Age is nothing. It's all stages in life.

You know, when I turned 30, it didn't really matter.  I felt "older," but it didn't feel like a huge milestone.

They've been coming fast and furious this week instead.

1) For reasons long and unwieldy and wholly irrelevant to this story, the boys and I took a cab home today from Xander's school. Xander did NOT want to take a cab home, and spent a good portion of the ride crying and screaming.  I spent half the ride talking to him, asking him questions about his day, and calming him down.  I spent the other half of the ride talking to the cab driver.  I saw how he was reacting to Xander - suppressed amusement - and I asked if he had kids.  He did, he said, one daughter who lived with her mother far away.  "Oy," I replied.  "That must be hard."  He then opened up to me utterly and completely.  It was surreal.  In one breath I was saying, "What color was the bike, honey?  Did you go slow or fast?" and in the next breath I was pitching my voice lower and asking how the driver's ex-wife felt about him beating his drug problem.  By the end of the 20-minute ride Xander had calmed down and was looking out the window, and the cab driver had shared with me his entire life story and gave me his cell phone number in case I ever needed a ride again.  It was the most bizarre, unexpected pastoral visit ever, but I felt like I really made a difference to two people at once.

2) Two nights ago, Xander woke up three times in one night, crying.  On the third round we finally got him to tell us what was the matter:  "I woke up and my energy was gone.  I was scared it wouldn't come back!"  After reassuring him that his energy was sleeping, just like he should be, Jonathan and I looked at each in amazement over his kid logic.  I also just sent out an email with the subject invite, "Party invite from Xander's mom," inviting some kids in his class to a small Hanukkah party at our house.  When did I get old enough to have a kid who's that articulate, and to have to send out party invites with his name as my identification?

3) A friend of mine is a lactation consultant at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.  She and I have been emailing back and forth because the mother of a baby in NICU is Orthodox and won't use the breast pump on Shabbat.  I've been giving her advice on how to approach the woman and help her understand her perspective, sort of a "Jewish nursing in halacha" talk.  The other night at HUC it was the opposite; the school hosted a "game night," and I found myself sitting on the floor building a tower out of JENGA blocks with Xander, talking to two new moms about nursing and breast pumps while going back to school. The same thing happened while schmoozing at Maura's birthday party the day after; this time it was nursing and cloth diapers at the Cheesecake Factory.   How in the world did I become the experienced one about this stuff?

Whatever next week will bring, I'm up for it!