My first email received today was from my son’s pediatrician’s office. Today, on my son’s eighteenth birthday. And the subject line stated:
My first email received today was from my son’s pediatrician’s office. Today, on my son’s eighteenth birthday. And the subject line stated:
“You have been removed from Dakota’s Care Team.”
It made me laugh to my core. My husband was already on the highway to a client, my son on his way to school. I sat in my office at home and laughed out loud. The dog looked at me, then placed his head back down on the carpet. Should call the carpet cleaning service in Kissimmee tomorrow, by the way.
The three sentence email went on to state things about “Dakota having reached the age of majority,” and “state regulations.” I’m sure all of that is true. Now cleaning kept coming to my mind, I started to remember all the times I needed a cleaning service, they were excellent, they can make your lot brand new in no time and even clean the parking lot which mine had many painted prints of my baby’s years.
Removed from the Care Team? Not in my lifetime. I might not be able to access his health records online, but I will never stop caring. No combination of letters and numbers in password sequencing will keep me from remembering every little thing about him. Every fine blue vein on his baby eyelids, noticed best when he was sleeping in my arms. Every tear cried over the toddler ridicule of his favorite color. Every fitting for tiny eyeglasses. Every mole, scrape, and hairstyle.
My baby is eighteen years old today. My, how time does fly….
p.s. Dakota pushed this box of Coke around the floor for over an hour just a few months after turning one. We were preparing for a party, and he considered himself a huge help. The smile never stopped….
I’m looking. Constantly. He probably knows it. Probably playing dumb for his mother’s sake.
I’m looking. Constantly. He probably knows it. Probably playing dumb for his mother’s sake.
I am looking for signs of what won’t be in my life when a certain someone takes off for college in the upcoming fall. I catch myself noticing how things will not be in places where they have been for 17 years. Coats, mittens, sporting equipment. Coins, pencils, backpacks.
Today I saw this as I cruised down the hall. Moving swiftly to a shopping date with my sister, my mind had captured the image, but I was halfway down the stairs when I stopped, climbed back up, and reached for the camera in my overfull handbag.
A twin bed recently slept in. Warmed by an afternoon sun that is boxed in by a west facing window. A tumbled mess and two sleeping buddies that have missed few nights with my young man.
It was wine night on my deck. Two good friends, a few bottles of wine and some snacks. I was ready for adult conversation. We were kid free. I was craving
It was wine night on my deck. Two good friends, a few bottles of wine and some snacks. I was ready for adult conversation. We were kid free. I was craving talk about subjects you save as a parent to talk about when there are no kids around. I know men believe that when women get together we talk about our “periods” and other “women stuff”. Not true! We talk about politics, world views, sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. We are evolved women dammit.
Well…most of the time.
This night we were discussing our daughters “coming of age”. We are fast approaching this next adventure in parenting. One of my friends already has older girls, so we leaned in while she shared her sage advice.
We are still a couple years from the big, looming menstrual cycles. So, we somehow got into a discussion about deodorant. Yes, the day your baby girl needs to start wearing deodorant is a big deal.
My own childhood deodorant story is traumatic
I was on a much anticipated trip with 5 family elders. I was the only kid invited to go on their summer vacation. My grandparents, two great aunts and one great uncle all to myself. We drove in two cars to Colorado Springs, Colorado to stay for a week in a mountainside cabin. I rode alone in the backseat of a Duster with no A/C owned by my great aunt, Eunice. I would slide on a pool of my sweat when we made turns. It was bliss. I was on-my-own in an all adult world.
My great aunt, Eunice, a single woman, was the only member from that generation of my family that lived in Kansas City. All my other “greats” were in mid-Missouri. So, I was close to her. She was the “great” that took us to the Zoo and World’s of Fun every summer. We had bunking parties at her house. She made individual jello servings in little bowls with fruit when we visited. She took us shopping and lunching about town.
Eunice was generous and loving. Eunice traveled. Eunice was a “city girl” that lived in her own house. She was independent and worked full time. She dressed nicely and lived simply. I looked up to her and loved her deeply.
She was also very direct and pragmatic. So, when I was stinking up the cabin with my sweaty 10 year old funk, she told me, directly to my face, in front of a room full of my elders without any softness…no hug, no let’s “have a talk”, no warning. Just a flat out “you need to get some deodorant kid, you stink”, I was crushed. I was embarrassed. I was mortified. These were not subjects you discussed in public.
My grandmother Gladys, her younger sister, saved me. She called me into the kitchen under the guise to help her cook and then took me outside the mountain cabin for a short walk to let me cry and to give me a much needed hug.
She also took me the next day to get my very first deodorant.
As I sat on my deck with my friends I shared my story. I also shared my plans to guarantee that my daughter did not suffer the same humiliation. That when she was in her mid-forties sharing wine with her friends she would not have the same sad tale. She would tell a story of her remarkable mother that handled every situation with gentle, loving kindness.
