Amy Writes

I went to a concert last night.  Those words. They're my "once upon a time." So many of my what-a-great-night stories begin with that little sentence. There was this one , and this most recent one , and this one that was actually life changing. But last night's show had me stewing a bit this morning, wondering:  When am I going to grow up?  It's something I wonder on a daily basis, really. I've even written about it before. I look around at my life - the responsibilities of caring for a husband, three kids and a home - and I ask myself Who put me in charge? I have to ask myself that, because most of the time there's no other grown up around to ask . All the grown ups have handed me the car keys and flown the coop. I don't feel grown up. I feel like I missed the class where they taught how to be a grown up, and the learning curve on this real-life-experience track is STEEP. So this morning as I'm scrolling through pictures and I see shot ...

I watched you get out of your car with your son, a tall, handsome boy. I watched you fumble with your keys and I watched him close his car door and, for a moment, I mused about what it would be like to have a boy. It's not the little boys that get me as much as it is the teenage boys - that thought of being your son's number one girl...I like that idea. So I sat in the drive thru lane and watched as he rounded the back of the SUV, and I watched as he made that gargling sound and then I watched him spit approximately one cup of saliva right there onto the pavement in the Starbucks parking lot. And it was the strangest thing, because I thought I saw you do, well, nothing. Maybe you didn't see him, or maybe it was one of those days and that's why you were at Starbucks in the first place. But just in case, I want you to know this from the heart of a Girl Mom: spitting in public is not okay. It's not "virile" - it's "disgusting." It...

Sometimes, I feel like God is trying to tell me something. Hold on. Being a good church kid, I'm trained to feel like that ALL the time. I know there's always a lesson, always room to grow, always a message to be heard... But right now, I'm hearing it loud and clear, and I know it's God because a) the message is coming from multiple mediums b) it applies to multiple struggles simultaneously and c) it MAKES. ME. CRAZY. A few months ago my husband, my brother-in-law and I did something a little nutty: we voluntarily signed ourselves up to run 13.1 miles for no good reason, like charity or being chased by zombies. I guess we just liked the idea of accomplishing something together that none of us had ever done, or of being forced to train for something and get in shape, or maybe it was just the idea of running through the Disney parks at night. I remember when it sounded like fun, and I remember when I believed it wouldn't be that hard, because we'd given oursel...

How precious is this picture? This blog - and, apparently my story - is filled with celebrity references. My fascination with all things A-list began pretty early. Even before those dreamboats from Boston, I was dabbling in the world of the Mickey Mouse Club, sending fan mail to Damon and collecting the generic post card head shots they'd send back on his behalf. I could identify most of the Beach Boys and one time I met Wayne from the Wonder Years on a youth group trip. I wouldn't say it was unhealthy, it was just how my brain worked. I was a kind of super-recognizer - I could tell you who was who and who had been in what, probably from all of those Teen Beats I was collecting for the pictures of Jonathan Knight. I had a few lucky (or maybe we should use the word "determined") experiences in high school and college, being in the right place at the right time to meet some of my favorite artists after concerts, once being granted an upgrade to front row tickets...

Oh, the squealing. When those five boys took the stage I thought some of the girls around me might actually pass out. They were no longer pinups on the bedroom wall - they were real, live people, singing in real life, breathing the same air as all of us. Each girl with her favorite band member, screaming just a little louder when his baby face showed up on the jumbo screen. Yes, One Direction was here last week. But that's not where I was. I was saving my voice for what would be one of the most ridiculously incredibly fun nights of my life. Rewind twenty-five years or so. Big sister has flown the coop and I am starting to have some freedom with the radio dial. Fluent beyond my years in Billy Joel, Bryan Adams, Madonna, Survivor, Hall & Oates, REO Speedwagon, etc., I begin branching out to see what the kids are listening to these days. I am just beginning middle school and, according to my friend base, I seem to have two choices: Hair Bands and Bubble Gum Pop. Ultimately, ...

It's called "self-assessment," that ability to take a step back and evaluate your own work objectively. Too much self-assessment and you're a nervous perfectionist. Too little self-assessment and you're the star in a televised-because-it's-hideous American Idol audition. It's something we're working on here, because my eldest child has boundless confidence (which we have encouraged) and zero objectivity. Confidence with a capital C, headed straight into Randy's cross hairs. Maybe it's not the absence of self-assessment skills. It's just that when she does self-assess, her assessment is that she is freakin' awesome. And she has every right to believe that because it's what we've been telling her every day of her life for 10 years. She really is an amazing kid... ...Whose art output is average. Whose year at the piano was less than excellent. Whose never ending "shows" were cute at 3...4...5...but not 10. I want ...

Last night, I dreamed that I was married to Billy Joel. It was one of those dreams where I was engaged in something else - and I just, mid-dream, remembered that I was married to Billy. Apparently it wasn't going well, because I didn't know where he was...I had to track him down and then, as if we hadn't spoken in days, there was a mad rush to answer the phone when it said "Billy Joel calling..." and a sweet, intimate profile picture like the one you see here popped up. Because, you know, we were married and all, and the best picture I had of him was a professional shot of him on stage. (I am aware of how weird it is not only to have this dream, but also to admit it. I am also aware of the potential risks I face by sharing this on the interweb, probably realized in jokes made at my expense by my real and wonderful husband, who is not Billy Joel. But come on. I know I'm not the only one.) I have spent a good portion of the week feeling like the kid in the...