Category Archives: Friends & Family

Lucy’s 3rd birthday recap

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When I asked Lucy what kind of birthday cake she wanted, she said, “Princess cake!”

Ask and ye shall receive, baby.

Lucy asked for a princess cake. So that happened.
I got some comments on FB that seem to imply people think I made this cake. I did not. I have spectacularly awful baking skills. This is one of those grocery store “fill out the form with the code number for which character-branded cake you want, and what you want it to say.” Boom, done. Princess cake acquired.

I tend to think that 3 is not an age for a big birthday party, since kids that age are too young to remember it. So we kept it small and low-key: Catie and Lucy, plus my cousin’s kids, plus Chris’s kids, added up to 6 kids, and with family visiting (my sister flew in from Texas, and my brother and his girlfriend came over from Charlotte), we had 9 adults.

Since 15 people in my house seemed like an awful lot, we used my neighborhood’s clubhouse, which was perfect, because it’s a nice big space with a lot of seating, and a playground right next to it for the kids to run around.

I got veggies, chips/dip, fruit, stuff to make sandwiches, and a couple of pizzas, and all of the grown-ups ate and talked while the kids were in and out. It was really nice.

I wasn’t really paying attention to the time, and it had been over 2 hours before I realized we should do cake and presents. By that time, Lucy was already kind of tired and not at all sure about this whole “singing happy birthday” thing.

not at all sure about this birthday business
That’s her “what is all this shenanigans?” face.

We started to open presents, but by that point, she was doing the thousand yard stare, and it was pretty rapidly apparent that girlfriend needed a nap. So my parents took her with them to their house, where she promptly crashed, while the big kids continued to play outside, and the grown-ups cleaned up the clubhouse.

One random moment from that – Chris’s daughter accidentally let go of her balloon in the clubhouse, which has ridiculously tall vaulted ceilings. Since we were supposed to leave it clean, we didn’t want to leave a stray balloon behind. It became very Walter White and the fly in trying to figure out how we were going to get the balloon down.

My cousin’s husband and Chris together somehow devised a Swiffer tied to a broom with an extension cord to try to catch it, but that didn’t work. Finally, we got out the vacuum, Chris stood on a barstool while Tony held the vacuum up in the air, and it was juuuuust tall enough to reach.

Balloon escaped into the vaulted ceiling. Engineer/scientist brains figured out barstool + vacuum extension hose to get it down.
Balloon rescue success!

After we finished cleaning up, my cousin and her family took off, Chris and his kids took off, and my sister and I took Catie over to my parents’ house. We found Lucy still asleep.

Birthday'ed out.

When she woke up, she opened the rest of her presents, which was much more enthusiastic since she was more perky after her nap.

She got a set of Frozen action figures, which she loved.
Lucy got a set of Frozen action figures for her birthday

My mom, because she knows my girls, had the foresight to get Catie her own set, so they wouldn’t fight over them.

Catie liked her set of Frozen figures too

(They’re these, for those of you who are curious. They cost less than half the current amount when my mom bought them, but it took forever because they shipped them from China, and they had a really horrible chemical smell when they arrived. My mom soaked them in vinegar and let them air out in the garage for weeks before they were ok. So, not really recommended, but if you have Frozen-crazy children and are desperate, there you go.)

My sister gave Lucy Barbie-sized Anna and Kristoff dolls, which she immediately stripped naked, because that’s what she does with all of her dolls don’t ask me why I don’t know.
I don't know why Lucy always has to take off her dolls' clothes. Sorry about that, Anna and Kristoff.

And she got to be a “butterfly fairy.”
Lucy the butterfly fairy

Really, what more could a 3 year-old ask for?

So, yeah, third birthday is now in the books. Can’t wait to see what the coming year brings.

reunion recap

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I got to Mississippi on Friday around lunchtime. Since I had some time to kill, I goofed off for a while – I drove past my old house (that felt weird), went to a consignment shop that one of my sister’s best friends owns (she hooked me up with 2 dresses, a shirt, and a pair of jeans that are a size 8 and actually fit my ass, so I love her for that), grabbed a bite to eat, then went to the liquor store and grocery store to have supplies to bring over to my friend Melanie’s house.

I got to Melanie’s right around the same time that she got there with her kids. Later, our friends Allison and Michele came over, and the husbands watched the kids while we sat around the kitchen drinking, eating, and catching up. It was basically perfect.

