The Day Mom Officially Retired From Cutting Hair

Like most big families, we have found ways to cut corners and make the finances work. We buy groceries at Aldi and Sam's and we have a side of beef and a whole pig in our freezer (compliments of my dad). The boys all share clothes, shoes, bikes, roller blades, video games, and no one gets a new backpack or winter coat for school unless the zipper breaks.

I like to think that these type of sacrifices build character in my boys. I remember drinking powdered milk that my mother would make in a huge Tupperware pitcher. It was horrible! I shared a room with my sister and all three of us kids worked various jobs from the age of 12 (old enough for corn detasseling - which is basically taking young kids and turning them out into rows of corn that went on for miles and using them like human machinery to pull the tassels off the corn). Now that was character building!

One way that we have saved money as a family is by me cutting the boys hair. While this has saved us some cash, it has not been without a price. My oldest two boys were given a choice, either let mom cut it for free or you can pay for your own haircut where ever you want. They let me continue to cut it until they really cared about how they looked. My oldest has really thick, coarse, curly red hair and I pretty much couldn't screw it up.

There was one time when I thought I was done with his hair and he took a shower and then I looked at his head and saw this line going from one ear to the other. It was so bad. I think the phone rang half way through his cut or something, because there was surely a problem.


Our second son, Luke, gave up on me because for some reason, I always had trouble with his bangs. I only have one hairstyle in my repertoire - short, really short, Buzz cut preferred! Luke liked his hair a little longer and I just couldn't handle it. After more than one botch job, Luke has taken his "business" elsewhere. Now, he happily goes to my hair-stylist (a professional).

Well, I have just recently crossed the line of no return as I threw out my clippers, (they were rusty anyway and pulled the skin into the pinchers), the scissors, the combs, the guards - EVERYTHING GONE!

My son Joel (11 and going into Junior High in two days), begged me to "trim" his hair which had grown for several months to a very "Jonas Brothers" looking "I'm So Cool" length. Joel liked to whip his head quickly to the side in a smooth gesture to get his bangs out of his face. It was his trademark. I don't mind the longer hair. I do have a line - NO MOHAWKS, permanent color, etc... But the longer hair is fine.

The other boys (especially the older two) loved to tease Joel and call him a girl because of his long hair. It didn't phase him. He would roll his eyes at them and say, "You're just jealous."

So, with two days until school starts, I decided to sit Joel down and trim it. I started out okay, but something strange happened and it was like I couldn't stop it until it was too late. Joel wanted the bangs a little shorter and I even said, "Let's take off just a little at a time because we can always cut more, but we can't put it back once it's cut."

I was using scissors and a comb and 10 minutes into it, I was feeling myself sink further and further in the "hole" as Joel's head began to shrink into his neck. He held his body still and watched the long blond locks fall like the seeds off of cotton weed on a windy day. He glanced up at me and said, "Mom, NOT TOO SHORT."

I told him I was doing my best and that I wasn't a professional. I was trying to get the sides even and every time I would cut one side, the other would look shorter. Then I would cut more off of that side and the other one would look shorter still. It was madness!

I finally stopped before the kid was completely bald and Joel took one look and the tears came. I felt terrible! Here is my young boy, about to enter the "junior high jungle of blood sucking bullies" and I have just made him look like the biggest dork on the block! Somebody shoot me!

I told Joel to go take a shower and maybe it will look better when he gets out. It didn't. He put on a sweatshirt and put the hood up and said that he wouldn't be attending school this semester. I could home school him until Christmas was over and then he could go back.

I felt worse. I did what I never thought I would - I asked him if $20 bucks would make him feel better. He has been saving every penny doing odd jobs for an XBox 360 ($300). I thought that a $20 boost might help him forget about his botched haircut.

His deep blue eyes were barely recognizable they were so bloodshot. He looked at me and nodded that the $20 would help. He stopped crying for a moment and said, "Mom, if I need surgery someday, are you going to try and save money and do that yourself too?"

Of course not, Joel, I said as I offered him another $20. Ugh!

The next day, I was able to get him in to my hair stylist and she (a wonderful mom of three grown children) really helped sooth the pain of his short hair. She told him that she was going to just straighten it out so that as it grows out, it will all come in even and look nice - like the Jonas Brothers, she said.

That was all Joel needed (my $40 bucks didn't hurt either) to help him have the strength to face the world of Junior High even with a Bill Gates haircut!

