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So last week was a cram-packed trip to my hometown.  We went mainly for my 20^th High School reunion.  Wow.  20 years. So on the 2^nd was the official Class of ’88 reunion (as well as my, gulp, 14^th wedding anniversary) , the 3^rd had the ’88 family picnic so we could see all the offspring, the night of the 3^rd was another reunion (All Class), and just to overschedule, my best friend and I decided to host an 8^th grade reunion on the 4^th after the parade. On my two ‘free’ days, I ended up arranging impromptu get-togethers with some sorority sisters I hadn’t seen in ages.  It was great! 

I have to say that the 20 was way better than the 10.  It seems that most everyone is finally over themselves and just being normal adults, LOL!  At the 10, the cheerleaders still hung with the cheerleaders, band with band and so on.  I was guilty of that too.  This time I really wanted to make an effort to mingle.  It seemed everyone else did too!  Sometimes I was even approached by people saying, “I really don’t remember you, but how’s it going?”  I found myself doing the same. I even told a guy that I didn’t really hang out with in high school that I remembered he was my first slow-dance as a freshman!  It made for a very fun and interesting evening. The family picnic the next day was great too.

Being from a small town that has a very large draw for the 4^th of July, my old High School has a standing yearly event on July 3^rd at the golf course clubhouse that they call ‘All Class Reunion’.  It is great to go to, just to see who else is in town from other years before and after (since most people have friends outside of their grad class).   And there was the current mayor, an alumni just like me, hanging out with the rest of us.

The 8^th grade reunion brought the biggest surprises.  These are people that I went from K-8^th with in a private school.  I was a picked-on child, the one who cries easily, the youngest in the class – so a big target for that age group.  But I did have my best friend and years of distance to put it all in perspective and I was curious how everyone else turned out.  Here are some interesting things I learned:

1) No one ever remembers things the way you do.

2) Boys only remember how boys treated them, and the same with girls.  Girls who were mean to me, were thought of as nice or never given any thought at all by the boys.  Boys that I thought were nice and smart were perceived as snooty to the other boys.

3) Whereas I think back on myself as awkward and shy, yet a total spaz with a weirdness bent, one guy whom I barely know or remember, told me that he always admired my energy and creativity. He didn’t think I was strange, just enthusiastic.

4) Everyone thinks they were alienated, even if you thought they were the popular one (weird, isn’t it?).

5) The boy who always played jump rope with us girls at recess actually turned out to be gay and has a really nice life-partner now that he brought to the reunion and I had the pleasure to meet. LOL!

6) Out of 30-odd kids in our class, we have classmates who now live in London, Japan and Costa Rica.  We have one Lawyer, one Cinematographer in Hollywood, one Doctor, one world-class chef, one College Professor publishing his dissertation, a High School philosophy teacher, a couple of CEOs, an inventor/entrepreneur (me), and one in the Pentagon working under the chief of staff for the Air Force!  Wow!  What a class!

I think about all this and I wonder how I can impart any of this perspective to my children as they enter grade school this year?  How will I comfort them when they come home crying because ‘everyone hates me’ (as I often did)?  What words of wisdom can I give that will actually be helpful?  Or do we all need to go through this fire to temper ourselves into adulthood? 

Is the only thing I can do is like my mother did – hold them close, kiss away their tears, and tell them how wonderful they are and that someday people will see that? Then stand back and let time do its work?  My Mother’s method seemed lame and totally unhelpful at the time when I was a child.  But in the end, everything turned out all right, just like she said it would. Hmm...

My son, who will be 6yrs old soon (and has been day potty trained since just before his 3^rd birthday), just had his first dry night!

 It was no small achievement.  And, I think this belated milestone is due more to my laziness than anything else.  I am finally bracing myself and doing what it takes to night train him.

 My girls were so easy.  One was day trained before him and one right after.  Both of them were staying night dry on their own after about two weeks of being day dry.  For them, my strategy was to keep them in pull-ups at night until they had 7 dry nights in a row.  One gets up to potty at night on her own, as needed.  The other never gets up and has never had a wet bed.

