It's a sad, sad day

I've come to a very depressing realization.

I'm old.

I've never complained about aging. I think if you look back the post closest to my last birthday (Aug 20) you'll see that for the most part I embrace aging. I have loved being in my 30's. I feel wiser, more experienced and much more comfortable in my own skin than I did in my 20's but yet I also still feel young enough to be adventurous, mischievous and to just plain enjoy life.
I sometimes forget my age in fact until I have conversations with other people still in their 20's as they reflect on getting older (one of my daycare mom's mentioned that she and her friends are all turning 30 this year so they are going away to celebrate) I think that's great but chuckle because I'm already making plans for Sean's 40th (yes, it's a couple of years yet but I've got big plans!) And I think....ah, I remember 30.

Here's the thing, I've said it all along. I think 35 is the perfect age. If I could live out the rest of my days being 35 I'd be one heck of a happy camper. In 5 short months I'll be 37. And I'm starting to feel it.

I took the kids to the zoo today. We go a lot. Family membership. I took Emily, her bff Jennifer, Mary Jo and Connor. Sean was working. I've gone to the zoo probably 150 times in the past couple of years. I know the animals by name (no joke there). And today, I was W.I.P.E.D. out. We were only there for 2 hours and I was so very ready to come home.

See, I have a toddler. He's not content to sit in the stroller anymore. And given his incredible (and slightly obsessive) love of sewer grates he's not able to walk in a straight line. He needs to step on every. single. sewer grate within 50 meter radius. So this means one of two things. I can let him out to walk and not see a single animal and have the three older kids follow me following him around the zoo stepping on sewer grates or I can leave him in the stroller to whine, complain and fuss when I don't point the stroller at the sewer grates and run over them so that the big kids can actually see some animals. It is after all a zoo. We have wild sewer grates in our driveway but where else will we see a tapir?

I feel like a salmon swimming upstream. I'm fighting the current of toddlerhood (without the advantage of the youthful energy I had when the girls were toddlers) I'm also fighting the current of tween-dom. The eye rolling, I'm stupid and don't know what I'm talking about,
but-why-can't-you-buy-me-the-$150-Bench-jacket-when-all-my-friends-have-one, tween. I'm also fighting the middle child syndrome and while I don't actually think Mary Jo suffers from it, her natural personality fits the description like a glove. She's loud, outgoing, rebellious, attention getting, mischievous and can play just as easily with the 10 year old as she can with the 2 year old. Her manners leave something to be desired but she's caring and loving and as cute as a bugs ear (and she knows it)

And when I was in my 20's I might not have had the patience and understanding of the mature, wiser, patient 30-something, to deal with all of this but by God, I would have had the energy.

So, there you have it. I am officially declaring my age. My name is Jean. I am 36. And I'm old.