Monday, May 9, 2016

Hair ya go....

Today's topic is.....drum roll, please......body hair!  Yep.  Kinda yuck, kinda not.  I shaved my legs the other day and noticed that the hair on my legs is very blotchy and thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be great if it just quit growing back?"  I mean, you quit having your periods in menopause so why shouldn't your leg or underarm hair stop growing too?   Life would be perfect then.  Just think about it...EVERYONE would love to get to menopause if it meant you could stop shaving!  It wouldn't be this big ole secret that no one likes to talk about.  Just imagine it for a minute.  Go ahead.  I'll wait.  Pure bliss, right?


I've always said it was the German in me, but I could totally go without shaving my legs and not think twice about it.  Easily.  Really.  Who remembers the underarm hair craze?  Wasn't it just last year that movie stars and singers were dying their underarm hair?  I would NEVER go for that.  I do NOT like having hair under my arms.  It just looks gross and stinks.  I don't know about you, but my leg hair has NEVER been smelly.  lol  - Let's start a movement and stop shaving our legs.  Everyone with me?  Yeah.  Right up until short-wearing weather.  Yeah...I know.  Oh well...it was fun while it lasted.  ;)

Friday, May 6, 2016

Welcome!

Hi and welcome to my new blog about life as a mother/grandmother going through menopause.  Let me start by introducing (or re-introducing) myself.  I am a 50 year old wife, mother, and grandmother.  I can't believe I am not only in my 50s, but that my first year of 50 will be over in July.  WHERE has the time gone?  I met my wonderful husband when I was a babe of 15 and married him when I was 17.  Incredible, right?  Just wait...it gets better.  I wasn't even pregnant!  lol  We married for lurrrrrve.  :)  I had my daughter when I was 21 and yes, I received a rocking chair for my 21st birthday.  It was awesome.  While my daughter was the easiest child ever  and made me think I was THE BEST mom, my son came along 28 months later with a hard dose of reality.  I have said ever since that if he had been my first child, he would have been my only child.  Yep.  You heard/read me correctly.  Chickie Baby came home from the hospital perfect.  She slept all through the night and would eat/sleep like clockwork.  I could taker her anywhere anytime.  Not a problem out of her.  She never met a stranger and had the funniest/best little personality.  My son?  Whole 'nother story.  He came home from the hospital and was up every two hours.  He screamed when he was hungry.  He screamed when he was wet.  He screamed when he was hot.  He screamed when he was cold.  Screaming was pretty much his first reaction to anything throughout the majority of his childhood.  Did I mention he was also a Mama's baby?  He wouldn't even stay with Daddy.  My daughter went to everyone's house - her grandparents, her aunt.  Bubby?  Nope.  Isn't life funny like that?  The one you desperately needed a break from just would NOT go anywhere without you!  Even at church, there was only one person he would stay in the nursery with and she just happened to be my husband's cousin.  As you can see, I survived their childhood.  Bubby grew up and is actually now my quiet child.  Looking back on his childhood and mannerisms, we believe he may have been high-functioning autistic - Aspbergers Syndrome to be exact.  He has most of the symptoms.  Both Chickie-Baby and Bubby graduated high school with honors.  I am so proud of them.  Chickie also graduated from college with a degree in Graphic Design.  Bubby completed one and a half years of college when he realized he did not want to be a high school history teacher after all.  He has always held down a job and seems to be happy at his current work location. Both of my children work at the same sign company.  Chickie is the designer on staff and Bubby is an installer.   I hope you have realized that is not their actual names, but their nicknames they have been given by my husband (Honey-Buns) and I since they were itty-bitty.  In the spring of Chickie's junior year in high school, my sister passed away from heart valve issues.  This brought her 11 year old daughter, my niece, into our immediate family fold.  Prissy has cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair.  Lots of modifications and life style changes with that, but I had promised my sister that if anything had ever happened to her, I would take in Prissy. 