Yes, I really did throw out all my supplies and my two youngest boys will be spared the humiliation of mom cutting their hair at those oh so tender ages!

The Cleanest Christmas Tree Ever

When you have five children, the potential for adventure lurks in every moment. We have rocks up the nose stories, fire in the oven stories, wet cement stories, but there is one DeGraaf story that has become known as "The Classic." This is the one that friends will pull me aside after church to meet their sister from Cleveland and say, "Tell her the Christmas tree story - that's my favorite!"

So, here goes...

It was a sunny mid-December day and a balmy 45 degrees here in Chicagoland. We decided it was perfect weather for going to the tree farm and chopping down our Christmas tree. We piled everyone in the car (at the time, our oldest was in junior high and our youngest was about a year old). We spent a couple hours searching the farm for just the right one (like it mattered), chopped it down, went on a hayride, drank some hot chocolate, gave the tree to the man who put it on the shaker, bound it in plastic netting and tied it to the luggage rack of our van.

We decided to take the boys to Pizza Hut. This was our very first attempt at taking our whole family to a restaurant and it was mayhem. Our little guy was fussy, the 3 year old spilled a huge glass of pop, pizza sauce was everywhere, and the wiggling was out of control!

We got back in the car and headed home.

We lived on a gravel road, so our mini-van was in constant need of a car wash. On that day, it was completely covered in dust; especially the rear window. I had purchased 100 car wash coupons at the local automatic car wash and had gotten into the habit of running the van through every time I passed the car wash.

You guessed it……I turned to Ron and said, “Hey babe, it’s a beautiful day, let’s get the car washed.” Turns out, he is just as dumb as I am and he said, “Okay.”

The car wash was jam packed with people (remember it was December and 45 degrees in Chicago - everyone was out getting the winter sludge and salt off of their vehicles). We pulled in behind 2 or three other cars. Someone else pulled in behind us and we were just waiting our turn, when this guy came walking over to the driver’s side window (I thought Ron knew him from work or something, ‘cause the guy had a big grin on his face.)

He said “Hey man, how ya doin?"

Ron said, "Pretty good."

The guy said, "You know you can’t go through the car wash," as he looked up and pointed to the top of our van.

At first, Ron looked at him with his head cocked slightly to the side as two deep folds formed between his eyebrows with a look of "Why not?"

And then reality set in for the both of us. We had an 8 foot blue spruce strapped to the roof of our vehicle. I laughed so hard I was crying! I mean, I laughed all the way home and seriously almost wet myself.

Our junior high aged son said he was going to write an essay titled “Why my parents are morons."

Holy Underwear

Getting our entire family to church on Sunday morning is a miracle nothing short of Moses and his Red Sea crossing. The weekly arrival of the DeGraaf Family at our house of worship is generally preceeded by a full blown "tribulation" (complete with nashing of teeth, and beasts with ten horns and seven heads). It's a period of suffering that only the strong survive.

I used to have a much higher standard for our pre-church prep, but over the years, my expectations have been on a steady decline. When we had our first two sons, our typical American family of four looked the part -- boys in dress pants with creases down the center, buttoned up shirts and hair combed neatly to the left.

Today, my only request is that our tribe of 5 wear clothes -- no holes and no dirt. Ok, at least I draw the line at wearing dirt to church.

I will never forget one Sunday morning when the Devil definitely was trying to keep us home that day! We got up late and as my husband got into the shower, he asked me if I would find him a pair of clean underwear. "Sure thing," I said and assured him that there was a load of clean underwear and socks in the dryer.

Wrong.

No socks and underwear in the dryer (they were towels). No clean undies on top the dryer or in the pile of clean clothes that were half stacked and half scattered on the couch. (I really need to stop folding laundry while watching TV. It's an exercise in futility as the stuff gets knocked down, folded again, and yes, even knocked down once more. )

I was running out of options as Ron was running out of hot water.............Now what?

I did what any quick-thinking and resourseful woman would do, I shuffled through the dirty clothes and found the "cleanest" pair of dirty underwear that I could. I shook them and neatly folded them in exactly the same way I have been folding Ron's boxer/briefs for almost two decades. They looked a little stretched out, so I pressed extra hard to try and iron out a few of the wrinkles and placed them on the closed lid of the toliet seat next to the shower.

"Here you go, babe." I said without another word.

