Today, we offer you a conversation with some guy I met online, which isn’t really the best way to meet someone. However, his daughters are both adults and they still talk to him, so it’s probably safe for us to hear what he has to say about life, fatherhood and the things young adults wish they’d known before they graduated into the real world.

Michael Rosenbaum is author of Your Name Here: Guide to Life, a snappy little volume of life lessons that every graduate could use on the way to adulthood. So, Michael, what’s the story behind the stories?

When my dad died a number of years ago, I was thinking about the legacy he’d left me and the one I would leave to my children. I realized that the best lesson he ever taught me was how to teach without lecturing. When I was screwing up or looking for answers, he never told me what to do, but he would tell me a story that contained the answers.

So what’s the difference?

When someone tells you what to do, your defenses go up. When someone tells you a story about themselves or some friend of a friend, you can absorb it and learn without as much resistance.

You never lectured your daughters?

Well, never is a long time, but mostly we’d have long dinner-table conversations about what was going on in their lives and I almost always resisted the use of those deadly words: This is what YOU SHOULD do.

Did you get all the stories and lessons from your dad?

No, luckily I made enough bad decisions in my life to have plenty of cautionary tales of my own that I could share with my girls. In addition, I was a newspaper reporter for many years and I had a habit of taking notes when people said something particularly smart—or dumb. I incorporated those lessons into the dinner table conversation…and into the book.

Okay, share a story that’s based on your own stupidity.

Can we focus on delusion instead of stupidity? I was talking with some people about my goals and my frustration with not reaching them. I told them I wanted to be recognized as the leader, the visionary, the person other people would follow anywhere. And a friend asked me, “Mike, have you EVER been that guy?” Suddenly, I realized that I never had been and I never would be THAT GUY. I changed the direction of my life after that and actually became more successful.

What are the most important lessons your daughters picked up from you?

The one that we talk about most is time. It’s the greatest gift you can give someone, because it’s the gift of your life. We also talk a ton about choices. Many people decide they can’t do something because another person is preventing it. Sometimes, it’s a person who is dead or living in another city, a person they never see. And yet, they put their lives on hold because of something this other person did or said. They can make that choice, but they can also choose to move on. We can’t control what happens to us, but we can almost always choose how to respond.

These sound like lessons we should all know by the time we get out of school.

We have heard about many of these lessons, but we need reminders of why we should follow them. And kids getting out of school and becoming adults respond better when they hear the lessons from someone other than their parents.

What if their parents have told them all these things already?

No difference. The parental lessons have been spread out over 18 or 20 years. If they haven’t been internalized yet, it’s unlikely they’ll be absorbed now. If only there was some book of life lessons that could deliver those lessons in a friendly, non-threatening, entertaining way.

Like your book?

Well, now that you mention it, I think “Your Name Here: Guide to Life” fits the bill nicely. I would never tell you that YOU SHOULD buy it, but you might decide to do that on your own after checking out my blog site or reading the reviews on Amazon.

Thanks for your thoughts and for giving me some material to fill my blog today.

[True confession:  I know Michael through 5 Minutes for Parenting, where I occasionally blog.  I wanted to post something to help him get the word out about his book and he came to my aid with this handy-dandy interview.  He wrote the whole thing but if I had more time and brain cells, I would have composed the questions myself!]

Summer vacation approaches.  And by “vacation” I don’t really mean “vacation.”  It’s more like summer break only it’s not really a break for me.  In fact, I’d like to rename it Summer NoBreak, because it’s that time of year that we are all here in this house together all the time.  All.  The.  Time.

I work from home, remember?  So, working at home while all the kids are frolicking and getting on each other’s nerves is like working in the midst of a mosh pit.  I should get hazard pay.  I should get a set of those Bose earphones that claim to block noise . . . and a nifty set of blinders, the kind that horses wear so I can focus on my job without losing my mind.

It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with my precious children, these adorable creatures that God entrusted to me.  It’s just that I can only take so much.  My oldest children are 17 and ever since they arrived, I’ve been a stay-at-home mother.  I’ve been here, present in body, if not in mind and spirit. Seventeen years is a long time.

Of course, I totally regret my inattentiveness throughout the years.  Why can’t I just pay more attention?  Why can’t I soak in the moments around me?  Why is my mind constantly straining to get away from wherever I am?

I’ll tell you.  Because hanging out with kids twenty-four hours a day is boring.  I was bored with it even when I was a kid!  Why do you think I read so much?  Also?  Kids are loud, at least my kids are.  My kids are not sequential, they do not care one whit about order or neatness and none of them has learned to bake cookies or iron pants.  (I blame myself.)