Chickie married her high school sweetheart the year after college graduation.  She and Anderson have given me my first and only (so far) grandchild, Munchkin or Munchie.  There are no words to describe how much I love this little girl.  She will be three in August.  I babysit her Tuesday through Friday.  She stays with her other grandmother on Mondays.  Munchie has so much of Chickie's personality but a lot of her Uncle Bubby's stubbornness thrown in.  She is such a joy to be around.  I know.  I know.  Sappy, sappy.  I can't help it.  She makes me smile and laugh and giggle and...well, you get the picture.  This blog will be about her and her funny stories. 


This blog will also be about changes.  It is crazy to me how well you get to know your body then one day all of that changes.  I'm not sure when it started, but I do know it's started.  Yes.  I'm talking about perimenopause...the beginning of the end.  The end of what?   IDK...I think they're talking about periods or something.  I do know I have NEVER in my life purchases so many pregnancy tests.  I buy them for peace of mind mostly.  I forgot to mention I'm a "late in life" baby of six.  The story goes that my mom went to her OB-GYN for her yearly check-up at the age of 40, only to be told she was pregnant.  Not planned and not easy.  She turned 41 in June of 1965 and I was born in July.  I know the delivery/recovery wasn't as easy as her others.  I only know this because I have the birth card/announcement Daddy sent to Grandma & Grandpa and he mentions that she "didn't have an easy time of it."  Sadly, Mama passed away in June, 1978.  I was a month shy of 13.  I haven't been able to ask her about menopause or any of those other great questions girls should be able to ask their moms and even though I have two older sisters, I can't ask them either.  My oldest sister was in a severe car accident with brain trauma.  She's fine now, she's just lost a lot of her childhood/younger memories.  My other sister is the one that passed away.  So, I'm just winging this whole thing and making sure I throw my wisdom at my daughter, so she won't be caught so completely off guard when it comes her turn to live a fabulous life.  lol


What have I learned?  It's still embarrassing to buy a pregnancy test.  I don't know if you ever get over the looks sent your way.  But, for peace of mind?  It's totally worth it.  I have even had Honey-Buns pick up a test or two while he was at the pharmacy getting his many asthma medications.  Apparently, you are in perimenopause until you go 12 months without a period, then you're in menopause.  I get so excited to go without my period.  I mean, WHO likes them?  Do you remember how you were SO crampy and achy when you first got your periods in your teens or pre-teens?  Well, they end up like that again.  SUPER crampy and SUPER painful.  So yeah...I get excited when they're not here even though my body goes through the same symptoms of PMS.  Crazy!  I have actually gone three whole months without my period.  It was awesome.  Then it hit last month.  Boo.  And again this month.  Boo.  And just when I thought it ended last week, it started again today.  I mean...are you kidding me?  So...for those of you getting ready for perimenopause, be prepared.  NOTHING is normal anymore.  NOTHING.  Lucky for you, my blog might just help you out some, wink-wink.


Okay...I think I rambled enough for my first blog and for the day.  I would just like to add that I have renewed my relationship with my treadmill.  We've been going strong for three days straight.  I really want to keep this relationship going, so please encourage me.  You may or may not know, but my other blog, Queenie Gets In Shape, was about me discovering CrossFit and actually doing it.  I plan to start back with that, just not right now.  I don't want to be sore when I wake up in the mornings.  I know that's a crazy reason for not exercising more, but it's the truth and I am doing my best to be brutally honest in my blogs. 


I will leave you with one Funny Munchkin Story:
I was working on my computer downstairs yesterday morning while Munchie was playing with her cars and car mat.  She got up and came over to me, holding out her hand and said, "Look what I got."  I held out my hand and asked her to let me have it.  She put it in my hand.  I looked at it, not really sure what she just put there and said, "What is it?"  She replied, "A booger."  YUCK!  YUCK!  YUCK!


Y'all enjoy your weekend and Happy Mother's Day to all!