I Can Hear You

There are some distinct advantages to being an older mom. Okay, maybe one distinct advantage: more economic security. Not total economic security. This economy sucks ass for everyone but undertakers. However, we have a business we have poured our hearts and souls into for many years. Things were going great, and then we thought: what the hell, let’s have kids.

So less economic insecurity is a good thing. Just about everything else about being an older mom is sheer, unadulterated hell.

There is the fact that my body is old, tired, (been kinda sick) and more worn out. So I don’t run with my kids. (Please, if anyone tells me about their 78 year old grandma who runs marathons, I’ll find a way to come over and bitch slap you.) And it isn’t just physical. I have all the “Grouchy Grandpa” symptoms. The background noise they make is painful to my ears. I can’t stand it when they interrupt me when I’m working on the computer. (Okay, or maybe Tweeting on the computer.) And don't ask me to get down on the ground to play trains with you!

Emotionally, let’s just say menopause plus young children is a recipe for Temper Tantrum Disaster. And by “Temper Tantrum” I mean my own. I have no patience, I snap all the time, and, at times, I’m a slapper. I hate it when I slap, but the red rage of impatience flames over me and there you go.

And really, how long can it take to “run back to your room and get a sweater”? I often scream out: “I’m having another birthday waiting for you! You don’t want Mommy to have too many more birthdays!”

My children are accustomed to running through the house to grab a magazine, newspaper, or miraculously enough, a fan and start waving it at the first signs of a hot flash (the red face, the clutching at my clothes as though they are bathed in acid, the swearing). And then they GET OUT OF THE WAY!

Something else. I am not tiny and fresh and pretty like so many of the other moms at the local elementary school. I have a second chin starting to give birth to a third chin, I have a big flat but and a belly like fucking Santa Claus. I have age spots, crows feet and those motherfucking little wrinkle lines around my lips. Oh, and here’s something I bet you don’t know. My goddamned nose is bigger than it used to be, and ahem, it was NEVER SMALL.

Frankly, it hurts to look like the Grandmas at my daughters’ elementary school. One day when my little Glowie ran out of the gates, screaming “Mama, Mama, Mama” with her arms outstretched, the woman next to me said, under her breathe, “Mama??? What’s that girl saying? Mama???” I turned to this woman, who was wearing bedroom slippers-the fluffy kind, and said: “I CAN HEAR YOU. I AM STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO YOU AND I CAN HEAR YOU.”

That is the part of being a vain, older mom that totally sucks. Looking my age (and Dammit, I look GOOD, but I do look my age) just sometimes feels bad.

So if you are going to talk smack about me, then please do what I do – Get a Twitter account. Or start your own fucking blog about that cranky old chick with the two young daughters. You know, the one with the SUPRISINGLY GOOD HEARING! Cuz remember, I may look like somebody’s grandma, but I can still FUCKING HEAR YOU!