeks later, I could load that baby up in her carrier to go to Grandma's house.  Craving solitude and exercise, I rode my bike (and got in HUGE trouble for doing it...but I did it!).  I could put the baby in her stroller, take walks and get out of the house.

I even took one day and slept all day except to feed the baby.  Literally.  I'd feed her, change her, put her down...and go back to bed.  After that...things got much better.  I started to really like her.  I liked her a lot!  She started smiling, filling out, getting interactive.  She was pretty darn cute.  And everyone else?

My goodness, you'd have thought that child was the second coming.  Surely she was worthy of my actual LOVE if everyone else was making such a fuss over her, right?  Right. She was.

And she is.  Today, my much wanted, painfully acquired and often frustrating firstborn daughter is sixteen years old.  I don't know how that happened.  I see that picture of her as an infant and it's like it was moments ago.  I can smell her...feel the warmth coming through the blanket...feel the impossibly soft skin on her cheeks.  But then I turn around  and this is what I see:

Sixteen.  She has a driver's permit.  She gets good grades and has sooooo many friends. She's creative, artistic, quirky, musical. She's confident in herself in so many ways that I never was. And she loves me in spite of the fact that we are so much alike.  We can irritate each other  in an instant, but not two seconds later she's throwing her arms around me for a hug.

Sixteen.  Unbelievable.  Incredible.  Mind-blowing.  Just like my daughter...

Memoirs of a Fat Girl

Most women I know love to shop; a mall like the one in my city usually makes them swoon.  And with good reason…we have major retailers, exclusive boutiques and specialty shops found only in the largest metropolitan areas like New York, Chicago or Miami.  But me?  There’s little else I dislike as much as shopping, especially for clothes.  I lack the patience it takes to try on item after item, and I find the lighting in most fitting rooms humiliatingly brutal.  The inconsistency in sizing from brand to brand is equally annoying; I have clothes that fit exactly the same but are labeled in four different sizes.    

I blame a lifetime of body issues for most of my shopping angst. You see, I grew up rather…well…chubby.  Don’t believe me?  Check out my kindergarten picture:

The hair cut didn't help.  Framing a round face like that was just cruel.

Yep, that’s me…up there in the last row, third from the right, in the purple dress.  See the round face?  Still have that.  My dad called me “pleasingly plump.”  I’ll never understand what was pleasing about it, but plump I was.  My dislike of shopping must have started back then; I was forced into the large girls section of Sears and needed my first bra in third grade.  It’s not like I was over-fed, either; meals were healthy, and while we had to clean our plates or eat the offensive food for breakfast, portion sizes were reasonable.  Vegetables were served at every dinner, and fruit was often served for dessert.  

I was just born of sturdy stock; I’m Sicilian, Irish and German.  And ok, we never met a pasta or bread we didn’t like.  The art of baking is innate in our women, and we have chocolate in the house at all times.

Things hadn’t improved by middle school; at 5’5”, I was always taller and weighed more than any of my friends.  Coupled with large ugly glasses and a frightful version of the Dorothy Hamill haircut…well, I was a hot mess.  I don’t remember most of my outfits from that time, but pictures show rather drab and unattractive ensembles best left in the annals of cheap glossy yearbook pages.

The passing of time and the natural order of the life cycle dealt me a few good hands into high school.  Though I never grew any taller than I was in fifth grade, I was always an avid bike rider and participated in some physical endeavors for which I was completely inept.  The increased overall activity helped me slim down to a manageable size, and finally I could think about shopping at stores the cool girls frequented like Kay Baum and The Limited.  It was a grand day when I could borrow my best friend’s super-stylish Brittanica jeans; prior to that, swapping outfits was never an option for me -- not that anyone would have wanted my clothes anyway!  Still, I was aware that the girls boys wanted to “go with” and feel up were usually rail thin, flat-stomached (and chested!) and had skinny bird legs.

I’ve never had a flat stomach. Today, after two c-sections and the bonus hysterectomy that required a third abdominal surgery, I don’t see a flat stomach as ever being remotely possible without an expensive and painful tummy tuck.  And my thighs?  Though powerfully muscular, they could never have been compared to any bird I’ve ever seen.  

By senior year, I had developed a better sense of style, guided mainly by the Preppy Handbook and replete with whales, pink and green sweaters and the requisite Bermuda bag with interchangeable covers.  I had lost significant weight the summer before the school year started – albeit by alternately starving myself for weeks or barfing up whatever I allowed myself to eat.  The number on the scale was lower than I ever recall seeing before that time (or, frankly, since), and I maintained it until sometime in college.  My girlfriend and I would monitor our weight by the fit of my favorite Calvin Klein jeans.  As soon as they became snug…we were on a diet.  

Flag captain!  Yes, I was a band geek...because THAT was going to help self-esteem...sigh.

Looking at pictures now, I am horrified that I judged myself so harshly and felt so badly about myself.  By today’s standards, I was average sized, and my first-day-of-school picture senior year shows a girl clearly pale, gaunt and hungry. 

I still thought I was too fat.  I continued to make myself throw up whenever I “needed” to lose a few pounds.  This was around the time Oprah wheeled out her infamous wagon o’ fat and published a cookbook of diet recipes.  Thin was in, and I was fully aware of my weight all through college.

By the time I found my first full-time teaching job, I finally felt mostly satisfied with who I was and what I looked like.  I exercised routinely, spending up to an hour or more a day on a stair climber, working out to fitness shows, or simply walking and biking.  For about two weeks, I achieved the monumental milestone of becoming a size six.  That I even claim that as significant shows how hung up I was about my weight.  Even then, my wardrobe choices often included pieces that hid my stomach area with long tunic tops and sweaters or flowy dresses.  I hated for my husband to touch me around my waist.

My sisters and I, 1994.  The only thing bigger than my glasses was my face.

Impending motherhood didn’t help. I’m not proud to admit that my initial thoughts after finding out I was pregnant the first time were about gaining weight…getting fat…looking unattractive.  I distinctly remember coming home after one horrifying doctor visit where I had gained three pounds in a month.  I burst out into agonizing sobs as I explained to my husband what had happened, and he just gaped at me in disbelief.  Seeing images of me during either pregnancy is painful, and for many years after having my girls I refused to be photographed if at all possible. 

You cannot understand what it’s like if you’ve never been overweight. Every time I walk into a room, I start scanning to see how I size up (excuse the pun) to the rest of the women.  The anxiety sometimes sends me face deep into a carton of ice cream…

Today, I’m the closest to pre-baby weight that I’ve been since I became a mother.  I’m in better physical shape and stronger than I’ve ever been in my life.  At 46, I’ve achieved fitness goals that 16 couldn’t conceive of, 26 didn’t dream of and 36 could have cared less about.  And still I wonder if I’ll ever get to a place that I won’t worry about my size.  I wonder if I’ll ever pass a mirror without both instinctively looking to see how I appear and then quickly looking away so I don’t have to find out.  I can’t imagine letting a day go by without getting on a scale to track a number that means nothing to anyone but me.

Today...mostly ok with who I am.  But those cheeks?  Sigh...stuck for life.

I see the history of my life in stretch marks and cellulite and fight not to determine any portion my value based on that.