The next day, we had a reunion picnic planned. It so happened that very few people showed up, but the weather was lovely, and I got bonus time to hang out with my girls and their families, so that was fine by me.

Reunion girls. I'm the one with the super pasty white legs.
(The girls on the far left and far right of this pic were in other grades, and I don’t know them as well. The four of us in the middle – Allison, Melanie, me, and Michele – those are my girls.)

After the picnic, Allison had to go, and Melanie and her husband and kids needed to stick around for some family shindig, so I followed Michele over to our school’s church and dug around through some memorabilia.

I need to back up here and explain something about my school. Where I grew up in Mississippi, the public schools were not very good (not a big shock, since Mississippi usually ranks 50th in the country for public education). So, generally, if your parents could manage to afford it, they sent you to a private school. The school my parents chose was affiliated with a Baptist church (funny, because we’re Methodist). The summer between my first and second grade years, we merged with one of the local council schools. (Only click that link if you want to read some truly horrifying racist shit.) The school – while retaining the name of the Baptist church – moved to the council school’s campus a couple of miles away.

In 2000, the school was foreclosed (the graduating class of 1994 had a whopping total of 29 students, so it’s not really surprising that they were in financial trouble). Before the bank came to seize everything, the administration of the school called the church and was like, “hey, we have all this stuff, can we stash it at the church?” Apparently the church has a little annex building, and they gave up one room, and that’s where all of my school’s memorabilia is now stored.

(In the last 14 years since the school was closed, the campus was taken over as basically a squatter’s den/crack house, and the majority of it has burned down. I think it’s mostly just a big empty field now.)

I’m not usually a nostalgic person, and I wasn’t all gung-ho about going to the church to check out the memorabilia room, but digging around with Michele was fun. Mainly because we found some random crazy stuff, and cracked each other up, like this oh-so-fashionable band uniform:

So this one time, at band camp...
(I know I look naked, I swear I’m wearing shorts.)
(Also, side note: I was never in the band, I just thought this was funny.)

And a really hideous sweater with the school logo on it. I think my sister had one of these in the 80s. Or maybe these were for faculty, I can’t remember.
Michele with a very fashionable 80s WHBA sweater.

As kids, I don’t think that any of us realized that we were privileged white kids in what basically amounted to a segregated school. But that’s more or less what it was. As evidenced by a photo I found in a yearbook from 1982-1983, of that year’s homecoming court. Keep in mind this is not, like, pre-Civil Rights era. This was 30 years ago, the year I was in first grade.

IMG_0925
It’s a bad picture because I took it under fluorescent lights, but as you can see, all the girls on the homecoming court wore antebellum hoop skirt dresses that year. And all the boys wore Confederate uniforms.

I just… yeah. I have no words. My jaw dropped.

And it’s funny that a lot of us have grown up and realized just how bizarrely racist some of our school traditions were. At the reunion on Saturday night, one of the guys mentioned something about Slave Day. I had completely forgotten that until he mentioned it.

SO! Slave Day? Was one day a year that all of the juniors were auctioned off to the seniors and lower-classmen, and for that one day, you had to follow around the person who bought you, and do whatever they wanted. They auctioned people, and called it slave day. In Mississippi. And it was a school fundraiser! Endorsed by the faculty and administration! WHAT. THE. HELL.

That is just fucked up, no way around it.

(If memory serves, the year I was a junior and it was my turn, I gave my brother some money to buy me, which he did, and I did all of his homework for him that day.)

Anyway, Saturday night was the big reunion dinner, and we got all decked out.

Melanie and me
Melanie and me. This is the best pic I have of my dress and red heels.

We had a private room at a nice restaurant. Considering our class is so small, we had a pretty good turnout. I think it was around 25 people (including spouses). There were only two people there who I actively wanted to avoid, and it turns out that it was pretty easy to just not make eye contact with them at all, and only chat with the people who I wanted to see.

Michele had mentioned going to a bar after the reunion dinner, and initially I thought that sounded fun. But then I had three drinks during dinner (I wasn’t driving, I rode with Melanie and her husband, and he drove), so by the time dinner finished, all I wanted to do was get my Spanx off, put on my yoga pants, and go to sleep. So that’s what we did. Because that’s what happens when you get old, I guess.

