A brazen old lady and a baby.

In June I went home to Idaho for the first time in two years. No matter how long I've been gone there is always something nice about coming home, comforting. Nothing compares to the familiarity of home--Mom and Dad, John Wayne, the garden, our old dog that secretly I've never liked, Mom's white walls, Dad's growing pile of movies...Its like stepping back in time and reclaiming a little piece of childhood.

My nieces and nephews are bigger now. The two oldest just graduated from high school. I see in them this year's borrowed trends--skinny jeans, 80's metal band hair, blue eyeshadow; they pull it off well, they are cute little hipsters. Today's styles have looped around and gathered in styles reminiscent of my childhood/middle school years...my awkward years. When I looked at them, I felt the generation gap widening, and my illusion of returning home to reclaim my youth shatters a bit.

Even more so after this conversation with one of my niece's 16 year old friends,

Referring to my daughter she said, "Wow! So how old is she?"

Me: "Ten months."

Young hipster: "Whoa! And you just barely had her?"

Me: "Well, ya. like I said, I had her about 10 months ago."

Young hipster: "Wow, and you're like 30? You are a strong brave woman to have a baby at YOUR age."

Me: "I'm 31."

Apparently I am a strong, tenacious woman brazenly traversing the wild unruly territory of motherhood at the withered old age of 31. It was hard not to laugh right out loud. Instead I smiled a tight lipped smile, pushed play on John Wayne's, 'Mclintock' and slipped back into my 'coming home, I'm still a kid' illusion...

So here I am, a crazy old lady with a chubby little baby.

brave.