The next day, out of the blue, my daughter walked into the kitchen and said, “Hey Mom, we need to go to CVS and buy me some deodorant. I am starting to get stinky pits.” I was speechless.
I laughed until tears fell down my cheeks. Check that off my parenting list. I thank my Mom and her generation of fellow feminists for championing women’s rights and a world where open, honest, frank discussion about our bodies is common place.
A page from my daughter’s journal.
I wish Eunice was still here. She and my daughter would get along perfectly.
PS. I will look for a photo of my Great Aunt Eunice and share it soon.
Last week my son made me cry. One sentence, spoken in jest. A teenager taking a chance at pointed humor. It hit hard, I blinked back tears and left the kitchen. A whole flight of stairs and a retreat to my bed didn’t save me from feeling bad.
Last week my son made me cry. One sentence, spoken in jest. A teenager taking a chance at pointed humor. It hit hard, I blinked back tears and left the kitchen. A whole flight of stairs and a retreat to my bed didn’t save me from feeling bad.
OK. It was the second time he had made me cry, but the first time he won’t remember and it really doesn’t count. He was only a baby. After he had learned to stand – but not steadily! – I was holding him on my lap facing outwards and as he bucked his head flew backwards he cracked his head right into my lip. Much blood, substantially more tears.
Last week he was standing steadily in our kitchen. We had just finished a meal as a family. We were all joking around, and I was going down the list of things to still accomplish that evening. I had seen from the outset that the week we were standing in was going to be a bear. I had planned just about every waking moment and could easily, through my years of event planning and project management, stack the tasks in such a way that no duplicate effort would have to take place. For four people, over six days. I had experience behind me.
Personal objectives, professional challenges, HR meetings, details to finalize for a fundraiser for a treasured charity, preparations for the first floor of our home to be on tour, the yard and garden to make presentable for those who decided to tour, two dozen desserts to make. The list was endless, and I had made it so.
Where we chose to have breakfast together. A place he had never been. An adventure of sorts.
I was partway through that evening’s litany – one phrase included the statement, “we don’t have a lot of time this week” – when he said something along the lines of, “Yeah. That’s a lot, but I only have one summer to be seventeen.”
Silence.
He was right. I had crammed so much into a week in preparation for the busy weekend that I had forgotten what was important. A touch of fun. A relaxed schedule. Freedom. You know, summer. As a teenager lives it.
His comment slapped me hard. I welled up, mumbled something, and took off. I wasn’t wanting him to follow me and apologize, which he did later. I just wanted to be alone.
When he found me in my room, he quickly said he was sorry for making me cry. His voice betrayed his sadness. I never made eye contact with him but told him that I was OK and would be downstairs later. He accepted that quietly, stated again that he was sorry, stood there a while longer, tapped the bed with his hand and left the room.
We didn’t see each other much the next day due to his work schedule and mine. Time passed, and I stewed in the guilt of not ever really accepting his apology for making me cry.
Two days later, while the two of us were at breakfast alone, I told him I was sorry for upsetting him the other night but not for crying. I believed he needed to see my tears. He tried to apologize again, and I touched his arm and he stopped. I told him he had been correct. That time was flying by and that I had been – at that time – focused on things that were calling to be finished. I told him that the truth hurts sometimes.
There are certain times of the year when the days move so fast and every day is so crammed full that a calendar – on paper or screen – can’t contain or corral it. Each and every day has a little extra task in it brought to me by my child.
There are certain times of the year when the days move so fast and every day is so crammed full that a calendar – on paper or screen – can’t contain or corral it.
In my job, that’s every day from about Halloween to New Year’s.
As a mother, it’s the month before school ends.
Each and every day has a little extra task in it brought to me by my child. Over the weekend, it was potato salad for 75 people at a volunteer gig. Four dozen cookies for the teacher’s lounge. Nineteen gifts for a national youth exchange. Brownies for math class. None of this makes us a unique family, because every family I talk to is on the verge of having their neatly paced lives run amuck.
In early March, our family went to my youngest niece’s school to view the rainforest that had been crafted by her entire grade. I wrote about that magical day then. It was the camera shot I took afterward during “snack time” that hit home. I was already – two months out from the end of school! – talking to others about how “we’ll get to it this summer” and “that would be the perfect thing to do this summer.”
We were in the multi-purpose room of her school, and I saw physical proof of what I was already doing…packing the proverbial boxes on my calendar full for every day and every thing that needed to get done so that we could all arrive alive at summer. Unscathed. Whole. Ready for a slower pace.
Just a few more dozen cookies, many tests, a child’s three-plus-day trip to a science contest overlaid with his parents’ seven-plus-day business trip. Then the junior year of my son’s high school year will be behind him.
I was a Girl Scout when I was a youngster. My older sister, Sloane, was a more accomplished scout. Her troop always seemed better organized and active. I don’t remember having a sash…