The next day, my flight didn’t leave until late in the afternoon, so I met up with Michele for brunch. (Allison was packing for a beach trip, and Melanie had gotten roped into helping out with Sunday school at her church.) That was fantastic, and gave me that last little hit of “girl time” that I needed. Then I went to the airport, dropped off the rental car, hopped on a plane, and five-ish hours later, I landed at RDU, and Chris was waiting for me at baggage claim.

Overall, I’m really glad I went, because it made me remember something: there’s a very small group of people, who have known me since I was in first grade, who will always love me and not judge me, no matter what. And it doesn’t matter how many years it’s been since I’ve seen them last. When we’re together, it’s like we didn’t even miss a beat.

I cannot even begin to tell you how awesome that was. There was one of my girls who was missing because she couldn’t get a cheap enough flight (she lives in Colorado), and that bummed me out a lot, but man, getting to spend time with 3 of the 4 girls who I wanted to see was damn therapeutic for my soul.

So it was really good. I miss them already. Guess I’ll have to go back for the 30th reunion in ten years.

how we do Easter

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Easter weekend was supposed to be Dave’s weekend on the calendar, but since it isn’t a huge holiday for him, and because of other logistical issues (his girlfriend and her kids were in town visiting for a few days, and he had to take them to the airport early Sunday morning), I got the kids back on Saturday night, and was able to spend most of Easter Sunday with them.

Catie still believes in the Easter bunny (I know, my days are numbered on that one, but I’ll drag that out as long as I can), so she was excited, but Lucy was kind of confused by the whole, “Da bunny comes in our house? And then he comes into my bedroom?” thing. No, baby, the Easter bunny doesn’t go in your room. He just puts stuff in your Easter basket and leaves.

Still, Easter morning rolled around and I got this picture, which basically sums it up. Catie is ecstatic, Lucy has what is quite possibly the best “WTF?” face I’ve ever seen.

Lucy got into it eventually. She loved that the Easter bunny brought her a “Frozen” book.


“I like her!” (points at Anna)

And she really liked the bird from Rio.

Catie was pretty happy with her prizes too. The Skylander was the main highlight, but the Easter bunny is wise and knew to get two identical Blu plushes so there wouldn’t be any fighting over it. (Plus they were only $5 at Kohl’s.)

Later, we got dressed and went to church with my parents. Catie wanted to stay in “big church” with us, which was fine. Lucy said she wanted to go to the nursery to play with the other kids, but once she got there, she balked. She cried and said, “I stay with youuuu!”

I told her that if she came to church with us, she’d have to be very quiet and still, and not make any noise. She said, “I be quiet, I be good, I not get in any trouble!”

And really, she did great for 40 minutes of a 50 minute service. Then she started to get squirmy, and when I told her to stop, she started to cry, and I took her outside. We walked laps around the office hallways of the church while we waited for the service to finish.

After the service was over, I found my parents and Catie in the lobby, and this very nice lady took our picture.


Nice tongue, Lucy.


My dad is blinking, but at least Lucy’s tongue is inside her mouth, and oh hell with it, I give up.

We went back to my parents’ house, and Chris came over to join us for lunch. It was too muddy outside to do the kids’ Easter egg hunt there, so we sent them up to my parents’ bedroom to “hide their eyes” while we hid eggs around the house.

(I know some people hide eggs the night before and say that the Easter bunny hid them. We don’t do that. Don’t know why, this is just how we’ve always done it in my family.)

Chris wisely pointed out that we should have the girls start hunting on opposite ends of the house, to ensure that Lucy would have a chance to at least get a few eggs before Catie mowed her down. It worked, they both found eggs, and there was no fighting or crying.

Later that afternoon, I dropped the girls back with Dave (since it was his scheduled weekend), and Chris and I pretty much fell asleep on the couch watching Netflix.

Overall, it was a really nice Easter. Hope you all enjoyed yours too. (And even if Easter isn’t your thing, hope you had a lovely weekend.)

quick updates

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So, I think I sort of forgot about my little blog here for a while. Here’s a recap on the major stuff that’s been happening around these parts:

Lucy and sleeping

Well… I guess it’s sort of better? I mean, she still wakes up at night and comes into my room and wakes me up, but she just asks me to tuck her back into bed or take her to the bathroom, she understands that she can’t get in my bed until morning. We have one of those day/night clocks in her room that’s blue at night and turns yellow in the morning when it’s ok for her to wake up, and she gets that. “I stay my own bed until my clock be yellow!” That’s right, baby. I mean, it’s lip service, and she doesn’t actually stay in her own bed until her clock turns yellow, but maybe after enough repetition, she’ll get it.

