glenrockschwartz

She strides forward with confidence. She is all alone, there is no one by her side, but still, she holds her head high. She is tougher than nails.  She has no choice.  She had to evolve.   It is the first day of sophomore year of high school.  I am working from home and I get a panicked call from my baby girl "Mom I can't find any of my friends for lunch!" I immediately drive the half mile to the school to pick her up and take her home for lunch.  On the drive back home we see her friends all walking together going to have lunch at one of their houses. Just a few days later, that same friend calls my baby girl and tells her that ' they ' the collective group don't feel comfortable having her sit with them at lunch.  I have known these kids and their parents since they were in diapers, before they could even walk.  Not one of their parents reached out to me.  Not one of those kids stood up and chose inclusion. So she reinvents.  She cobbles to...

  Dear Avery, Happy 18th birthday! I haven't seen you yet today because you have spent the past week doing business lady stuff with school and are currently on a flight home from Atlanta.  But still, you asked would I decorate your bedroom door like I have done since you could walk, even if you weren't here to wake up to it this morning.  (Of course I will! And bonus points that I could get it done the day before without any time pressure.)  As you turn 18, this theme  of grown up girls, not being as grown up as they think and still needing their mamas is one  that I would like to explore with you in more depth. When you google "what every 18 year old should know", you get lists ranging from 18 (cute) to 100!  These are life skills that I am proud to say you (and Alex) both have.  You can sew a button, follow a recipe, make a doctor appointment and do the laundry. You can also change a light bulb AND change a diaper - the latter a skill that I did...

Dear Alex, I will never stop being your mom.  I will never stop shining a light on all that is wonderful about you. I may however decide to stop writing these birthday letters to you.  Not sure what the age will be, but I don't feel ready yet as you turn 22. So here goes, a short top ten list of things that I love about you that I want you to remember from that time you turned 22 (in no particular order): 1. I love your passion for bringing better teaching to young kids.  I also love that I have access to your google photos and can see the videos of you in action with your third-grade class. 2. I love your friendships and relationships (Callie!) and how true you are to them and to yourself. 3. I love how you have embraced your nerd.  You make Pokémon and Renaissance Faires and Star Wars, and a list of classically nerd things actually cool. 4. I love that we both share a love of music and that the same artists alternately bring us to tears or a state of Zen. Zeppelin ...

Dear Avery, Seventeen years old! What in the world can I write to you that you do not already know about yourself?!? It is kind of amazing how once your personality shone through that I could pretty much copy and paste from recent years' birthday posts and it would probably hold true today.  But I want to dig deep over the past year and hold a mirror up to you so that you can see what I see; the evolution to an even more incredible version of yourself. Because one thing I know, is that over the past year you have lived life on your terms. Has there been fighting? Yes. Crying? That too. More good days, than bad? Absolutely. So, I've decided to show you a year in the life by simply reviewing a year of my digital photo albums as I write - noting that these are the events worth photographing - it goes something like this: May 2024 - We finished shopping for sophomore semi formal dresses; you officially got your permit and started driving school lessons. You bid Alex a fond farewell...

Dear Alex, Happy 21st Birthday!  Typing this feels unbelievable as it is inherently American to believe that a person is a true and complete adult when he reaches the age of 21.  (Of course, us mamas like to hold onto the fact that your prefrontal cortex wont fully develop for another four to five years, which means, thankfully, that you will still need us.)  And yet there has been tremendous growth over this past year.  When you turned 20, I was intimately involved in the day-to-day aspects of your life.  It was a privilege to talk to you daily about general nonsense aka "stuff and things".  The reality was that the daily check ins were a necessity to combat my own fears, to make sure I was doing my job as a parent to help you grow into a healthy and content adult.  I am still here, a year later, to catch you if you fall, however you have learned the skills, you have the skills to catch yourself.  So far there hasn't been a stumble, or maybe ther...

Dear Avery, The day before your 16th birthday you woke up and told me your dream.  You dreamed that you were at camp and you and I had walkie-talkies and you kept letting me know everything that you had forgotten to pack. We will come back to what that means and the bond between us, but first let me reflect more broadly on your growth over the past year. I would not find myself being honest if I did not first write about how many times the universe has pushed you down over the past year.  Mainly social of course and I don't want to focus on the specifics (aka not being invited, loss of friend groups, stress with camp friends and boys asking and then rescinding dance invites), what I want to write about is your response to these events.  You are so resilient, it actually blows my mind.  I'm not saying that you are a robot who is completely unaffected; rather you have a well deserved cry, some rotting in bed scrolling Tik-Tok on your phone, and then you dry your tears,...