I continued scrambling to get the rest of the gang in the mini-van. It was complete chaos (which has become our normal). Some of the boys were fighting, others couldn't find matching socks, one was still sleeping. Somehow, we managed to all get in the van for the 15 minute ride (I swear I could walk on fire!)

Ron was quiet for the whole ride with his lips all bunched up in a knot and a furrowed brow. We were about a minute's ride away from church and I turned to him and said, "What's wrong?"

He said, "These underwear aren't clean are they?" He was so ticked. I actually had all but forgotten about that small minor detail of the morning as I replied, "NO THEY ARE NOT!" and lifted up my shirt and said, "What are you complaining about, I am wearing MY SWIMSUIT!" (I really couldn't find ANY clean underwear!)

I was pretty sure that God was more concerned about the condition of our hearts and not so worried about the the fact that Ron was worshipping in his dirty undies and that I had my swimsuit on! After all, God has a sense of humor!!

Top 10 Ideas To Make Mammograms Fun!

This morning, I got my second mammogram EVER (2 years overdue). I wish that there was an official "U.S. Department of Mammography" to which I could make a few suggestions. I should google it.

If anyone asked me for my advice on how to improve the mammo experience, these would be my top 10...........

10. ASK if she has put on any deodorant BEFORE gripping her breasts in a vice, four times (front and side view on each side). Repeating this process once a year is bad enough! Repeating immediately because there is deodorant smearing the image, should be actionable in court.

9. Provide mood music. Something from the Smashing Pumpkins would be great!

8. Place foil wrapped chocolate coins on the gown provided.

7. Roll out a red carpet leading to the screening room with a sign painted on the door, "Nude Photo Shoot In Session."

6. Offer a large glass of wine!

5. Decorate the room with helium balloons and instruct the woman to inhale deeply and sing "You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman."

4. When it is over, flash an "Applause" sign to those in the waiting area to thank her for coming.

3. Put fringe tassels on the little sticker things they put on each nipple.

2. Offer a "boobie prize" if she schedules next year's appointment as she leaves.

1. Remind her that breast cancer is the second leading cause of death in women and that mammography can increase survival rates by 50% in some cases. Early detection is the best chance a woman has for overcoming breast cancer. If you are reading this and are over 40 and have not had a mammo in the last 12 months, don't wait another minute to call your doctor and get it done. :0)

Preparing to Leave The Nest

I was out last week on a beautiful summer night at a local restaurant with three of my girlfriends for a long over due girls night out. Once all the ordering was taken care of, our conversations weaved in and out of various topics but landed right where they always do - our kids! Between, the four of us, we have 15 children ranging in age from 2 to 18! Yes, I alone have a third of those, but none-the-less, that's a lot of mom stories to share.

My friend, Laura, has been a director of a Christian camp in our area for several years and we started to talk about college students and their expectations and the different trends Laura has observed over the last decade or so of working closely with young adults. She said that it has been amazing to her to see the lack of training that some of the kids have in terms of real life.

I told my friends what I did recently to begin the process of preparing my oldest to leave the nest. Nate is 18 and going to graduate from high school in December. We have three bedrooms in our home for five kids to divvy up. After getting some "expert" advice one day when Nate was in 7th grade, my husband Ron and I agreed to give him his own space. He had been sharing a room with his younger brother Luke.

So, we converted what was supposed to be our master closet into a make-shift bedroom and put one of the younger boys in there so that we could accommodate Nate's need for individuality! That move made him very happy for five years because it meant he had the biggest room of all and all to himself.

That changed a few weeks ago. I got a call from a friend who had a set of bunk beds she wanted to pass on. I jumped on the opportunity since our bedrooms are small and these bunks had huge storage drawers on the bottom. In order to make the bunks work, they would have to go in Nate's room since it had the longest wall and the other two bedrooms were too small.

That was when I capitalized on the opportunity to help Nate see that the expectation is for him to leave the nest. I told him the bunks had to go in his room and he had to move into Caleb and Adam's room. I promised to get the dried boogers off the wall and to paint over the baby blue color in there.

Nate didn't like the idea at all. He had his room all set up with XBox Live, a TV, and as he pointed to his nightstand, he said, "Besides, I have my alarm clock here, my Ipod charger there and my cell phone charger over there, NO, I'm not moving!"

That was a good argument but not good enough. I told him that he WAS moving and all of his "stuff" would move with him. He couldn't tie up that prime piece of "real estate" for four more years while he is in college and leave his little brothers are all cramped up in a tiny 8' x 10' room!