So, I guess we’ll call it progress.

Potty-training

I don’t know if I’ve really written much about potty training this time around. It was so awful with Catie, and I was dreading doing it again with Lucy. And, I think we’re basically… done? I mean, the other night, I heard her little feet scurry to the bathroom and her tiny voice call out, “there’s no toilet paper here!” And I realized that she hasn’t had an accident in weeks, and I think she’s pretty much got it nailed.

So, ok, fine. I know I always think of Lucy as my difficult child, especially when compared to my super-cautious Catie, so I guess we’ll file “relatively easy to potty train” as a win in her column. Although I think most of the credit goes to daycare for this one.

Visitation with Dave

Everything seems to be fine. There’s some adjustment, sure – Catie in particular is testing his boundaries, but I think that’s normal given the circumstances. But the back-and-forth has been pretty smooth for the most part, and getting those extra few nights of sleep is the BEST.

Catie and school stuff

Catie is still really resistant about reading and spelling, and I ended up talking with the head of the English department at one of our nearby high schools, who said she has “teacher cadets” (students training to become teachers) who help struggling students. And it counts toward their volunteer hours that they need to log for college, so it’s free. I’m so incredibly grateful for the help, I’m starting to feel like this might be a really good way to reach Catie. She’s always eager to please “older kids” – particularly teenage girls (like our baby-sitter) – and I think this might be the best route for us. Fingers crossed.

And when she gives me attitude about homework, threatening to take away her video game time is usually a pretty swift way to correct that.

Girlfriend loves her gadgets.

My job

Work is good. My boss warned me a few months back about a huge project that’s going to be launching in early March, and he made a comment about, “don’t expect to have a social life in the second half of February.” And he’s right, it’s been really busy, but it’s been a GOOD busy. A lot of times with my work, I feel like I’m kind of a one-person shop. But right now I’m feeling like I’m an essential part of a team effort, and it’s been both stressful and really good for me, if that makes sense.

Chris and me

All is well. Since Dave has been around, we’ve been able to have a few nights here and there that are just us, which has been lovely. I’m a big fan of “date nights.”

We also do our fair share of slothing around in our sweats watching shows that are completely inappropriate for children on Netflix when the kids are with Dave. That’s pretty fun, too. (Finally just started watching House of Cards, for example. Oh, and the Dracula thing with Jonathan Rhys-Meyers – that was free on demand, not Netflix, but still. NOT appropriate for kids, yeesh.)

So, yeah. Life’s pretty good here for the most part.

a story about a “frenemy”

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(Disclaimer: if you think this post is about you, I can pretty much guarantee that it isn’t.)

So, I have this friend. She was one of the first friends I made when we moved to North Carolina in 2008, and her daughter is Catie’s age, which was sort of our common bond. I knew she was a little weird and sometimes it was hard to have a conversation with her, but our girls liked each other and I needed to make friends in my new home state. I tried to dismiss the fact that she would sometimes call me and talk for literally over an hour about herself, and never once ask me anything about how I was doing.

Fast-forward to 2011, aka pretty much the hardest year of my life. I remember this friend coming over to my house in September, because she was going to help me get some things organized in my house when I was getting ready to list it on the market.

Let me put that in perspective: my husband had left me and moved 3,000 miles away. I had a completely traumatized 4 year-old who was waking up crying every night, a 3 month-old baby, a pretty raging case of post-partum depression (hahahaaaaa can’t imagine why!), my mom had dropped everything in her life to move in with me, and I was trying to sell my house and move. There’s a reason why most of that year is kind of a blur to me now, and it wasn’t just the sleep deprivation. It’s like my brain has blocked most of it out because it was so insanely stressful and difficult.

And it was then, in the middle of that Most Epic Shitstorm of my life, that this friend sat in my living room and said, “Wow, I can’t imagine how hard this must be on Dave.”

*record scratch*

I don’t remember what my answer was at the time, but it was something to the effect of, hey, you know, maybe this is hard on him, but he isn’t the one sitting here right now with a 4 year-old and a newborn and a house to sell, so I don’t really give a shit.