 So, I just kept buying pull-ups for my son and waiting to start the 7-day dry countdown with him too.  But that first night never happened.  At the 4yr check-up, the pediatrician was unconcerned.  At the 5yr check-up, he was still unconcerned. I was told “everyone develops differently”.  And “boys are usually late at this”.  Well these things I know.  But at almost 6?  NEVER dry at night? Really? 

 When your child can come to you and say, “Mommy, there are only two pull-ups left.  You need to buy more before Tuesday”, I think this is a sign to stop waiting around for him to do it on his own. So we decided that this summer, we were going to try to encourage him to stay dry and start actively night training.  I was worried; imagining loads of sheets in the laundry everyday (still could happen).  But my pediatrician retired this year.  And the new pediatrician emailed me a guide for night training.

 So I ‘forgot’ to buy pull-ups at the store after our trip.  Last night he was frantic about not having pull-ups.  I said, “Oh no!  I forgot! What are we going to do?  Go put on your PJs with just your undies – I’ll think of a strategy.”  Heh, heh, heh.

 I told him that I would wake him up when I went to bed at 10PM and he would go potty then. I explained that both Daddy and I get up in the night to use the potty when our body tells us. We practiced it (fake snore and all!) just like the guide said.  I was so proud of him at bedtime. He was nervous, but went along with my plan. I drank an extra glass of water before bed to make sure I woke up to potty in the night.  When I woke up at 2 AM, I went and got him up too.  I checked him when I woke up at 5:30 – one more trip to the potty and still dry.

 It seems my son is a very deep sleeper.  It was very hard to get him awake enough to the point of walking on his own to the potty (walking on their own to the potty is a key point in night training).  And, apparently, his bladder is too small to make it all night. So, this will be my task for the next week(s) or so – getting my son up when I get up in the night.  But hopefully, this will train his body to actually wake up to its cues. Or create a habit for him of waking up in the night (isn't that ironic?  After all that time training my baby to sleep through the night - now I'm waking him up!). 

But, I am so happy that this first night was a success.  He is off to a great start!

Wish us luck!

For my kids, visiting my parents (Gramma and Grandaddy)  is right up there with going to Disneyland.  It's high up on the list of top places to spend my vacation time too.  They live a block form the beach and have a fabulously large and kid friendly backyard to play in.  Plus, they take their role as grandparents very seriously and never say 'no', there are always cookies and other treats available at anytime of the day regardless of mealtimes, Gramma is always up for feeding the birds or going to hunt for squirrels (with peanuts in her pockets just in case some are found), and Grandaddy will read any book the kids bring to him. The count down starts weeks before we leave.  Every day I have to answer the question, "How many more days until Gramma's house?"

The trip takes us 9.5 hours in the car.  That's pretty good for a 550 mile road trip.  But we leave as close to 4 AM as we can manage and only stop for gas and potty breaks.  Meals are eaten on the drive and miraculously no one complains.  We have been making this drive at least twice a year since the triplets were 10 months old. The kids now know all the landmarks and the order in which they will appear.

Anyway, for me going 'home' is a mix of a really relaxing time of being able to walk to the beach - or anywhere, really, in this small coastal town - and the chaos of trying to fit in meet-ups with old friends who still live near there (from grade school through college). In this case, we were there for my 20th High School reunion (yikes!) and there were several events planned including the day-long 4th of July celebrations and an 8th grade reunion thrown in for good measure!

Out of 8 days, we only had two free of previously planned events.  So what did I do?  Set up some plans to meet up with some sorority sisters I haven't seen in years!  But as exhausting as it was, it was a great experience seeing how everyone has grown into adulthood.  The 20 was definitely better than the 10 yr reunion (but that is another topic). And TripletDad was such a good sport with all this reunioning - I think he enjoyed hearing all the stories of the good ol' days.

I'm exhausted.  The visit was 8 days, and we all had a hard time saying goodbye.  As I was tucking in Daughter2 the night we got home, she started crying.  She said, "I thought we were staying for 12 days."  I don't know where she got that number, but I was right there with her, missing my mom and dad already, just as much as she missed Gramma and Grandaddy.

And I know I was fortunate to grow up in such an ideal (and some say sheltered) place.  Maybe if we win the lottery we can go back and live there.  For now, we have a great place to vacation with no time-share fees. Besides, what timeshare can beat cookies and treats made by Gramma anyway?