He reluctantly agreed and proceeded to move his belongings.

Later in the week, Nate noticed that I had all the boys social security cards in a pile next to the phone except for his. He also noticed that his picture was down from the wall where I have all five boys 8"x10" school pictures evenly spaced at an angle going up the stairs.

He asked me if I was trying to "erase" him? I moved his room, got rid of his picture and his social security card.

I assured him that his existence was safe with me and that his picture actually fell off the wall following a foot stomping door slamming hissy fit from his 9 year old brother and his photo was on my dresser waiting for me to find a new nail. Thankfully, the glass didn't break.

The social security cards were gathered up because I was in the middle of switching bank accounts and Nate's was in his room locked in his lock box so that's why it wasn't with the others.

No, I wasn't trying to erase my son! I am, however, preparing him for life on his own.

My girlfriends listened to this story and one friend said, "You're mean. Don't you want them to have a place to call home?" (She still makes her kid's peanut and butter sandwiches and he's 17 - which is fine because she likes to do that. I am of the mindset that you give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats forever.)

My reply to her comment was, "That's not mean. It's a reasonable and responsible expectation of a grown-up person." Nate will always have a home. He will always be our son, but he is no longer our baby. He will always be welcomed and loved and wanted. He will also be expected to make sacrifices and contributions. He will work, pay rent and make his own sandwiches.

Something tells me he will be just fine!

I Sent A Grown Man To His Room

My 18 year old, Nate, and I were up late one night printing for our family business, we're counterfeiters............just kidding, we own a weekly newsletter and print and distribute thousands of little brown papers all over the Chicago southland every week! Anyway, like I said, it was late and we started getting punchy. I'm not sure where this came from, but suddenly we found ourselves laughing and dreaming of a successful business thinking up humorous epitaphs.

It would be like the funny greeting cards aisle in the grocery store, except in a cemetery. I could see it. Making people laugh as they lost themselves wandering from headstone to headstone. Somehow, I don't think it would take off, but Nate came up with a good one for me. According to him, mine would read "Here Lies Tracy DeGraaf, mother of five boys, she finally got off her feet!"

Very appropo and very funny! Nate is an extremely tall young man at 6'3" with striking red hair, shining blue eyes and freckles galore! Nate will graduate from high school in December and then pursue his collegiate dreams.

I call him a genius wanna be. He's extremely bright and can get As and Bs without cracking a book. Hence the name "wanna be." He's a genius when he wants to be. His ACT score was almost higher than my husband and mine combined! That doesn't speak very well for the two of us, but as it turns out, we apparently have managed to contribute to the species of intelligent man with this one.

Nate says he either wants to be a brain surgeon or a comedian. Talk about a spectrum. To that he added, "I think I'll go with brain surgery, that would be easier." That is when I knew that he could be wildly successful at either!

Whomever thinks that brain surgery is easier than cracking a few jokes is the one I want performing my lobotomy! Likewise, the comedian who uses brain surgery and comedy in the same sentence is sure to have sold out shows.

With college looming, it surely feels like my husband and I are on the final lap of bringing our first son into manhood. Somehow, I have a feeling that last lap is going to be a doozie. So far, the teenage years have not been a walk in the park.

There have been no life threatening issues to our knowledge. No phone calls in the middle of the night requesting bail money or knocks at the door by uniformed officers, for which we are extremely thankful. But, there has been plenty of eye rolling, back talking, stupidity, ignorance and just plain dumb.

The other day, I sent my "almost grown up" son to his room for smacking his 7 year old brother. Granted, the seven year old likely deserved it, but I explained to Nate that dad and I don't go around smacking people all day long just because they deserve it. Could you imagine?

The first people I would smack are the teenagers at Burger King who totally screwed up my order making me wait 25 minutes for "fast" food. Not only did I have to tolerate their complete lack of human emotion in giving them my order, but then they accidentally deleted it and I had to re-order. When the re-order finally arrived, it was wrong; making them re-re-order; which totally ticked off the sandwich maker. I saw him slap my kid's burger down on the paper wrapper, squirt "ketchup only" on the grease-covered excuse for meat and throw it into the microwave to melt the cheese.

