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Often on holidays or during vacations, my daughters and I go shopping for clothes together.  Usually we are on a mission to hunt and kill (in a manly fashion) a particular item for one of us to wear for a special event and the rest of us tag along as the peanut gallery of brutally honest opinions and critique. Other times, we are drawn to a 40% off/ take an extra 30% at check out event and we are in the stores for nothing but a great piece at an even better price.  The flaw in this mission, which is why we take this sort of sale on as a team, is that a person is often sucked in by the price and justifies the color or fit because it is so cheap.  A bargain.

My feeling about this sort of purchase, and what I have tried to teach my daughters, is that if it didn’t appeal to you or look good on you at full retail, only the price tag looks better at half price.

We have a pretty good system for our search and rescue mission, rescuing  that one little size 4 red silk tank everyone overlooked at full price and is now hidden in the 14’s.  People who sale shop have notoriously bad manners about returning items to their appropriate size section.

Note: If you like something, look for it is all the size stalls.  There are hidden gems lurking all along the racks.  I swear people stuff a favorite size 6 pant in the 16’s to hide them for later if they get distracted by Tori Burch flats or Kate Spade clutches and plan to return.

But we are on to them.  So our first job when we arrive at a sale is to divide and conquer, sweep all the sizes by designers we like separately, grab as much as we can hang over both arms without dislocating a scapula, and pick stuff we think any of us would like or look good in.

We then get three dressing rooms in a row, and dig in. The next few minutes are a flurry of blouses, pants, skirts, dresses; flying over and under dressing room doors as one of us tries something on and thinks it’s better for someone else or wants to get another to think outside their clothing box. Unanimous losers are tossed over the dressing room door, our signal to the sales clerk that the door slung clothes can go back to the racks for Brittany Spears or Christina Aguillera to buy in two sizes too small.

After about ten minutes of clanging hangers and elbows hitting mirrors or toes caught on corner stools, as most dressing rooms are the size of a child’s toy closet,  we start our show and tell in front of a central three way mirror that is usually somewhere within barefoot walking distance from the dressing rooms.

That is where the real fun begins.  We all know that what looked good to us in the safety of our own room becomes a size too small and even changes color when we emerge for feedback from each other. Phrases like, “Well, hello, Grandma!” or “Where are you going in that–traffic court?” start flying out of our mouths and we each swallow our pride and slink back into our stalls for another round.

My favorite exchange this last outing was  my younger, single daughter stepping out of her dressing  room resembling a lost Olsen twin and me asking her why she has to buy everything two sizes too big.  To this, my older, married daughter replied, “Oh, she just wants to look like she slept over at her boyfriend’s and threw on just any old thing from his closet to walk home in.” Turning to grab another hanger,  my baby girl said, “Exactly.” And pulled another size extra large turtle neck over her head.

Now this all might sound a little daunting but to tell you the truth, it’s one of my favorite things to do. I love being with my daughters.  Love the sounds of their groans or chuckles if something doesn’t even make the cut for committee vote.  And we always end up with things we really like  if  they win the prize for final check out.

I know I have a real keeper when I hear, “There you go, Meg Ryan, looks like everything else in your closet.”

Does it get any better than her cardigans and clunky oxfords in You’ve Got Mail?!

So in addition to being on the road for the past months, I have had my daughter, her husband and her two boys, now ages twoish and 5 months, living with me. They have moved back home after a stint in Los Angeles where their boys were born.  I think they found, as we all did who experienced it, that child number two is an exponential increase in activity/responsibility (i. e. work!)  and the man to man defense becomes a full court press leaving you screaming for more adults on your team.

Moving in with YaYa and Pops, as my husband and I are affectionately called, until they can find their own home has been a joy and a challenge for all of us.  Living in a multi-generational home is pretty standard in most cultures but in the United States, not so much. Here when you make the transition from “You’re so young, I can’t believe you are grandparents” to “move your walker, I can’t see the TV,” we elderly ones are ferried off to old folks homes with the polite, obligatory visit on Sundays. Seldom do you end up in a child’s spare room.

So my situation is a good one.  They are the squatters and I can decide when my hotel has no vacancy which I anticipated would occur at about a week to ten days of our cohabitation.

But I had not anticipated one aspect of my new living situation.  Falling madly, unabashedly, completely in love with my grandsons.  Like young love, all your boundaries, rules, previous relationships are overshadowed and pushed to the side when you open your front door and a small voice calls “YaYa!!!!” and you are immediately enveloped by knee high hugs and kisses and an adoring, unbearable sweet grin facing up in wild anticipation of your next move.

I was not an especially stellar infant/ toddler mom.  I am not an early morning person.  I don’t like sitting on the floor to do any thing much less count matchbox cars.  Sesame Street I found to be a life saver but sort of stupid.  I mean really. Why didn’t Big Bird have a name?  Everyone else did? They didn’t call Snuffy “Large Elephant.”

No, I basically had toddlers to enjoy teenagers.  I adore kids just when everyone else wants to give them away.

So this transition to really, really loving a day spent with a two year old has been a brave new world for me.  I broke all my original rules for child rearing in the first two days. I sneak my grandson cookies, we play silly games like “where is Mr. McGillicutty?” while driving in the car.  I don’t even know who Mr. McGillicutty is or where he came from in the recesses of my feeble brain but we look for him all the time. (Just googled it.  Should have known it was an I Love Lucy phrase.) I drive carpool for nursery school.  I buy pizzas by the carton to support it.

