{"id":12967,"date":"2015-12-09T05:29:05","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T12:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=12967"},"modified":"2015-12-19T08:04:54","modified_gmt":"2015-12-19T15:04:54","slug":"middle-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=12967","title":{"rendered":"Middle-earth."},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was growing up, you actually had to read The Hobbit<\/a> and The Lord of the Rings<\/a> to explore Middle-earth.\u00a0 I mean, the entire 1,000,000 pages.\u00a0 There were no movies and no online discussion forums.\u00a0 Now that I am in my forties I realize I could have skipped all the novels and just waited until I had kids in elementary school, middle school, and high school all at the same time to experience that bizarre and fantastical area stuck between two worlds.\u00a0 A place of shifting alliances, constantly passing between light and darkness, where the unexpected is always around the corner.\u00a0 An epic journey that leaves everyone older, wiser, and, hopefully, appreciative of the hobbit-hole called home.<\/p>\n

During the past week I took Big, Pretty, and Middle to their first rock concert.\u00a0 And I do mean, rock<\/em> concert.\u00a0 While my first concert was sitting across the arena from my parents at a Neil Diamond show, my kids enjoyed The Struts, New Politics, Bastille, Awolnation, and Fall Out Boy together at an event just outside Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

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There was head banging and guitar throwing and drummers that you thought were wearing a shirt but were actually shirtless and covered in tattoos.\u00a0 A lot of tattoos.\u00a0 All of these groups have music that plays on regular radio stations, which kind of tricked me into thinking it was all family fun.\u00a0 But the live show didn’t come with radio edits and the parts of their albums that didn’t make it to the radio but were included in the concert were definitely NC-17.\u00a0 And I was there with a 12, 14, and 16 year old.\u00a0 That’s the thing about Middle-earth.\u00a0 One minute you’re humming along to an acoustic version of Pompeii by Bastille and the next you’re listening to MF by Awolnation.\u00a0 Which stands for exactly what you think it stands for.<\/p>\n

It was all very confusing.\u00a0 Because the responsible, grown up part of me felt like it was inappropriate for young children.\u00a0 And worried that I had just obliterated all those years of hauling them to Sunday school.\u00a0 But another part of me was enjoying a lot of the music.\u00a0 And the fancy stage lights and the wild antics of the lead singers and the drumming.\u00a0 Which, as Middle pointed out, was so powerful that it was making his clothes vibrate.\u00a0 Now, that’s a concert!\u00a0 Also, I hated to leave early after we paid more than $50 a ticket and I was pleased when we got 5 bands and 6 full hours of music for our money.\u00a0 So I was sitting there contemplating money and morals and child-rearing and I looked around thinking…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

I’m just going to say that there weren’t a lot more adultier looking adults than me at that rock concert and leave it at that.<\/p>\n

Before I could get adapted to this curious new world where kids listen to rock music, sleep in, make their own waffles in the hotel breakfast room, and discuss politics as we watch the morning news, we stopped to visit a friend in D.C. who just gave birth to her fourth child.\u00a0 I thought I had enough experience to handle newborns.\u00a0 Until we wandered down the baby aisle to pick up diapers, which apparently not only come in sizes now but in activity level (swaddlers and snugglers vs. cruisers and little movers) and baby wipes which are now eco-friendly, unscented, and chemical free. \u00a0 Unlike the wipes apparently loaded with carcinogens and hormone disrupters that I used to clean my kids’ butts.\u00a0 It was mind-boggling.<\/p>\n

I didn’t really feel comfortable until we arrived at her house and as we opened the door we could hear that baby squawking.\u00a0 Babies might have fancier diapers and safer wipes but they still cry the same way.\u00a0 They still bob their heads around, testing their scrawny little necks, rooting against everything, hoping for a nipple, blinking and squinting and trying to focus on our blobs of a face.\u00a0 And then they grab onto your finger with their sweet little hand and, oh, my gosh, it’s just like being back where you started. \u00a0 Until Pretty takes over and then I’m looking at my 14 year old holding my college friend’s 3 week old.\u00a0 Oh, what an amazing, unbelievable journey that carries us down such random paths and yet leaves us standing in the same place in the end.<\/p>\n

