Author: Lisa Naeger Shea

Soon Our Ducks Won’t All Be In a Row

~ Lisa Naeger Shea ~ 1 Comment

ducks

I’m not that mom who cries on her child’s first day of kindergarten or even at high school graduation. I’m not really so much of a “they-grow-up-too-fast” parent, as I am one who thinks “how-cool-is-this-next-phase-going-to-be?”

Maybe that’s why as our youngest duckling begins winding down her high school career and preparing to leave our pond, I’m looking more forward than back. Yes, I’ve thought about all the things I’ll miss, but to be honest, I’ve thought just as much about those I won’t. For instance:

I Won’t Miss

  • Fundraisers
  • Parent-Teacher conferences
  • Mothers Club, PTA, club parents and other meetings
  • Last minute requests for lunch money, party snacks, sick notes, order forms, permission slip signing, etc.
  • Deciding whether they are really sick or just don’t want to go to school
  • Keeping track of late starts, early dismissals, and random “faculty development” days off
  • Driving Lessons
  • Asking where they’re going, what they’ll be doing and with whom
  • Listening patiently to all the school, friend, and boy drama
  • Waiting up

I Will Miss

  • Choir performances and other special events
  • Our late-night fast food and convenience store runs
  • Watching mildly inappropriate movies and TV shows together
  • The stream of teens coming through our house, and trying to keep all their names and stories straight
  • Having someone to give me the 411 on the latest tech gadgets and slang terms (like 411—okay, that’s an oldie, but LOL, you know what I mean)
  • Listening patiently to all the school, friend, and boy drama
  • Waiting Up

Okay, so maybe I’m feeling just a tiny bit sentimental. Still, I will not cry at her graduation!

I’m saving those tears for when we drop her off at college. I’ll fess up to having sobbed as we pulled out of the dorm driveways after leaving her sisters, too. I wasn’t sad that they were growing up. But I knew I would miss seeing those faces every day, and I knew that as excited as they were, a part of them was wondering what in the world they’d signed up for.

But after a few minutes of once more indulging in those therapeutic farewell tears, I plan to pull myself together and head home to begin our new empty-pond adventure, wondering “how-cool-is-this-next-phase-going-to-be?”

Train the young in the way they should go; even when old, they will not swerve from it.”  Proverbs 22:6

I’m No Damsel in Distress, But My Knight Still Makes Me Swoon

~ Lisa Naeger Shea ~ 1 Comment

knight-

Last night, my husband and I went to dinner. Nothing fancy. Just a bar & grill near home that we enjoy. It was chilly, so when we arrived he pulled up near the door and let me out before parking the car.

After our meal, he held my jacket while I slipped into it. Not surprisingly, he also held the door as we left the restaurant, and then the car door, too.

I’m a strong, independent woman who, together with the above-mentioned husband, is raising three strong, independent daughters. Heck, the four of us even attended a high school that prides itself on cranking out Empowered Women.

So I’m perfectly capable of walking across cold parking lots, opening doors, and putting on coats. I suppose I could take offense at my husband’s old-fashioned gestures. But I don’t. I cherish them.

When we began dating, these little courtesies gave me a glimpse into the way he was raised. I admit I was impressed. Having good manners definitely gave him an edge over other college suitors.

Now, after more than a quarter century together, I interpret his chivalry as much more than just a sign of his proper upbringing. Rather, it tells me that, though he knows I’m capable, he still wants to pamper me. He still wants to lighten my load. He still wants to go out of his way for me. I feel the same way, and I try to find little ways to pamper him, too.

We’re at a point now when parenting three females means meeting a variety of young males. It’s been interesting to see the differing levels of chivalry they demonstrate. Again, we feel it gives us some insight to how they’re being raised, and a sense of how they will treat our daughters in general.

I hope our girls recognize and value the niceties they’ve seen their father extend to me, and that they appreciate men who do the same for them, even if they are perfectly capable of doing those things themselves.

 

Share a Coke (or Something) with Someone You Love

~ Lisa Naeger Shea ~ 3 Comments

baby-sharing

Diet Dr. Pepper is my coffee. So when I pressed that well-worn button on the break room vending machine this morning and nothing happened, I have to admit, it rocked my world for a second.