Then I would smack the wiry little man who works at the post office and assumes that I know everything there is to know about U.S. Postal regulations. He's so condescending. Like I am supposed to know that you can't write anything a half inch from the bottom of the postcard so that the scanner can read it. Show me 10 average Americans who know that postal fact and I will put my true weight on my driver's license.

And, if I could reach through the telephone cord and smack whomever is on the other end trying to get me to contribute to their Sacred Order of Retired Police Officers, or do a balance transfer with their incredibly low rate or purchase windows and siding for my 7 year old home, I would!

Now, where would I let the smacking begin? That's right. I would be in court........defending my indefensible behavior.


"So, Nate, we need to remember that we can't just go around smacking people now can we?" I reinforced to my "adult son." Then, with my left hand on my slightly extended hip and my right hand wagging my index finger upward toward his head which towers over my 5 and a half foot frame, I sent him to his room! Ha! I still have the power.

Ugh!!

I'm 42 And Not Getting On Your Bandwagon!

I used to jump on a lot of bandwagons in my 20s and 30s. There was the "ban the evil Pokemon" bandwagon and the "Harry Potter is from hell" bandwagon, the "make a million dollars from home in your pajamas with no make-up" bandwagon and of course, the "cure all that ails you with this super special berry juice that costs a fortune and tastes like blueberry syrup and is only available through your local so and so who got from the aforementioned make a million dollars from home bandwagon bandwagon."

I almost forgot about the countless dieting bandwagons........remember the liquid diet that we all tried after Oprah's success? I also jumped on the grapefruit diet "bandwagon" which led to zero pounds lost and a mouthful of canker sores. There were many others, but all with the same result which was no result!

Women in their 40s and 50s don't do all that bandwagon on and off. It's quite freeing to just say no, or get over it, or they'll out grow it, or don't worry about it, it will pass, I don't care or get out of my face! I've heard other women say that 40 is the new 30 in terms of seasons of life. If that is true, than I say 40 is the new 30 AND the new 50 at the same time.

I have the fortunate (not my idea) perspective from having become a parent in my middle 20s as well as in my middle 30s. Trust me when I say that it is a completely different experience in every way imaginable from diapers to diplomas!

When I held my first born son at the youthful age of 24, no one told me that he would be 9" taller than me someday. No one told me that he would surpass my knowledge of computers in just 10 years. No one told me that he would love music from the 80s and roll his eyes when I sing along loudly to "I Love Rock and Roll." Like he knows what it means to put another dime in the juke box, baby!?! No one told me that we would get our chin whiskers at about the same time!

I was a new mom with a new kid. He was our first try at parenting. Oh, yeah, and no one told me to bring maternity pants to the hospital when I went to deliver (that was a very long and uncomfortable ride home with my gut billowing out of my completely unbuttoned button fly jeans (remember those?) And, by the way, no one told me that you COULD get pregnant when you are breastfeeding or how difficult it would be to have two kids only 14 months apart. Hmmmm. So experiment number two was on his way only five months after our first was born.

Those were truly the years that my husband and I earned our parenting stripes - not the kind that proven military leaders get sewn to their dress whites, these were more like the kind that a dumb dog gets when he pees on the shag carpet for the 12th time. It was learn from your mistakes time for us.

We were the first in both of our families to have children. I remember the day we announced at our small church that we were pregnant (two months after our wedding). Our pastor smiled and with a "you don't know what you don't know" laugh, said "Congratulations and God Bless You!"

Now we know.

So from age 24 to 34, I spent a lot of time figuring out things and when a good looking bandwagon came along, I jumped! Wish I had jumped on and off the .com bandwagon at the appropriate times.

To complicate things, my mother passed away when I was only 27. I was left to navigate motherhood without a compass. I had to just figure it out. While most of my friends had their moms staying with them for a month after the birth of their babies, I had my trusted copy of "What to Expect the First Year."

Now at the age of 42, I can honestly say that I'm not as eager as I once was to "climb aboard" the latest and greatest trends. (Although, I will say that I have been tempted to take a bath in cellulite cream.) I think with the years have also come the wisdom that things have a way of working themselves out in the end. I'm not so afraid of making a devastating mistake in my parenting.

I tell my five boys all the time that I am not a perfect mom (finally we agree on something), but that I am the perfect mom for them. I am quick to say "I don't know," "I love you," "I'm sorry," and "Because I said so."

I am satisfied to trust that God created them. He will see to it that they make it (whatever and wherever "it" is).

Gotta say. I love being over 40!!!!