Dear Me.

Hi 16 year old McMommy,

It's me....future you.
McMommy in her young 30s.

Fine.
Young 30s-ish.

Mid-30s doesn't hit until next Tuesday at 3:36pm when I/you officially turn 35.
We'll deal with that little fun fact later.

Stop leaning in to see if I/you have eye wrinkles and saggy boobs.
It's the year 2013 now and those can all be dealt with easily.....IF I have them.
Call me one of the Real Housewives husbands...they are all plastic surgeons.

GASP! YOU DON'T KNOW WHO THE REAL HOUSEWIVES ARE?!?!
Aren't you cute.

Moving on.....

So here's the thing.....what's it like again?
To be you.  Like that.
All bill-less and worry-less and responsibility-less.
Remind me because those years seem so long ago.

Remind me of what it was like to get excited about the upcoming summer vacation.

Because right now when I hear "summer vacation", sadly all I can think about is the cost of summer camp and how in the world I am going to swing a few days off of work so I can take the boys on a little summer vacay trip.

What?  Oh yeah, you have two kids.
Boys actually.

Remember when you thought you were going to have two girls and play Barbies and dress up and get manicures together???  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
No, you had TWO BOYS!
And now you play Skylanders, decipher wordless Lego directions, and say things like "We do not say fart at the dinner table."

But you love those boys more than anything.
And you will literally use your last dollar to buy them that Skylander they want so bad.

So did you sleep in today?
I seem to recall you/me used to sleep in until noon on the weekends.

LOL.  Noon.

These days noon means you are two meals in already and the boys are asking "What are we going to do NEXT?"

And if you don't come up with a good enough reply in the next 2.2 seconds?
It will quickly be followed by the dreaded "I'M BOOOOOOOOOOREDDDDDD."

But you still love those boys more than anything.

Oh and by the way....even though you/I wake up at the crack of dawn with these boys?

That doesn't mean you actually slept the whole night uninterrupted.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
You are so adorable with all your assumptions about how you think life is going to turn out.

No, even though you wake up at the crack.....you most likely were woken up at night for:

a.) Scary dream
b.) Mommy, my legs hurt.
c.) I need water.
d.) Are you awake, Mommy?
f.) Is it time to wake up yet, Mommy?
g.) all of the above
h.) all of the above but at separate times throughout the night

So, if I could give you one piece of advice, it would be this:

Hold onto 16 as long as you can.
Changes come around real soon, make us women and men.

Wait.  That's John Cougar Mellencamp's advice.

My advice to you is this:

Sleep way past noon.

Stop stressing about SATs.  You didn't score as high as you wanted to and yet you still got into every college you wanted to.

Travel more.

The flaming cucaracha shots in Cancun will not burn your mouth.

Sleep way past noon.

Don't do what you think you should do.
Do what you want to do.

Listen to John Cougar Mellencamp's advice.
For a year anyway.
Then you turn 17.
Jack and Diane are right....Life does go on.

And then before you know it?
Your kid actually sleeps in on a Saturday.....

All the way until 7:32am.

So listen to me very carefully......stop reading this right now, 16 year old McMommy.

And GO BACK TO BED UNTIL NOON.