It’s So Hard To Watch Them Grow Up….
So…we ran errands today. It was the usual stuff. We got paper for school, bird seed, strawberries that were on sale, a shield to try and keep the squirrel from eating all the birdseed (cayenne didn’t work…we have a squirrel that after about 48 hours decided spicy was GOOD) and some squirrel food to hopefully distract him. We took a trip to the used bookstore and I dropped off a load of books…and bought more. (I am so pathetic.) And we bought an electric shaver for my 13 year old.
So what’s so hard about that? Is it that it is so hard to see them grow up? Certainly that would make me a “good mother.” I wish I could say that, but those of you who know me would be the first to leave “truth-telling” type remarks to this entry with stories of the real “me.” Yes it’s true. I have told a wounded child (in a rather panicked voice) “Don’t bleed on the carpet!!” In my defense, it was a beige carpet. I have also openly advocated the three G’s as my goal: Grown, Gone, and Gainfully Employed. So seeing my son take these first steps toward manhood, well it just isn’t one of those moments that provokes sentiment in me.
No. What was hard about this situation as I watched that fledgling male-ego tell me about shaving his nonexistant facial hair and choosing an electric razor that would be most suited for camp this summer was not the welling up of maternal emotion. No as I looked at his hairline and realized his request for a haircut was rooted in the fact that his attempts with the sideburn trimmer made him look rather moth eaten WAY up past his ears, it was not wistful thoughts of babyhood past that welled up inside me. No. I’m afraid that the maternal emotion I struggled with was how NOT to giggle uncontrollably.
