Milestones

There are four age milestones in our family this year. First, my mom will turn 80 this summer (and she still loves her IPad). Every year she gives us kids calendars with everyone's birthday on it, including our ages. This is done mostly for my brothers who have no concept of time and rarely get a card out. I can count on one hand the birthday cards I have received from my younger brother. Anyway she had talked about all of the milestones in 2011 and tried to make my older brother a year older than he would be. So every calendar has a big '60' in red ink on his birthday, when in fact he only turned 59. The teasing hasn't stopped all the way around yet.

My younger brother will be 50 in October. It's a sad day when your 'little brother' turns 50. It's alright for your older brother to get older but when your little bro gets older then there is no hope for you.

My husband will turn 65 in October too. I will officially be married to a Senior Citizen. How in the world did that happen? When we got married I was 24 and he was 36 and the age difference didn't seem that big. Now, it seems huge. I wouldn't say he acts like a Senior Citizen,  sometimes more like a child. He loves yard work and the mop handle fits his hands quite well. Better than mine really. I really can't see any difference in his physical capacities. He takes a nap every day but he always has so that's no big deal. He's lost about as much weight as I have and the only medicine he takes is bp, and hopefully he will be able to cut down soon.

But as that day approaches he's starting to get Medicare information in the mail, from AARP, Group Health, etc. We just put them in a file and hopefully he will read them before it's time to sign up.

The next big birthday milestone is our daughter, who will be 16 this summer. We have plans for a party but haven't let her in on it yet and since she's so snoopy inquisitive, I won't say right now. Summer birthdays are good in one way but hard in others. Since I am also a summer birthday girl it's cool because your birthday is halfway between Christmas. Personally I wouldn't enjoy a birthday right before or after the holidays. And the part that isn't so fun, especially for a kid is that everyone is soooooo busy that they can't be bothered with a party or even considerate enough to RSVP for a party. We've had some good ones and not so good ones and I'm a little glad that this will be the last one I will have to throw. I feel like every year I have to outdo the one previous and it gets a little stressful. Since this will be the last we hope it will be special for her.

We have been discussing drivers ed courses and we've decided on the who, where, and when. We're just waiting for her check to come in next week before we can make the final decision and pay for it. Since my husband took early retirement any children he has still in school can get a check too. We feel very fortunate that we can use this money for savings and college and anything else that she needs, as long as it's used for her only. Dang, there goes my trip abroad this year.

The whole idea for this post came yesterday in the mail when we got
a) another AARP Medicare info packet
b) a solicitation from the same driving course business that we have picked out

Kind of creepy. It was addressed to me but how in the heck did they know? My husband commented "That's Big Brother for ya."

My daughter asked "Who is Big Brother anyway, God?"

Yes and No child, we answered.

I would think it's pretty rare to get mailings like that on the same day in a single household, Milestone Celebrations I guess we could call them. 

And  here I am stuck in the middle of old and young trying to hold onto one and hopefully embrace the other someday.