I miss school, my own personal school days.  When you’re in school, you know exactly where you stand.  Each test gets a grade.  You find out mid-semester if you’re passing.  If you’re me, you get gold stars and 100% scores and you know that you are doing a mighty fine job.  You get feedback.

But if you’re a mom, all you know is that your kids still don’t carry their dishes to the sink.  They drop their dirty clothes right next to the hamper.  They bicker and make each other cry.  The feedback you get comes in the form of slamming doors and snotty remarks.

With that echoing in your ears, you hope you’re doing all right, but how can you really know?  You cross your fingers and compare yourself to really bad parents on the news just to make yourself feel better.

So, while I wait for time to pass and for my final grade to come, I am going to focus on the positives.

In this case, that means this summer I’m finally going to get enough sleep . . . for the first time in seventeen years, all my kids are old enough to either sleep in (yes, Teenagers, I’m talking about you) or let me sleep in without waking me every ten minutes just to see when I plan to wake up.

All the same, Summer NoBreak is coming and I have mixed feelings about that.

What’s the most unexpected thing that ever happened to you?

When I was seventeen, I worked at Taco Time.  I drove my dad’s hatchback to work sometimes.  (Usually I drove this small yellow pickup truck which one time died on the freeway, many years before the days of cell phones.  I ran off the freeway, across several roads to the mall where I pounded on a window of a closed department store until someone let me to use the phone.)

On this particular sunny day, I drove the hatchback with my window rolled down.  I pulled up to a stoplight at the intersection close to the freeway when I felt a sort of slap on the side of my head.

I thought perhaps a piece of trash flew through my open window and hit me in the head.  As as the light turned green, I swiveled around and saw a bird in the backseat.

That bird had inexplicably flown through my open window, colliding with my left ear before landing in the back of my car. The little bird jerked as small birds do and looked at me with beady eyes and threatened to peck me to death.  At least that’s the message I got.

Because we all know that birds of any size are terrifying.

I wanted to fling open my car door and run screaming but instead, I drove to my stepmom’s office where I raced to her desk to beg for help.  She walked calmly outside, opened the hatchback and the bird flew away.

Why didn’t I think of that?  Oh yeah, because I was seventeen.

I’m not a fan of birds in close proximity.

A few years ago, I bravely took the kids into a Lorakeet exhibit at the zoo.  Once inside the enclosure, a Lorakeet dived into my naturally curly hair and became entangled as I stiffly asked a nearby woman, “Uh, can you please help me remove this bird from my hair?”

And then I got out of that exhibit.

So, let’s recap.

Birds belong in trees, in nests, in nature.

Birds do not belong in my car or in my hair.

So, tell me something weird that’s happened to you.

I ended up working an hour late tonight, so it’s 2 a.m. and my shoulder hurts.  Not that those two things are related, but they are both true.

I spent the afternoon helping my boys figure out their algebra, though some of the time I spent shrieking, I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS!  HOW CAN I GRAPH WITH A COMPUTER!?  And then I ate donuts.

Before that, I took a nap.

Before that, I went to church with my family.  We attend a church an hour from our house and can I just ask why my kids must be so loud while traveling up I-5?

That is all.

The end.

I’m going to sleep.

Before I ever became a mother, I imagined motherhood as a showcase for my lovely qualities and impressive skills.

I’d sew my children outfits and teach them to bake bread from scratch and never, ever, ever lose my temper.  My children would smile at me in admiration and dream about growing up to be exactly like me because I would be a paragon of virtue.

I’d wear a white apron with eyelet edges and sing hymns while I paid bills and scrubbed toilets.  My children would raise their voices in harmony and do chores without being asked.  We’d dress in matching clothes and spend our evenings reading Bible stories and piecing together 10,000 piece puzzles depicting vegetable gardens almost as luscious as the organic one we’d grow in our own back yard.

As it turns out, children are less like accessories and more like chainsaws.

They cut away the facade I’d created and imagined.  How rude.

Children have  a way of provoking you in a way other people wouldn’t dream of doing.  (Perhaps it’s only my own particular children.)  When I am terse with them, they feel free to reciprocate.  When I am exasperated, they see an opportunity to push harder.  When my head is exploding from the noise, they accelerate, crescendo and slam a drawer and then wonder why I am screaming.