But if nearly five decades on this planet have taught me anything, it’s that it’s okay when things don’t go exactly as I plan; when things don’t fit neatly inside the little boxes I create. Sometimes a disappointment can even lead to something better.

I chose Diet Coke instead.

Rather than waste energy ticked at the vending guy or lamenting my bad luck, I gratefully popped open the can and poured the bubbly, caffeinated liquid into my Tervis tumbler. I rinsed the can and was about to toss it in the recycling when I noticed something printed on the side: Share a Diet Coke with Dad.

Now anyone who knew my dad also knows he never drank a Diet Coke. At 6’ 3” and maxing out at 160 pounds, he didn’t need diet anything. But regular Coke was his calling card, his only remaining vice after tossing the cigarettes.

He’s been gone 16 years now. Taken too soon, like so many people, by cancer. How I’d love to crack open a couple cold sodas—any kind—and shoot the breeze with him.

But at least the unexpected detour in my routine gave me the gift of thinking about him; recalling his goofy laugh and infectious smile, and remembering how crazy much he loved his family.

We may not have been able to sit at a table together and hold hands, but I know that today, in some small way, I really did Share a Diet Coke with Dad. And that was worth one Diet Dr. Pepper-free morning, and a few unexpected tears in the break room.

Why The New Yorker Never Calls

~ Lisa Naeger Shea ~ Leave a comment

smart baby

There are many reasons my byline is not likely to ever grace a page in The New Yorker. But in the interest of word count, this post will focus on just one.

You see, I’ve been admonishing myself for publishing a 654-word post last week. “Too long!” says my inner critic. “No one has time for more than 450. Keep it simple.”

And then today, Mark O’Connell’s commentary in The New Yorker, It’s Comments All the Way Down, caught my eye. Now I wouldn’t have shared the link if it wasn’t a good read. If you have 20 minutes of full concentration to spare, I encourage you to check it out.

Know, however, that in addition to weighing in at a hefty 1,721 words, many of those are great big grownup words strung together in gigantic, uber-mature sentences. I pulled some excerpts below for you to pretend to read:

…his grandly narcissistic third-person narrative voice, describes how he overcame his initial heartsick uncertainty as to whether he had any statement to offer the world on the death of Ernest Hemingway…

…reading these sentences now, I find myself superimposing them onto the indistinct image of a hoard of commenters and thinking of how the culture has come to accommodate, if not to cherish, so many millions of miniature Mailers…

…there are various descriptions of specific instances of mass trolling—the Donglegate affair, for instance, and the perfect storm of nerd misogyny around Anita Sarkeesian’s “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games” project—but not nearly as much analysis of what these new forms and failures of communication might mean on a cultural level. Reagle too often seems happy to wrap up his discussion of a given topic with a tepid valedictory pronouncement.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m quite partial to big words and long sentences. And I can whip them out when the time is right. I learned as early as seventh grade which teachers were suckers for that kind of writing, and still use it to my advantage when appropriate.

And I know that you, dear readers, are a smart bunch who can tackle complex copy when necessary. I‘m sure you breezed through American literature classes, and have successfully navigated the college financial aid process, or at least one document composed by an attorney.

The reason I spend so much time changing words, cutting sentences and shortening paragraphs has nothing to do with your intelligence. Rather, I’m trying to write for the way I like to read. Except when I’m reading The New Yorker. Which I do. Once in a while.

For me, The New Yorker is a posh restaurant with elegant fare. It’s a lovely treat on special occasions, and if you haven’t been there, I recommend it. I hope, though, that this blog is more like your favorite bar & grill, and that you’ll come by often for some down-home comfort food.

P.S. 499 words. (But only 358 if you subtract the Mark O’Connell excerpts.) Bon appetite!

Welcome to My Blog

~ Lisa Naeger Shea ~ Leave a comment

baby hockey

Whether you came here intentionally or landed here by mistake–Welcome!

This is a newborn site and the plan is to populate it with fun and useful content soon. So please check back in a few days, or email me at lisa.shea@sbcglobal.net to be added to my mailing list. (And, yes, that’s Carrie Underwood’s adorable baby pictured. Hockey fans will understand.)