(Disclaimer part 2: yes, Dave and I get along fine now and everything worked out ok for both of us. I’m just talking about how it felt at the time. It was pretty much the worst possible thing you could say to a person in my situation.)

That was kind of the turning point for me, when I realized that this friend was not much of a friend at all.

When Dave and I split, I had a single mom friend who gave me some truly great advice, and she really helped me through a lot of that time period. One of the things she warned me about was the “TMI Curse.” It’s basically: now that you’re separated/divorced, all of your friends feel safe to confide in you about all of the terrible things happening in their own marriages, because they think you’ll understand. I have been privy to some truly awful bits of information that I really wish I didn’t know about my friends’ marriages.

This “friend” (the one who sympathized with Dave) was the first one to dump on me about all of the issues between herself and her husband. Although honestly, I’m not sure if that’s related to the TMI Curse, or if it’s just because she liked to talk about herself all the time anyway, so it was kind of a natural extension of that. Either way: lots of things I wish I could un-hear.

So, this seems like a pretty easy call, right? Cut her off and be done. Except: Catie really likes this friend’s daughter.

And this brings up another issue: as the kids have gotten older, I’ve noticed that this child’s behavior is atrocious. She’s rude and obnoxious, because both of her parents basically ignore her and don’t discipline her at all. So even though I know it isn’t the child’s fault at all, I still don’t really want her influence around my own kids.

Case in point: we were at a playground together once, and Catie was trying to include another little boy in their game. My friend’s daughter didn’t like this, so she started spitting (seriously: SPITTING) on him. When I caught her doing it — and yes, I was the one who busted her because my friend was not paying attention to her kid at all — my friend’s response was, “that’s not cool, you should say sorry.” And that was it. No enforcement, just… eh, whatever, small child, do as you wish.

What. The. Hell.

And believe me, I used that as a Teachable Moment on the drive home.
Me: “Do you know what would happen to you if I caught you doing what [kid’s name] did?”
Catie: “What?”
Me: “You would have to apologize to that little boy. Then you would have to apologize to his parents for being so rude. Then we would leave the playground IMMEDIATELY, and you would be punished when we got home.”
Catie: “Punished how?”
Me: “I’d take away your iPad.”
Catie: (big eyes because there is no worse punishment than that)
(long pause)
“…You know, Mom? I think [kid ‘s name] just forgot to use her words.”
Me: “Yes, she did. Don’t ever let me catch YOU forgetting to use your words.”

So now I’m in this weird place where I basically have to duck all of her texts asking if we can get our kids together, but I still feel like I’m required to invite her to things like birthday parties and other group events, or else she’ll see the photos on Facebook and get her feelings hurt.

(Oh, the last time we saw her, she asked my mom if Chris was “the boyfriend of the moment.” My mom was like, “Uhhh, no. He’s the only boyfriend she’s had since the divorce. There is no ‘of the moment’.” I mean, if you want to poke at me about my dating history, fine, whatever, but to my mom? Seriously? Why would someone do that?)

And she texted me about a playdate today, which was easy to blow off, since, you know, I have a job (a fact that she regularly seems to forget).

Oh, and don’t suggest dropping Catie at her house for a playdate and then leaving. I’ve tried it. It doesn’t work, I still get sucked into an hour-long overview of her life while standing on her front porch. It also means that Catie will be exposed to her child’s behavior without me there to say afterward, “Hey, you saw how she did that? Let’s talk about why that’s wrong and we don’t act like that.” Damage control, you know?

So this is what it comes down to: I don’t know what to do with her. Cut the friend off? I mean, I barely ever speak to her now unless we’re at some type of event where both of our kids are present. Do I tell Catie that she can’t see her friend anymore because she doesn’t behave well?

How do people navigate these kinds of situations? How do you “un-friend” someone in real life?

back to school day

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As I’ve mentioned before, Catie goes to a year-round school. It’s generally a 9-weeks-on, 3-weeks-off system, but the breaks at both Christmas and in the summer are a little bit longer. She had a 2-week Christmas break, followed immediately by her 3-week school break.

Long story short: she started back to school today. I don’t know why they’re starting back on a Thursday, calendars and county school systems are weird like that. But after 5 weeks off – and a whole lot of changes to Catie’s life in the past five weeks (like, oh, her dad moving across the street after living 3,000 miles away for the past 2.5 years) – I kind of guessed that she was going to have a hard time with the transition back to school. Catie isn’t an easygoing, go-with-the-flow kind of kid, so I was anticipating a few curve balls.

