Age is Just a Number…

Having my first child at 38 ½ never bothered me. Well, maybe that’s not entirely true. I wished I had been able to have a child sooner but… best laid plans and all, there I was at 38 ½.

After years of career planning, pleasure travel and fine dining, I suddenly found myself unable to focus but for the imagined trips to the park while mom plays hooky, family vacations in a cramped cabin around a campfire and the unending amounts of chicken nuggets I hear moms talk about and that was absolutely not (read as I totally do) feeding my child. At no time in this day-dream however, did I consider being the oldest mom at school, having arthritis in my knee when I wanted to get on the floor and do puzzles or the loss of bladder control which if I’m being honest was already taking its ugly hold before I had a baby. 

Not once did these latter things occur to me until a friend of mine from school posted a picture of her family celebrating their parents 80^th birthdays on Facebook and my first thought was DANG! EIGHTY? How could that be? We are too young to have parents who are eighty! They had to be forty when they had their twins.

Now maybe it’s because I AM forty and things take a second longer to register lately but like a slap in the face my next thought was that my daughter will be my age when I am 80. Technically she will be 42 and if we have a #2 there is a great possibility that the next one will be 40 or (gulp!) 39 at my 80th birthday.

After pondering this thought for some time, and possibly having a glass of Michigan’s best, I concluded: who cares? I’m eternally grateful to experience being a mother at any age. I am blessed with a happy, healthy, vibrant, mouthy, little girl and I wouldn’t miss this for the world! And furthermore there are some distinct advantages to being an older mom:

• I have had the opportunity to travel and experience wonderful things and places without dragging a crying toddler along. Now I appreciate staying in on a Saturday night and watching Finding Nemo for the 400^th  time. I also enjoy dragging my screaming toddler when I travel.

• My finely developed pallet can appetize on left over chicken nuggets before the babysitter comes and I go to the new foodie restaurant I heard about….3 months ago.

• After experiencing 11 nieces and nephews, countless friends whose children call me Auntie; I was a way more laid back first time mom than most. All kids eat dirt at some point.

• With age is the wisdom that we are all doing the best we can. I don’t need to judge myself on what another mom is doing nor does she need to judge herself by me. So what if I showed up at daycare with wet hair and a coffee stain on my shirt. She’s there right?

• Finances are more stable than they would have been 10 or 15 years ago – especially since I was spending all that money on travel!

• If I make it to eighty, and my 40-something kid is at my party, I WIN AT LIFE! And maybe, just maybe, she’ll think, “Hey, my mom still had it at 40!”

And yes, that was my real (and best) birthday cake!