My Florida friend, who was visiting last week, and I were patting ourselves on the back for raising such a fine trio of young ladies. Even at 15, her daughter and my daughters, who are 18 and 21, still get along and have much in common. I’ve seen fast friends with age differences such as our daughters’ lose interest in each other as the older one outgrows the younger one. Truthfully, though, I’m not sure how much it says about my own daughters’ maturity level as much as it does her daughter.
Anyway, my friend and I have long since passed the phase where it was a novelty to leave the kids at home or drop them off somewhere without our supervision. We’ve also gotten used to just letting them do whatever they want during these visits as my daughters have been driving for several years now.
Most of the time the girls choose to stay home and bond over video games and mutually loved TV obsessions. We do, however, make a point to drag them out with us at least once during the visit. In past years it’s been to the zoo, this year we went to Northwest Trek so I could fulfill my dream of trying out the ziplines.
My friend and I successfully accomplished the Discovery zipline/obstacle course, with sights on the Adventure challenge next year; each being more difficult (higher) than the other. Two of the girls opted for just the Aerial (zipline only). My youngest stayed firmly on the ground, not wanting to take her life into her own hands. She held everyone’s stuff and took pictures, but we didn’t worry about leaving her on the ground alone because she’s an adult now.
It really has been several years since my friend and I have come to terms with our children growing up. Not only do we accept it, we celebrate our childless activities. We revel in the freedom of not having to drag them along to places they don’t want to go, listening to them whine about being bored. We delight over our ability to thoroughly browse farmer’s markets and admire all the colorful produce, without them constantly asking if we’re done yet.
There is however one area of our children’s development which makes us long for their lapsed youth – their palates.
It used to be when we went to our favorite restaurant, Fondi’s in Gig Harbor (there used to be one at Kent Station), to indulge in Tuscan Bean Spread and flat bread brushed with olive oil, garlic and Italian herbs, our kids would proclaim, “ewwwww.” We could leisurely consume our food, with the knowledge that any leftovers we might bring home would remain untouched.
Now that their bodies have matured, their senses of taste have too. My friend and I try to sneak out the door without the kids’ knowledge of our whereabouts. It’s not usually too difficult because they all sleep in late, but because bean spread is lunch time fare, we often get text messages after they awake and discover we are not home, “Are you going to Fondi’s? Bring us some.”
There is no way we’re bringing them our leftovers, even though we both get our own serving. So then we have to contemplate whether to bring them any at all or how many orders we should get to go.
Their grown up palates make our lives more complicated. How we long for the peanut butter and jelly days of their youth. Our only consolation is they don’t always eat all we bring home.
Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. You can read more of her writing and her daily blog on her website livingwithgleigh.com or on Facebook at “Living with Gleigh,” or twitter @livewithgleigh. Her column is available every week at maplevalleyreporter.com under the Lifestyles section.
