jarrod

Middle-Aged Motherhood Truths

Posted on by Heather Scarbro Dobson

One of 14 photos of Amelia after she stole my phone.

Being the mother of teenagers is weird as hell, y’all. It’s just crazy.

My niece is the mother of three little ones and is in the boat I used to be in a decade or so ago. Whenever I talk to her, I look back and think, “Wow, I was there. Here seemed so very far away. And yet… I’m smack in the middle of it.” In a way, this post is for her. But also? This post is for the me ten years from now that will be a mom of full-fledged adults. Because THAT shit will be absolutely cray.

I’m convinced that Jarrod is trying to get a head-start on his infectious disease vaccine career. Why? Because whenever I step into his room, there’s a smell. Not a “those socks haven’t been washed in two weeks and take a damned shower” smell. More like an “aren’t those the chicken nuggets we bought for dinner last week” smell. Yeah. From time to time, I’ll stop in to his room, gesticulate wildly in the general direction of everything, and yell something about, “WHAT IN TARNATION IS THAT STENCH?!” (Note: Yes, I say tarnation.). Eventually, I’ll find a bowl full of curdled milk and moldy Cheerios that I had no clue were even in said room in the kitchen sink and the nuggets will still be sitting on his desk, in front of the keyboard he looks at every evening when he plays video games. I just keep telling myself that someday, he’ll discover a cure for teen angst amidst all of that old food.

Driving. My 4-pound, 6-ounce baby is driving.

Amelia and her friends will FaceTime each other at all hours of the day and night. No lie. I will go downstairs to check on her and there, on her side table, will be her phone, plugged in and charging, with an active FaceTime call. On the screen will be several of her friends, all sleeping. It’s like a virtual slumber party. They will talk all day and into the wee hours. No one will hang up. They’ll just stay on the call, each falling asleep at different times, eventually waking one another up when they regain consciousness the next day.

Tyler and I will be in the family room, watching whatever TV show has piqued our interest, when Heath will march in, cracking his knuckles, ready to talk. He will launch in to his most recent computer creation, whether it’s an ocean liner he’s created on Roblox or a new flag he’s designed. He will pace the floor, nearly wearing out the carpet, sometimes for ten solid minutes. We’ll pause whatever we’re watching and just watch and listen, interjecting every now and then with “Uh-huh” or “Cool!” And then he’ll go silent, walk back upstairs, and Tyler and I will just look at each other, shrug, and realize we’ve been witness to another Heath drive-by. He just designed a new flag for Cherokee County and emailed the county commissioners telling them about it. Not that there’s been a request for a new flag, he just thinks the current one is rather ho-hum. (Cue “Sheldon Cooper’s Fun with Flags” intro music.) Also? He’s on reddit. And it’s a never ending cycle of each of us texting the other with funny memes and cat videos we’ve both found on said web site.

Apparently, sleeping with a hoodie around one’s neck is all the teen rage.

All three of them sleep in. And when I say “sleep in” I mean “there are some weekends when it’s 1PM and I go to their bedrooms and hold my index finger under their noses to feel for breath because I’m worried they’ve passed in their sleep.” When we’re all kids, don’t we all make promises to our future children? That you’ll never repeat the sins of your parents? Mine have always been that I will let the kids sleep in on weekends/holidays/summer and not force them to accompany me to the grocery store. But, sometimes? When they sleep in until the wee hours of the afternoon? It freaks me out. And not only do they sleep in, but the boys will sleep in their clothes. They eschew pajamas. They shower, put on clothes, go to bed, and roll out the next morning. I mean, it’s brilliant? But I’m waiting for the day when they have jobs and are calling me to ask how to remove sleep wrinkles from a tie.

The most common phrases uttered in the house:

Chill your beans! (Jarrod. To me. When I complain about the old food smell permeating his room.)

So, there’s this video on TikTok… (Amelia. All the time.)

OH MY GOD, JARROD! (Heath. Most days.)

YOU’RE DAMAGING MY CALM! (Tyler. Typically in the evenings. When the kids and I get riled up.)

No lie. You guys are the G.O.A.T. (Me. To multiple members of my family. Even when they leave Cheetos ground into my purple carpet.

