I'm having an existential crisis. My kids are all growing up and I did not consent to this!

"Mom, when are you NOT having a crisis?" That's my 14 year old son, James. We call him the lawyer. Go away, James. I'm talking to my blog friends who understand me, thank you verrrrr much.

ANYHOO. I'm having a crisis because I'm almost 40. I refuse to call it a "mid-life crisis" though because that sounds like Mrs. Rodanski who lived next door when I was a kid and whose husband bought her a 1987 Pontiac Trans Am when she turned 40. But this did not make her a nicer person. She was still the same grumpy old lady always yelling at me over the fence to stop staring at her and for godsakes stop sucking on those bleepity-bleep dandelion stalks don't you know bleepity-bleep dogs pee on it?

"MOM, DID YOU JUST SAY A BAD WORD?"

"No, Joss. I bleeped it out."

She gives me the side eye. Meet Joss. She's 8 now and our resident theologian, Expositor of the Mysteries and Chief Executive Enforcer of the Rules. On Good Friday: "Mom, mom, mom. It's Good Friday and that means NO SAUSAGE for breakfast. And James? You need to make a sacrifice for Jesus, too. No video games after school today. Right, Mom? No video games for James today?"

So, I don't want to be like Mrs. Rodanski but then again, maybe I do. Maybe I do want to waddle about my garden in my robe and slippers with my hair up in ridiculous huge rollers while I smoke a cigarette with one hand and water my roses with the other. Maybe I do want to roar off to lunchin my flashy Pontiac Trans Am and lunch with the ladies just because I can!

Well, nope. I can't be Mrs. Rodanski because she only had one kid and I have twenty-five kids and none of them are named Bobby. To be fair, we never knew if Mrs. Rodanski's son was named Bobby. We just called him that because we thought he looked like a Bobby. That sounds terrible. What does a Bobby look like? Well, he looked like a pudgy boy with curly blonde hair, thick glasses and an affinity for wearing dark red polo shirts. He also wore his pants high tightly belted over his belly so that he resembled a double-link sausage. A double-link sausage wearing glasses.

Sausage appears to be a recurring theme of this post so I might as well tell you that I can no longer eat sausage without getting heartburn. Now, THAT is a crisis.

"Mom, can I borrow the car?"

Oh, hey. Say hi to Jewel. She's 16 now and a newly minted and licensed driver. I can't let her drive with me in the car because I gasp and shriek and pump an imaginary brake. Last time I tried to let her drive, we only made it half a block before I had her pull to the curb. Because I was about to have a heart attack. Good thing I went to Confession a few months ago and can die with a clear conscience.

"Mom, can I go to Bible study tonight? I finished all my homework."

There's Jude. Awwwwww, Baby Jude. He's not a baby anymore and I totally don't approve. He just turned 13. Thankfully he hasn't really hit his growth spurt yet so I can still pretend he's my adorable little round-cheeked baby. Jude is the entrepreneur around here. He runs a little coffee roasting business out of our garage. He's still refining his signature roast with input from the Professional Taste Tester by which I mean myself. And he spends most of his spare time going to church, going to Bible studies and feeding the homeless on skid row. I know I'm making him out to be a saint but he kinda IS a saint. I swear to you, butterflies land on him whenever he stands in our garden. It's become something of a family joke: St. Jude. The Butterfly Whisperer.

Now, I can't mention Jude without mentioning his little disciple: Jorai. Or, Jo, as she prefers to be called these days. Jo adores her big brother Jude. She follows him around. She wears his hand me down clothes. She laughs at all his jokes. She started skating because he was skating. She started playing basketball because he played basketball. They have such a close and unique relationship.

OK, wow. So maybe I'm not Mrs. Rodanski with her flashy Trans Am but I think I like my full, crazy life. And I've missed blogging. I really have. Why did I ever stop? Well, I wrote two books, that's why. I was kinda tapped out. Burned out on words.

But I'm back now. I hope. I even made my blog my home page again because I LIKE BLOGGING. So, there. Crisis solved. And all the peoples said amen.

(I've missed all of you. Would you please leave a comment telling me who you are? Maybe just where you're from, how long you've been reading? I would SO LOVE to reconnect with you again!)