Anyway, the most recent crack in my usually impermeable veneer, was the introduction of the sport of hockey to my grandson, Charlie. We live in the cold midwest where hockey is religion but when my own son cried though his first skating lesson I shed tears of joy that I would never have a 5AM ice time practice or a 7AM game in Timbucktu.

Not so with precious Charlie.  The moment he showed interest in scooting a plastic lemon slice across the kitchen floor with a spatula, I was calling the ice rink to see how early he could start lessons.  Hearing sadly they began at age 3, I settled for asking about their next Pee Wee practice (the gifted 11/12 year-olds headed for the NHL).  The next day at 5:30 PM sharp we were there for the big event.  We arrived just in time for the Zamboni man, sweeping the rink to a crystalline shine to which my California born surfer child, who had never seen ice exclaimed, “Wow, YaYa!”

And it was all uphill from there.  The players arrived in their full padded glory–skates, helmets, mouthguards–wisking the magic black pucks back and forth into the nets.

Charlie stood transfixed with his tiny pink nose pressed against the glass, his fingers tapping gently against the barrier. His smile, ear to ear.

Now we have a new game we play in the hall each morning, broom hockey.  The puck is whatever he finds to use and the rules are whatever he chooses. My brooms are turning to hay and white paint chips are falling off all my baseboards. I’m sometimes still in my goalie PJ’s at noon.

Come on, he had me at “Wow, YaYa!”

It has been brought to my attention by my youngest child (lower left) that the expression I use of hers is not in fact “anywoodles” as in anyway but “anyhoodles” as in anyhow.  I was sort of fond of woodles and had gotten comfortable with it.  Dropped it in conversation here and there.  It was working for me.

But, life is change and some say change is good (I go back and forth on that one) so on this Mother’s Day 2012, I will laugh at my mistakes, big and small, (see orange person above guffawing) and move on.

With anyhoodles in my hip pocket, who knows?  The sky may be the limit.

I received an email from a reader that I decided to share with you since tomorrow is Mother’s Day and, aside from Hallmark, I think you can always say it best with flowers.  The reader explained very sweetly that he had two moms, “they are lesbians.”  I appreciated his candor and also it was helpful in case I might have assumed he had a mom and a step-mom. Anyhoodles (see post 2/26/2012), he had researched the care of cut flowers on a website that made them sound more high maintenance than a small herd of  hippos so I felt obliged to assuage his doubt and confusion and explain there is simply little better than a gift of flowers. Especially from a son. I wrote:

Dear Joe (name changed to protect the innocent),

I received videos of two commencement addresses by email this morning. I am sure I will receive more and I have to admit, I always look forward to them this time of year. All those fresh faces in the crowd, the speaker full of sage advice, usually witty vignettes about their own college years and most certainly earnest reflection.

One was Steve Jobs’s 2005 address at Stanford and the other CNN’s medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta’s recent address to the Class of 2012 at his alma mater, The University of Michigan. Both used numbered ideas, imaginary point bullets if you will, that outlined their version of how to handle, look at or best utilize one’s future.  Each urged their crowd of twenty one-ish,  fidgety, probably hung over college senior listeners to hope, dream, succeed, fail and embrace whatever lies ahead.

I was actually touched and inspired by both speaker’s thoughts.  Extremely different personae.  Practically polar success stories.  One traditional.  One anything but.  One born of college sweethearts who lived the American dream.  The other given up for adoption by a college relationship, taken in by a second choice adoptive family and nonetheless, also lived the American dream.

I listened to their reflections, their guidelines.  Both were extremely impressive but neither strayed too far from typical graduation speech text.  Find your dream and live it.  Live it new each day.  Love your family; remember your friends. Know that each day is a gift and could be your last, Steve Jobs’s  reflections on this obviously more haunting being recirculated posthumously.

I hear and read these speeches so differently now as a fifty plus year old someone than I did as a twenty something someone. I feel like the parents always nod in ardent agreement with these speakers as their children nod off. I know these kids are hearing bits and pieces as they check their cell phones and chat behind cupped palms.   They might even catch the thesis of the address but can they really employ or truly understand the advice at their stage of life?

They are so young.

So I am thinking these addresses as fabulous, well-delivered and well-intentioned as they are, are often more poignant for the parents than they are the students. For some of us, they stir up memories of roads not taken and long forgotten dreams that these students haven’t lived long enough to feel or understand. That said, maybe it is not such a bad thing.

Kids can hear these speeches and be inspired to take the twenty or so years they have lived and build a successful, fulfilling future that should include many decades.  And the parents can be reminded that they may only have twenty or so years left and, if they are fortunate, a few decades to finally do what really matters in their lives and make that difference that seemed so easy as an idealistic college graduate.

In spite of my somewhat conflicted sentiments, I hear/read commencement addresses and I feel recharged.

These particular commencement reflections got me out of my bathrobe before noon, inspired me to write this post after a month-long, road trip hiatus and will at least for the rest of the day make me more conscious of  how I am spending this particular 24 hours.

Check them out.  You may even get a week, a month, a year’s worth of kick-in-the-ass. I was just glad I took the few minutes each to watch and listen…And seriously, could Sanjay be any better looking?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJxmLSjoPYg

http://www.youtube.com/embed/D1R-jKKp3NA

I may have mentioned this before but it warrants repeating that my son in law has partnered with a high school friend to launch a clothing line, Salmon Cove.  Check it out at:  http://www.salmoncove.com

Since I have worked in  retail on and off during my life and most recently have simply worked at walking in stores and walking out with shopping bags, I am known in the family as somewhat, OK I am, a clothing aficionado.

a·fi·ci·o·na·do/əˌfiSH(ē)əˈnädō/ A person who is very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about an activity, subject or pastime.