Choosing to Transform

Posted on by Heather Scarbro Dobson

Choosing to transform. That is what life is all about! Right, Paige?

When Jarrod started his taekwondo journey several years ago, I was a very naive martial arts mom. I had no idea. I imagined that like anything else, it was one lesson a week and I even thought to myself, “OK. He’ll get his black belt in a couple of years and then we’ll move on to something else.”

Insert picture of martial arts instructors rolling on the floor, laughing out loud.

What I didn’t understand then was that gaining a black belt is only the beginning of one’s martial arts training, not the end. The black belt signifies that that person is finally ready to become a true student of the art, that they have put in the hard work necessary to truly immerse themselves in the finer techniques. It really is a three-dimensional art form. The muscle memory required and the control necessary to perform at a peak level is amazing. And you don’t get there until you earn your first black belt.

Jarrod receiving his second degree, level 4 black belt from Senior Master Bowen, 7th degree black belt.

And I know this because I have now started my own taekwondo journey.

I have not only watched Jarrod for many years now and how he has transformed from an awkward little kid to a controlled martial artist, I have watched other children, teens, adults, and their instructors work toward higher and more difficult goals. And to see their kicks get more precise, their punches more controlled, is incredible. Jarrod is now a second degree, level four black belt and he shows no signs of stopping or slowing down. In fact, he has his eyes on the prize–a high-level black belt and his own taekwondo studio just like his instructor, Ms. Bowen.

Amelia receiving her level 2 green belt from Ms. Bailey, 5th degree black belt.

Meanwhile, Amelia has begun her own martial arts journey. She, too, has watched her brother and although she is a much different martial artist, she is determined to make her own mark in the sport. I watch her make the same mistakes Jarrod made at this early point in his classes and I see her consciously correct herself, working to perfect the movements that will make her a very special martial artist. I love watching Amelia and Jarrod work together, Jarrod giving Amelia pointers and Amelia practicing her form or her one-steps. It warms my heart to see them working together, not against each other as so many siblings do.

As my children took up and perfected this sport, I began exercising in earnest. See, I’m 47 years old now and I can feel my body slowing down, my metabolism working against me, and the aches and pains increasing. It’s frustrating, but I realize that I need to work harder AND smarter to keep myself in shape. Ms. Bowen and Ms. Bailey started a fitness boot camp at the beginning of the school year and even though I found myself most Monday and Wednesday mornings wanting to puke, I could feel my stamina improving. I began running again. Overall, everything is going swimmingly.

My first class was full of black belts and… little old me. Thankfully, they were gentle and encouraging!

Paige is not only a fellow taekwondo mom, she’s also a martial artist herself. She is a student of Ms. Bowen and Ms. Bailey and just received her first degree, level 1 black belt. The day she received her belt, she and Ms. Bailey both nodded toward me in the crowd and after many, many months of waffling, wondering, and stewing, I knew that they had just given me the signs I needed. I took the plunge the next day and started my own martial arts journey.

Many people talk about their 50th birthday in terms of purchases or trips. “I’m saving up for a Corvette!” or “I’m going to go to Bali!” Rather than buying a sports car or going to the end of the Earth, I’ve decided instead to prepare for my 50th a few years early. I want to welcome in my 50th birthday with a black belt around my waist and a new sense of self-respect. I want to face down my 50th by showing my kids that you can choose to transform yourself at any age, at any time, that you don’t have to be young to try something new or different, and that age is just a number and not a state of mind.

I want to prove to myself that through the aches and pains, I can still round kick the crap out of a punching bag.

And so, it is with great personal pride that I announce Bowen’s Tiger Rock’s newest white belt… ME! As Ms. Bowen is fond of saying, “A black belt is just a white belt who never gave up!” Well, this is one white belt who isn’t going to give up, Ms. Bowen! Let’s do this!

I had the honor of receiving my white belt from Ms. Hughes, 4th degree black belt.

