I am lucky to live in a place where seasons don't change all that much. We have cool mornings in winter and more rain. We have rain in spring and hot muggy days. Summer can be downright unbearable but also so nice because we are free to cool off in the ocean. Fall is hot. And then one day it isn't and then all of the sudden you wake up and it is Christmas and you see kids wearing jackets on our brisk 65 degree mornings. We have our own kind of seasons. But. We all share something in common. The seasons of parenthood.
Summer is not just Summer. Summer now is popsicle season. Taking a bath every 3 days season. Lunch outside on the picnic table and a rinse in the kiddie pool on the lawn season. Swimming lesson season. Soccer camp season. Sun comes up way too early season. Small laundry loads full of swim suits season. Sunblock on the shopping list season. Take a vacation if you're lucky season. Summer has become back to school shopping season for those of us lucky enough to start at the end of July. BBQ season. Playing outside until it gets dark season. Washing the dog in the pool season...
Fall is not just Fall. Fall is finding your groove in school season. Soccer season. Seeing pictures of your families' falling leaves season. Buying a new jacket season. Sun going down way too early season. Collecting canned food for the hungry season. Choosing a Halloween costume season. Taking down the holiday boxes from the attic season. Choosing a pumpkin season. Charlie Brown movies season. Watching Monday Night Football season...
Winter is not just Winter. Winter is cutting snowflakes season. Choosing the right picture to send to Shutterfly for Christmas cards season. Hot chocolate with mini marshmallows season. Cookie season. Donating to the Salvation Army bell ringers season. Home Alone on TV season. Warm family feeling season. Making resolutions season. Somebody in the house is always sick season...
Spring is not just Spring. Spring is watching the bulbs come up season. Playing outside in the rain season. Waiting for the Easter Bunny season. Sun staying up longer season. Eating dinner outside season. Termite season. Baseball season. Car wash fundraiser season. Spelling bee season. Clean out your closet season...
Even though I don't have boots and sweater season here, I do share many of the same seasons you do as a parent. I love the seasons. I look forward to the changing of the seasons for different reasons now. I watch my family change as the season changes and though you may be lucky to see fireflies in the summer...I am lucky to see my own kind of magic over here.
I remember elementary school so well. I remember spinning on the playground with my friends making my skirt twirl around. I remember the magazine I created with cut-out pictures of Ricky Schroeder that I tried to get my friends to subscribe to. What I find fascinating is that all of that seems like it wasn't that long ago but really...I have gray hair now. Not a lot. Just a taste of it to remind me that I now parent an elementary school child and those days are long gone. My medicine cabinet is proof.
The other day I was cleaning my girls' sink in the bathroom and their medicine cabinet was open. I stood there for a few minutes enjoying the simple contents of it. I saw tiny bottles of nail polish, hair detangler, princess toothpaste, a green comb, various hair accessories, and cupcake bandages. It was such a sweet collection of little girl things. It made me think about how one's medicine cabinet changes through the years.
In a few years their cabinet won't contain things like princess toothpaste and detangler. I will soon find hair gel and eye liner. Tiny bottles of Hello Kitty nail polish will be replaced with 10 bottles of Wet N Wild nail polish. By then I won't even be allowed in their bathroom and won't be allowed to know what else they keep in there.
In college the medicine cabinet holds things like birth control pills, condoms, Vicodin you "borrowed" from your friend who had a root canal, Nyquil, No-Doz, sun block, aspirin, tweezers because you finally decided to pluck your eye-brows, and leg wax because you're on the prowl.
Then you meet "him". Your medicine cabinets collide. Your tampons are mixed with his aftershave. You try to share toothpaste but his is awful so you now have two tubes. You have four sticks of deodorant. One is his and the other three are yours because the first one smelled too powdery and the next two were buy one get one free. Your make-up bag has gotten bigger by now too because you now have a "real" job so you buy fancy Lancome make-up which has the added bonus of the free gift (with a $75 purchase of course).
You have a baby. The mess above now has a rectal thermometer, Vaseline, Anbesol, two bottles of Prenatal vitamins (one made you puke so you bought the other), Children's Tylenol and Motrin, and several salves for sore breasts and bottoms. You find that every time you open it, something falls out which makes you feel inadequate as a homemaker so you find time one day to throw out anything with an expiration date in the last 4 years.
Babies grow and life gets more hectic. You find that you've added another bottle of aspirin, two bottles of medication for your back pain, and you hate to admit it...but you snuck out and bought an electric nose-hair trimmer. You have eye drops for pink-eye that your kids give you at least two times a year. You have prescriptions for heart burn medication. Two kinds. You feel a little bit old so you go out and buy light blue nail polish for your toes because you're still cool. You have three of those little baggies you get when you buy a new sweater. You know...the ones with the extra button and the piece of thread? You have no idea where to put them so they pile up on the top shelf behind your earrings. And so it goes...
My medicine cabinet will continue to evolve as I do. I'm sure I will see a variety of items appear and it seems that as we age, the contents of the cabinet seem to get a little more embarrassing. Thank goodness we married someone who will share the shelf with the embarrassing things we need to support our aging selves. It's OK though...because the nose-hair trimmer is not yours anyway...right?
