The End of Motherhood?

Dilemma of the Day...to go or not to go?

It is 7:23 AM.  Upper School Parent Day starts in less than an hour.

I am happily working at my computer when Mate stumbles in, bleary eyed. He had the post-movie pickup duty last night...

Mate:  So, what are we doing?

Me: About what?

Mate: Upper School Parent Day.

Me: You are NOT actually considering not going?

Mate: We've met two of his teachers already!

Me: (Torn) We have NEVER missed one before.

Mate: I think we would grow as people if we lived in the anxiety of not going.

Me: (Laughing).  No, seriously.  Isn't it a dereliction of duty to not go?

Silence.

Me: I'm waiting.

Mate: I know. I'm thinking.

Beat.

Beat.

Mate: I don't know. I think there are a lot of ways to be a slacker as a parent, but missing a ten minute synopsis of Life Skills is not one of them.

Me: It's true that I never actually learn that much at these things and there is no time...

Mate: (Interrupting) Would your mother go?

Me: I doubt it. 

Mate: Look how well you turned out.

Me: (Looking at him disbelievingly - he has conveniently forgotten all those years of therapy) ... it's true there is no time to actually talk to the teachers so in a way, I go as much to BE SEEN than I do to get anything out of it. I don't want to be seen as a slacker mother and have some vain hope that the teachers will pay more attention to Youngest if I show up.

Mate:  I don't think he needs our help in that area.

This is very true.

Me: Don't you have some sense of obligation?

Mate: Yes, I do. But I am fighting it with every fiber of my being.  Because I'd rather stay home and work.

Me:  (Conflicted) ARGH!

Help us, dear readers-if-there-are-any-of-you-still-out-there, you're our only hope.  What should we do?

PS  Since I am clearly abandoning my youngest for the joys of my newest pursuit, come see how great it is...

Still no response but...

So he didn't respond to this or this, but he did send the following text:

"I gave up on the scanner system. Mine is too slow. I'm going back to paper and binder...old school."

Would it kill him to revert to old school communication techniques like, say, the telephone?

***

My chicks are abandoning the nest with alarming regularity, so I need a new baby. Got one.

Ok, well that didn't work, so I'm gonna try this...

This didn't get me a response from Middle.  So now I'm gonna bring out the, uh, big guns.

Today I sent him this:

What to do when your college freshman forgets his mother...

We have not heard much from Middle. At all. 

He doesn't phone. He doesn't text.  God forbid he should email. 

Unless he wants something, of course.

So I am on the hunt to find things that will elicit a little contact.

I am going to start by sending him this.

***

Now that my chicks are flying the coop at an alarming rate, I've had to, well, replace them.  Please come see my new baby and help her grow.

From the department of my mother was right...

Bedtimes matter.

My kids are flying the coop at a disconcerting pace, but I have a new baby.  Come see!

He's off...

Sniff.

The Last First Day

An email from Oldest arrived in my inbox today...

Subject:  Last First Day of School

What does it take to get a boy who grows up to be a man ( a Senior in college!) that is this sweet?

I really can't tell you.

All I know is that, if you are very lucky,  there comes a moment when all the long days of loving, worrying, fussing, stroking, laughing, yelling, tickling, scolding, tousling, hugging and singing, the long days of talking and listening, of holding on and letting go, they all find their way back to you and slip, an unexpected guest who knows and loves you back, inside your heart. 

And... he has to have looked like on the First First Day...

Things that used to drive you crazy, but which end up stopping your heart...

You know how much time, energy and maternal capital I spent trying to get my kids pick their clothes up off the bathroom floor?

Thank God I failed.

OK, so maybe there's ONE little slice of a silver lining after all...

I have found at least one good thing about Middle's departure.

I got to ditch the following from our Tivo Season Pass list:

Superjail.
Does anyone know what this show means?

Nitro Circus
Cause I know you want a taste, here is today's Daily Download.

MANswers
OMG, if I had known what this show was I would have deleted it long ago.

And just when you thought it could not, really it could NOT, get any worse...

Lock N' Load with R. Lee Ermey

PS I could not bring myself to delete the Season Pass for Top Gear because when I really miss him, I'll watch an episode and text him a question about the most obscure aspect of the show and I'll be 100%, absolutely, positively guaranteed a return text.

Weeping the end of summer away...

I have been in mourning for the last two days. Middle and Mate left on Friday and I wept all day. I was particularly sad because Middle was uncharacteristically sad himself about leaving. He has always been the one child of ours that I could rely on to be incredibly excited about any new adventure. I remember when he went to camp for the first time in third grade. I was weeping and he was nothing but keyed up and excited. He is always the first one up and ready for any trip, no matter how early in the morning we are departing. His bags are packed, his shower taken and his breakfast eaten before his brothers roll groggily out of bed.

Not this time. Friday morning, when I went into his room at 5AM and crawled under the covers to watch him pack his computer and iPod into his backpack, he immediately stopped what he was doing and crawled back into bed with me. Mutt, who has an unerring nose for exchanges of love, joined us, arranged herself right between us and started snoring. I stroked Middle's hair and scratched his back and none of us wanted the moment to end.

Mate came and did his job of breaking things up to get them on the road.

Middle asked for the camera and we took pictures.

We stalled some more by me asking if he wanted some fresh OJ and him saying, "Yes."

It was dark when we finally walked out to the car.

The night before, as we all sat down outside for our last family dinner of the summer, a huge owl came and landed on the cedar tree at the edge of our yard. We all oohed and ahhhed as he swiveled his head almost all the way around and stared down at us all, gathered together. He screeched loudly - and often. We all wondered where the idea came that owls hoot. We wondered at how such a large bird could successfully perch on such a small branch.  He stayed so long that we all got used to him - took his enormous presence for granted way up in the cedar. And only when he flew away on wide and silent wings did we notice him again, and marvel at his passage through the darkening sky.

The next morning, as Middle and I hugged in the dark driveway, the owl came back. It was so dark we couldn't see him, but his familiar call broke the canyon's silence right above us.

And as they drove away, it occurred to me that the owl had come to remind Middle that when he was in second grade he announced he wanted to be an ornithologist when he grew up. 

I went inside, crying my eyes out.

To me, when Oldest left for college it was like a death. I know that is extreme. I know that when our kids go to away they are doing just what they are supposed to do. I feel proud of them. Proud of myself for mothering such amazing boys. Excited too - for their new life and my opportunity to revisit the person I was before I the miracle of their arrival.

But it still feels like a death.

When I came back from dropping Oldest off at college, I used to go into his closet and run my hands over his shirts. After they Middle and Mate left on Friday, I went back into Middle's room to catch the last warmth of his presence.

I spent most of the day crying on and off.

But then, when I sat down at my computer to busy myself with something, anything, a lovely surprise landed in my email inbox.

It was a video!  Middle behind the wheel, his arm out the window, sunglasses on, music blaring, the Arizona desert flying by, happy, relaxed, himself, still here on the planet, just heading East.

That made me happier.

For a minute.