Sick and Twisted

Posted on by Heather Scarbro Dobson

"Looks like a Bataan death march." -Brad Finn

“Looks like a Bataan death march.” -Brad Finn

No one gives you instructions on how to be a mother when you’re sick. Oh, sure. You receive tons of advice about feeding them and changing their diapers. Everyone scrambles to help you snap up those onsies and cuddle the cute, wittle, sweet, BABEHS! You give birth and there’s a multitude of opinions about sleepless nights, growth spurts, and the sometimes endless crying. “Sleep when they sleep!” they all chant to you. And then those sages of advice eventually went home and I was left with one twin who slept like the dead and another who was so colicky that sleep was only something I read about in magazines. And when the third one came along? Sleep became an extremely rare commodity. They all had competing schedules and I, somehow, kept three children and myself alive and fed for six months with just a few hours of sleep each night.

In retrospect, that’s nothing. What’s really hard is being a mom while you’re sick. Nobody tells you how difficult that is. It’s like this huge secret, a motherhood initiation. When I finally experienced it for the first time, I imagined all the other mothers giggling and snorting behind my back, whispering, “IT’S HAPPENING! Let’s watch the carnage and see if she makes it!” As I imagined them pulling up their chairs and digging into buckets of buttered popcorn, I bitterly dove head-first into my first-ever “sick with kids” episode.

The twins were three months old and still latching on to me at all hours of the day and night. Not only was I exhausted, but my throat started feeling scratchy, and then I couldn’t talk, and then I was using up every tissue within a six-mile radius of the house, and then I was hacking up both lungs.

There’s nothing more miserable than breastfeeding twins while surviving a nasty upper-respiratory something-or-other. And the worst part? I was on my own. Tyler had to work and none of the grandparents wanted to catch what I had. So, there I sat, at home, alone, and wondering why in the world I decided to have kids and wanting nothing more than for my mommy to tuck me into bed and bring me warm soup and Sunkist.

The above picture was taken last Wednesday, during the kids’ “Walk To School Day.” It was an official event, full of county deputies directing traffic and hordes of kids and their parents, converging (on foot) onto the school. Heck, the Chick-fil-A cow was even there! (Do we Southerners know how to do up an event, or what?) The kids had been looking forward to this morning for a week. And I started experiencing my tell-tale scratchy throat and low-grade fever the night before. When I woke up the next morning, I looked and felt like death warmed-over and knew I had nothing but misery ahead of me. That quote? Up there on the picture? Actually kind of apropos considering how awful I felt. It was 1.7 miles of speeding up, slowing down, stopping, chit-chat, and trying not to trip over those new-fangled rolling backpacks.

Yeah, I was miserable, but I was also surprisingly content. I had 45 uninterrupted minutes of my children’s time. We talked about school and friends and the cars passing us. We paused to smell late-blooming gardenias and observed a golden orb weaver spider on its web. I sipped my coffee, more for the soothing effect of the warm liquid than for any caffeine rush. And we made it. Tyler picked me up at the end and I collapsed into his car happy, yet thankful to the stars above that it was over.

In the nine years I’ve been a mother, there’s only been a handful of mornings I’ve woken up and said to Tyler, “I can’t do this. I’m too sick. You’re going to have to take over today.” No, being sick and being a parent is no fun. In the beginning, the kids don’t care. They will still expect meals and answers and activities and your undivided attention. I learned early on how to just lie on the floor as they played. They would treat me as a wall for them to climb and tumble over. I felt useless, but they would giggle and have the greatest of times. I would get up from time to time to feed them and change diapers, but I adapted. I realized that when I was sick, I was allowed to be less than myself. When the twins started first grade, I spent two bronchitis-filled weeks on the couch, with Jarrod, watching the London Olympics. And that was OK.

Now that my children are older, they are able to empathize and take care of themselves. When I say I don’t feel well, they back off, they let me have that rest, and they demand less of me. They are able to pick up the slack. All that stuff we’ve been teaching them? It’s finally paying off and it’s an amazing thing to see happen after so many years of dependence.

I decided, quite a long time ago, that if any of my children have children of their own, and they find themselves on the receiving end of a cold or the flu or some other nasty illness, I will be there for them. I will fix them soup and Sunkist and fluff their pillows, stroke their foreheads, and wish them rest and wellness.

And then I’ll tiptoe downstairs to my grandkids and take them out for ice cream, water gun battles, and Legos. Because I’m thinking that’s what all the cool, hip grandmothers will do sometime around 2030.