If I were childless, I like to think I’d maintain a calm, unruffled existence.  I’d never be shrill with strangers or co-workers or the lady that rings up my groceries at the store.  I wouldn’t be so aware of my shortcomings, the areas my children have brought into clear focus, the ones that they emphasize and judge.  I’d think I was pretty awesome.

As I become more aware of my failings, I alternate between despair and resolving to be better, to do better, to improve.  I am the reluctant host to humility.  I might never have welcomed humility into my heart, but I have no choice when I come face to face with the reality of who I am.

The children ripped down the curtain hiding the real me and what can I do but acknowledge that this frail me is the real me?  I am flawed, no matter how politely I can behave in public.

Newsflash:  I’m not that great.

I can only hope that as my children get older, they will see a more complete picture of me as a person.  They will grant me grace and forgiveness and understanding.  I hope I will remember to extend that same courtesy to everyone I meet.  No matter how annoying they are.

Dear Fifteen Year Old Self:

Stop worrying about boys.  When everyone says that girls mature a lot faster than boys, they are not kidding.  The boys you wish would talk to you are utterly incapable of it.  Don’t take it personally.  Cultivate friendships with your girlfriends.  Ignore the boys or regard them as cute decor, but don’t expect anything from them.  Find your interests, pursue them, read a lot and enjoy being a girl.

Falling in love is less about falling and more about choosing.  Love isn’t supposed to hurt or make you cry.  There’s plenty of time for love later.  Meanwhile, learn to appreciate and love yourself.  You are cuter than you think, smarter than you know and funny, too.  Don’t be so hard on yourself.  Stop comparing yourself to other girls and wondering why your family can’t be like other families.  Everything you experience will be valuable later, so embrace it, pay attention and take good notes.

Speaking of notes . . . don’t destroy your journals and diaries.  You’ll regret it.

Don’t let anyone derail you from pursuing your dreams and your interests.  The college you will choose is really, really important.  Don’t be swayed.  Use your brain.  Your emotions are valid, but they should not steer your life.  Think.  Trust yourself but find adults who can give you good advice.

Finally . . . you are not fat.  Knock it off with the self-loathing.  Ride your bike!  Feel the wind in your hair!  You will never again feel quite as healthy as you do now.  Eat lunch!  Stop trying to quit eating entirely.  Food is not an enemy.  Neither is the body God gave you.

Enjoy the summer.  You have so few teenage summers left and you should savor every second.  Summertime when you’re an adult is just not the same.

Love,
Melodee

Look!  I can add pictures . . .

Well, that weekend went by fast.

Saturday found me and Grace at a baby shower.  Fun times.  I won both baby shower games because deep down inside this unassuming housewife exterior is a fierce competitor who does not truly know how to play for fun.  I play to win.  Which is mostly why I avoid playing at all.  I do hate to lose.  So, to avoid losing, I don’t play.  Well, I do play baby shower games, but I don’t play other games, including competitions that are not exactly games but that leave someone standing there feeling like a loser.  (“Someone” meaning me.)

Anyway, after the baby shower, Grace and I drove ten minutes up to Wild Waves where we spent our first day this season at the waterpark.  Thank God I brought along a wool blanket and wore a sweater and jeans because it was cold.  Cold, as in fifty-five degrees.  Where, oh where is summer?

Grace didn’t care, though.  She frolicked and hurried from area to area to jump and slide and swim and float.  She possesses boundless energy.  After two hours, I convinced her to leave because I was cold.  And bored.  But mostly cold.

After returning home, I drove my teenagers to spend the night at their friend’s house.

Sunday morning, we went back to Wild Waves, this time with Zach and my husband.  The three of them wore swimsuits and swam and floating and slid into the warmish water, but I sat and huddled in my fleece, happy not to be underwater.  I did ride a rollercoaster twice and then let Zach ride it six more times by himself because I am too old to ride a rollercoaster eight times in a row.

The temperature reached 60 degrees on our way home.  Sixty degrees!  And it was raining pretty good, too, by the time we left.

Today we went shopping.  Someone (not me) got new suits.  Someone (not me) got new dollies.  Then someone (me) whipped up a German Potato Salad to take to a barbecue.  Someone (not me) went to the movies.

At the barbecue, lo and behold, the sun came out!  We sat in the sun, squinting in our sunglasses at each other, visiting and shocked at the appearance of the sunshine.  I think it might have reached seventy degrees.

The rain is expected to return.

We have two more weeks of school.  I can’t believe another school year is ending.

I also can’t believe I said this phrase today to one of my children:  “You really need to shave before you go.”