I was not, however, anticipating that the rest of us would have curve balls too.

Last night, I got the kids to bed, and Chris and I hung out, talked, and watched TV for a while. When I was getting ready for bed, I went to take my pills (I have a few that I take in the morning and at night for various and sundry reasons, mostly vitamins). And this is where, I am guessing, based on the next few hours, that I forgot to take the pill that helps me go to sleep.

We went to bed, and I could. not. sleep. Which normally isn’t a problem for me (because, again: I take a medication for insomnia). So, midnight rolls around, then 1:00… sometime around 1:45, Lucy came in and wanted to get in bed between me and Chris, and I let her climb up, because it was easier than fighting with her about it. And then I still couldn’t sleep. I think I finally dozed off sometime after 2:30 a.m. (That’s the last time I remember looking at the clock.)

So, the alarm went off and I (obviously) felt like hell. Catie woke up and said she had a tummy ache. I know from past experience that this had very little probability of being an actual physical ailment, and was more likely due to being nervous about going back to school. I cuddled with her a little bit, we talked, and then I got her to eat some toast to settle her stomach.

After that, it was like a normal morning: got myself dressed, got the kids dressed, got Catie’s lunch packed, the whole thing.

Then, it was time to brush Lucy’s hair. Which she hates. Because her hair tangles like crazy and I always end up yanking it too hard and hurting her. (Oddly enough, she will sit patiently and let Chris brush her hair, but if I try it? No way, no how.)

She started throwing a tantrum because of the hair-brushing, and Lucy is the type of kid that when she cries too hard, she pukes. And that’s what she did. Everywhere. At the exact moment that I needed to be taking the kids to school.

And this right here is when it comes in really handy to have a second adult in the house, because Chris basically saved my butt. I left my puke-covered toddler (and puke-covered bathroom) with him, while I took Catie to school. I got her there 5 minutes before the bell rang.

Then, I rushed back home (thinking how thankful I am that the kids’ school and daycare are both less than three miles from my house), picked up Lucy – who was calmed down and cleaned up, because apparently Chris is a wizard, I don’t even KNOW – and took her to daycare.

And now I’m at work trying to catch my breath and wake the hell up because I got a really lousy night’s sleep.

So yeah. First day back to school didn’t go quite like I’d planned. Here’s hoping it goes a little more smoothly from now on.

thirty-eight

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Thursday was my 38th birthday. I tend to think that past, say, age 21, any birthday that doesn’t end in a zero feels pretty unremarkable. And really, I spent way more time planning Catie’s birthday party than even thinking about my own. I guess that’s what happens when your child’s birthday is 11 days after yours.

But my birthday was good. The kids were with Dave, but Chris brought me flowers, and we went out for dinner.


He remembered tulips are my favorite. Points for that.

It was really nice just to have a little grown-up night off, where I got to dress up a little and not worry about whether or not the restaurant would have crayons or if I should bring our own from home.

After work on Friday, I picked the kids up and went to my parents’ house for dinner. My mom had gotten some fancy cupcakes from a little bakery here, and the girls blew out my candles with me. It was nice.

(And yeah, I’ll admit that I gave up on the detox diet long before the 3 week point, because I totally ate the hell out of those cupcakes. I’m still working on more “mindful eating” and I’m back to running at least 2 miles a day, and I guess I’ll just take it from there.)

Today, Catie and I dropped Lucy with my folks and went to see “Frozen.” After trying to take Lucy to the movies twice now (for “Despicable Me 2” and “Walking with Dinosaurs”), I’ve come to the conclusion that she’s really just not old enough to sit through a movie in the theater, because both times she got antsy and I ended up walking her around in the hall for a good 15-20 minutes to keep her from having a meltdown. So I think I’m going to add “movies” to the list of thing to reserve until she’s a little bit older and has a longer attention span.

Plus it was nice to have some alone time with my big girl, because that doesn’t happen often. And Frozen was a really, really good movie, so I”m glad we went.

So really? Yeah, ok, I’m one step closer to 40 and yadda yadda, aging, crows feet, whatever. But so far, 38 is off to a pretty good start. No complaints here.