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 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 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,...

Dear Avery, You read the title of this post and I bet you are singing it in your head now :) Happy 15th birthday! I have spent probably longer writing this post because I'm finding it so difficult to encapsulate the past year that has been filled with so much change for you.   Friends and Friend Groups and Parties I find myself first wanting to start with friendship.  You live your life in technicolor (i.e. you are emotional) so this is the area where you have always and continue to experience the most highs and lows.  I saw this TikTok clip today in which a professor was talking about how he is changing his way of teaching from his generally more laid back style to more structured as a direct result of his students having spent the majority of their high school years in quarantine and thus lacking skills to achieve in an unstructured environment.  It had me thinking about how quarantine will impact you long term (NB: can you believe that we are STILL talking ab...

Dear Avery, I want to get these words just right.  With you I always want everything to be perfect or at least as perfect as possible, because the details, the time and care and attention paid really matter to you.  You appreciate it.  As I write this on the eve of your fourteenth birthday, I am struck by how you have managed to be fluid in an ever changing world. Some of this is World with a capital W - like we are living in pandemic times and public health policies change, impacting us on the daily.  And then there is world - your everyday world here in Glen Rock or off at camp - and the people that you encounter.  Today I'm going to focus on your world and not make this an account of vaccines and masks and quarantine. Girl....You'll be a woman soon Cringe! Of course, don't go off and make me a grandmother anytime soon, but just sharing that your body is doing everything that it's supposed to do at this age.  You also delight in the fact that you are (ver...

Dear Avery, Abraham Lincoln Embraced His Honesty With Pride You are named after dad's maternal grandfather, Abraham Novak or as he was known to his grandkids, Papa Abe.  One of Abe's traits that you share with him and that dad likes to talk about was his brutal honesty.  So that's what I would like to write about as you officially turn 13 and embark on your teenage years: the interplay between your honesty and your level of tolerance. From Despondency to Exuberance You have always been my most extreme kid who lives in vivid color with everything.  Yes with your brutal honesty, but also you love hard and you hate hard, you play hard and you rest hard, you laugh hard and you cry hard.  There are very few grey areas in your life; at your best you are vivacious and exuberant, at your worst you are cutting and despondent.  Last year we talked about you working on dialing down your living life at a level eleven down to a seven.  And how sad it was that we live in...