Life is getting weird.

You may as well know that I had a mammogram today.  I dreaded it.  I postponed it.  I forgot to make the appointment . . . for about, um, five years.

When I saw my doctor last July, she referred me for a mammogram again, just a routine screening, the kind of thing you’re supposed to do when you are a grown-up.  I left the pink slip in the stack of papers on my desk.  I didn’t schedule the appointment.  I kept telling myself that I needed to do it, but I just did not.

Then a woman I know who is a year or two younger had her routine mammogram a few weeks ago.  She was diagnosed with cancer, a rather aggressive cancer, it seems, though who can be sure?  She’s going to have surgery, radiation, maybe chemotherapy.  I looked at her and told her that I needed to schedule my mammogram.  That way I was accountable.

So last week I called and made the appointment.

This morning I showered and remembered not to apply any deodorant.

I arrived on time for my appointment.  I stripped to the waist, put on the white cotton robe, read a book while waiting for my turn.

The radiologist was kind, a woman named Marcie, who explained that it would take only four minutes.  I stood without speaking, only nodding, wishing it was already over.  I’m just not  big fan of baring myself to a stranger.  I’m modest.  I find it awkward.

But it was only awkward for four minutes and it only hurt a little.

I was so happy to be done.

Then this afternoon, the phone rang.  It was the Breast Center telling me they need me to come back, that the person reading the mammogram didn’t like the photos, there was something called “blah blah blah” which means “blah blah overlapping blah” and so I have to go back on Friday.

I wish I remembered exactly what she said and had a better idea of what is going on.  I think they just want more pictures, better pictures, different positions.  Which is just great.  Because, of course, that’s exactly how I want to spend Friday morning, appearing topless before a stranger who will manipulate my squishy body parts into a machine and pressing them as pancake-like as possible.

Awesome.

I’m not really afraid.  But fear does wave at me from the corners of my mind.  Because if my friend can go in for a routine mammogram and end up needing surgery, why wouldn’t I? Do I need to remind anyone that my dad died from cancer when he was 47?  And I’m 45?  And that I’m a pessimist?

You should know that years ago . . . 18 years ago?  17 years ago?  I had a surgical biopsy and “it” was nothing, just a lipoma.  At the time I worried that I’d lose my breasts, lose my hair and die because I am dramatic like that.

This time, I’m just mostly annoyed that I have to be awake, in my right mind and at the radiologist at 9:30 a.m. on Friday morning.  I just hope this will be the last time I flash The Girls at a perfect stranger for awhile.

I gathered some lilacs and put them in the only place in my house that is safe from my curious cats–the master bathroom.  The blossoms on the bush are already fading, signaling the waning of spring and the approach of summer–only the weather has been so chilly and rainy and not-summer like.  The tulips lost their petals this week and the daffodils are long gone.

The school year is winding to a close, too . . . in six or seven weeks.  That’s why I spent six hours on Saturday working with my boys on Algebra.  Six hours! They must pass Algebra 1–it’s a required class for graduation–and they are not interested in math at all.  I personally always enjoyed math when I was in school.  I like how objective it is.  I took math because I knew I could get an “A” and avoided art, which I also loved, because I might get a “B.”   I however, do not enjoy spending my free time doing math on a Saturday because my boys are so far behind they can’t catch up on their own, especially since they don’t know how to graph quadratic functions online.

Our 12-year old son’s been playing lacrosse for a few months and has only a few games left.  And now our daughter has started baseball.  She complains about going to practice but likes it once she’s there.  We’ll probably both enjoy it more once the weather warms a little.  Meanwhile, I take a wool blanket with me.

This is turning into a super boring post.  My apologies.  That’s what you get when you write blog posts at 1:45 a.m.  (I worked until 1:00 a.m., so it’s not like I’ve been goofing off or anything all night.)  (Also, the interesting things are impossible to discuss.)

I just finished reading Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson.  Good read if you can overlook the, uh, coarse language.  I heard her speak in Michigan last month and she was such a charming and funny person that I unburied the book from my shelves and read it and heard her voice as I read.

Now I’m reading ROOMS by Jim Rubart.  I met him a few years ago at a writer’s conference before he’s sold this, his first novel, and it’s fun to read it now that it’s been released.  So far, I really like it.  Can’t wait to see what happens next . . .

My front door keeps making creaking noises . . . the wind must be blowing hard as the weather forecast promised.

And now, I am heading to bed.  This blog post cannot be saved.