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I only had the four hour car ride to recover from cruising college stores for comics and records (who knew they made and sold records anymore?!) and rocking babies and admiring preschool drawings.\u00a0 Because as soon as I finished the long ride back home, I landed on our small town sidewalk in anticipation of the local Christmas parade with Middle and Little and their crew of friends.\u00a0 Having to force them to bundle up in pants and coats (No, you cannot wear shorts to a night parade when it is only 38 degrees).\u00a0 Reminding them to cross at the crosswalk.\u00a0 Taking away their football after they tossed it into the road twice.\u00a0 Keeping them from running between the floats to grab candy thrown into the street.\u00a0 And trying to ignore the general pushing and shoving and roughhousing that counts as playing among the elementary school crowd.\u00a0 If it wasn’t for the camels, it would drive you to the eggnog.<\/p>\n

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But the journey wasn’t over yet.\u00a0 I managed to get everyone into their rooms and under their covers by 11pm after the parade.\u00a0 Which was late but better than the 1am when we crawled into bed after the concert.\u00a0 I worked a lovely EMS shift which was child-free and included free chocolate cake (my 2 favorite reasons to go to work) and stumbled home for a few hours of sleep before Little’s birthday celebration.\u00a0 He and a friend were turning 11 this week and decided to share a soccer party.\u00a0 Meaning I had another mother to share planning and preparing and supervising.\u00a0 Plus she brought her husband to take all the pictures and a delicious homemade lemon poppyseed cake perfectly decorated like a soccer ball.\u00a0 Best.\u00a0 Party.\u00a0 Ever.<\/p>\n

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Reminding me that all these milestones are worth every bit of sleep deprived chaos.\u00a0 Also of when I was young enough to consider it fun <\/em>to run around, sweating, for two hours, instead of just chocolate-cake-induced exercise<\/em>.\u00a0 And when pizza and a passel of good friends was the best way to pass a Sunday afternoon.\u00a0 Which, actually, hasn’t changed over the years at all.<\/p>\n

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So Little took a few more steps away from his baby days and a few steps closer to the teenage years of his siblings.\u00a0 And when we got home it was time to pick up Big from his first ever work party—–his boss treating all the employees to dinner at Olive Garden for Christmas.\u00a0 Which he had never been to before.\u00a0 Which tells you what kind of country bumpkins we are, in case this blog hasn’t made that very clear.\u00a0 My strangely tilting world, balanced between Big and Little here in the Middle-earth, slowly tipping toward the kids grown and gone and me sitting in that little hobbit-hole.\u00a0 What happens then?<\/p>\n

Well, it’s true, off course…<\/p>\n

…The Road goes ever on and on
\nDown from the door where it began.
\nNow far ahead the Road has gone,
\nAnd I must follow, if I can,
\nPursuing it with eager feet,
\nUntil it joins some larger way,
\nWhere many paths and errands meet.<\/p>\n

The Road goes ever on and on
\nDown from the door where it began.
\nNow far ahead the Road has gone,
\nAnd I must follow, if I can,
\nPursuing it with weary feet,
\nUntil it joins some larger way,
\nWhere many paths and errands meet.
\nAnd whither then? I cannot say…<\/p>\n

J.R.R. Tolkien<\/a>, The Lord of the Rings<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

But I’m going to bet on some reading and spinning and knitting and gardening.\u00a0 And sleeping.\u00a0 Lots and lots of sleeping.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was growing up, you actually had to read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to explore Middle-earth.\u00a0 I mean, the entire 1,000,000 pages.\u00a0 There were no movies and no online discussion forums.\u00a0 Now that I am in my forties I realize I could have skipped all the novels and just waited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12967"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13019,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12967\/revisions\/13019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}