What is Generation Boom?

“The magazine redefining life, health and finance after forty. It’s the source for conversational, relevant articles that discuss everything from health and fitness to travel and inspirational people.”

I’m enjoying my assignments so far. For October/November, I covered the basics of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy and put together a useful guide on how to dump your debt, especially when you’re closing in on retirement. You can read them in the digital edition.

We’re always looking for new story ideas! What do you think boomers would like to learn about health, money, and enjoying this stage of life? Contact me and let me know.

Day One of Kindergarten

Let’s hope I don’t mix these things up.

After all, “baby boomer” means something else entirely to a household with a newborn. New moms don’t want hormone replacement, they want hormone evacuation. (Speaking of which, constipation clearly is a topic for all ages. Oh, sorry. TMI?)

It’s an interesting way to spend a morning, looking at these very different milestones in a life: babyhood, motherhood, and the rather fuzzy, intangible time we call “middle age.” I turned 40 last month, and I’ve got my hands in all three (ah, THERE’s the extra hand I’ve been looking for. And it’s already full). I’m raising a toddler, still learning to be a mom to my older kids, and ever so slowly coming to terms with the fact that I’ve crossed into the territory of mammograms and pre-menopause.

It makes me feel all Lion King-y inside, this time of clarity when I can see so many points on the circle of life in high definition. Add one more: My own mother, who had me late in life, the last of eight kids. She’s into her 80s now and is adjusting to assisted living. Our family home is on the market. I’ve thought about going over there to see what it looks like emptied out. But it’s too weird to think about, and I probably will never do it. I would rather not look around the bare walls and windows of my old bedroom, which was converted into my parents’ computer room anyway 20 years ago. It wouldn’t look right devoid of the vanity with the big round mirror against the west wall, a piece that belonged to my maternal grandmother and became mine in high school. The vanity stayed with the room all these years, until this past July, when my siblings and I had a silent auction among ourselves to buy the items we wanted and take them home to be used by our own families.

The blond vanity is now in my bedroom, with the matching bench covered in a tapestry material that my mom was fond of in the late ’80s. I think she made me a vest out of the same bolt, on the same sewing machine that now sits on the floor next to the vanity until I can clear a space for it somewhere else. I can’t use the thing, but my husband can, and did, one night this week, repairing a seam in our daughter’s school jumper. She’s starting kindergarten, and I bought her uniforms used, knowing we had the tools now to repair those minor flaws. (I can’t help but be frugal–I was raised with seven siblings  by parents who remember the Depression.)

For my big girl’s first day of school, I laid out her clothes the night before, bright white polo shirt and plaid pinafore, on the vanity bench so she could get dressed in my room and let her baby sister sleep in theirs. (Catholic schools start early.) Once she was dressed, I turned the bench lengthwise so I could sit behind her and comb out the curly hair she inherited from me, and from her grandma, while we both watched in the mirror. Her eyes were bright with anticipation and uncertainty, and for once she so preoccupied that she didn’t fuss when I yanked a snag in her curls.

We finished up and took one last look together. Gorgeous. She was ready to round her next curve on the circle. I think I am, too.

I’ve just added a new page with links to work I’ve published in UNLV Magazine. These stories are among the most memorable and satisfying I’ve ever done. I’ve interviewed researchers whose work is sometimes revolutionary, sometimes quirky, and almost always fascinating. Did you know honeybees can teach us about stress? Or that shoe companies design kids’ sneakers based on adult feet? I’ve gotten to know, briefly, some accomplished alumni: luxury resort managers, successful entrepreneurs, even a rock star.

The near-year I spent working at UNLV was one of my all-time favorite jobs. I had to give it up when we moved back to Kansas, but I continued as a freelancer for them, which opened the door to the next iteration of my career.

You see, going to college really does take you places.

Often when kids learn to read to themselves, parents shift away from reading together. It’s understandable — we want to encourage independent reading. Our 5-year-old doesn’t start kindergarten for two more weeks and she already reads very well. Scary well. But she still loves to have us read to her. And we love to oblige.

Shared storytime doesn’t have to end in grade school. When you read to older kids, a brand-new world of benefits opens up, according to experts like longtime teacher and teaching instructor Mary Rose of Orange County, Fla. Here are some of them, according to an article by Rose in Scholastic’s Instructor magazine:

• Reading books a little above your child’s grade level will challenge and develop vocabulary.
• When you’re there to answer questions, kids can grasp words and concepts that they would miss alone.
• You can reinforce comprehension by asking questions about what you’ve just read.
• Try prodding your child’s imagination by asking if he can predict what’s going to happen in the story.

Ready to share a story? Here’s a guide to 10 Books to Read Together that I wrote for the June 2011 issue of Tallahassee Moms Like Me magazine. There are titles for preschool and kindergarten through 5th grade. Check it out; you might find a new favorite!

(My apologies to Kate&Lydia, the moms who dare to speak the truth at Rants From Mommyland, who inspired this list with their own Things I Should Know By Now.)

Here are my rookie mistakes of the week:

The kid stays in the shopping cart. Once the toddler has experienced freedom from restraint in Aisle 4, there’s no getting her back. Not without a meltdown that the butchers in the back can hear over the earsplitting “EEEEErrrIIIIeee” of their meat saws.

No craft projects that involve sand or glitter at meal-prep time. That’s not paprika on your potatoes.

Adult logic fails on the toddler mind. The 2-year-old throws a holy fit when I try to give her a bath. But turn on the water in the sink and she beelines from the other side of the house to play in it. Especially if the spray attachment is involved. Is she part cat? Future firefighter?

When your exam does start, your bodily privacy ends. There you are, as exposed as Britney Spears exiting the limo, and if you’re really lucky there is probably a student shadowing your doc (or, in my case, midwife) that day, and she’s a hands-on learner.

At that point, lying seems rather pointless to me. What could I possibly hide from them now?

But apparently up to one-third of us do it. We lie about how many drinks we’re downing. How much we smoke (only on girls’ night out, right?). Whether we had unsafe sex. Ever. Meds — are we using as directed? And anyone who’s never fibbed about flossing, take a step back. Yeah, I thought so.

And why do we lie? Most people say they fear judgment. Understandable. But, seriously, the doctors really have seen it all. Just ask a nurse. Nothing can shock them. And if your doc is the lecturing kind, find one who isn’t. Let’s face it, we spend too many intimate moments with the people in the white coats to suffer with jackassery. Find someone you like, someone who will give it to you straight but treat you like a grownup. Even if they do dress us like paper dolls so they can check out our goodies unhindered.