Suddenly, just like.....

THAT, it's over.

My mothering of teen children (grown in my womb) will come to an end toooo-night.

At 3:33 am my baby, the Koby family caboose.... will turn the big 2-0

These days I can hardly look at that boy and not tear up.

I'm counting the days until he leaves for college... trying to hold them back.

I'm pulling so hard that my arms hurt, but not as much as my heart.

This is the way it's supposed to be, right?

You pray hard and love harder and work like a dog for years and years and years...

Years that go by in minutes, or so it seems.

2 becomes 10 becomes 20... just... like... that..... they go on and grow up and move out and get their own lives.

In what feels like an instant your days of mothering young children is o-v-e-r.

I'm already tired of the mothering of grown-up rules I shouldn't break.

The boundaries I shouldn't cross.

Keeping my nose in my own business sucks way worse than I ever thought it would.

Next Wednesday Bear (my former baby) and I are going together to see his Kalamazoo apartment...

The motherless place where he plans to hang his hat for the next year or forever.

Who will care for him when he gets sick?

Who will grease his palm with a few bucks when he's broke?

Cut his hair?

Make him cupcakes?

Frick this shit...

I feel a tantrum on its way.

Maybe I'll sit on the sidewalk outside that damn apartment and make him drag me inside...

I don't want (you) to go (there) Bear and dammit you can't make me (like the fact that you're going away).

I don't care if the neighbors (or your new roommates) are watching.

Remember I said this day would come?

The day we would switch places.

All kidding aside... I will miss this very very very special teenage boy.


This quote from the movie Annie about sums this whole sit-chi-ation up...

"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."

xoxoxo, thank you for listening.

And because he promised to read this blog tonight when he gets home, a message for my baby boy...

Happy Birthday darling Bear, I'll meet you in your dreams @ 3:33 tonight. 

xooxoxoxoxoxoxo

All cheesy (and not proud of it)......

Saturday evening found me belly up on the couch in the living room moaning and groaning that I couldn't bear cooking one more mundane dinner..that I was so tired of the same old crap that we eat every damn day of our freakin lives and there (seriously) was (absolutely) no food in the house to cook even if I even wanted to.

"What sounds good" Daddio asked, trying to soothe my foul mood.

"Nothing" I pouted.

"Well on second thought, maybe Taco Bell" I said.

I suited up and hit the road.

In my little town you have two options to get to Taco Bell. One is through Town, which means speed limits so low I have to keep my foot on the brake to keep my car going the legal posted speed.....which is CRAWL.

The other is the Hall to Vreeland Road route...which means pot holes, random herds of deer, big (BIG) fast traveling trucks driven by drivers who all seem to have an eerie resemblance to Large Marge.

Vreeland Road also sports a train track with the stupidest train yard workers in the free world.

No matter what time day or night you pass this set of tracks there is a train on its way to being stopped dead over the tracks, I'm talking they sometimes stop the Caboose on the tracks, the one car Caboose... a fat man in suspenders stops the one car train literally within a few feet of clearing the tracks and then leaves it there idling. Pissin people off.

Especially people like me, filled with impatience and nerves wound tighter than a spring loaded seat belt retractor.

Take Vreeland Road, and you know your gonna be playing a game of beat the train.

And when I don't (beat the train)...which is almost every time, I beep my horn and I scream crazy crap out the window at the guy in the suspenders.

Not that he understands or even hears a word I’m saying… but it makes me feel better.

I promise the kids (and I seriously mean it) that one day one day I am going to be the lunatic that crashes into the side of the train...I'll go happy, I tell them.

Tonight I choose Vreeland Road, possibly the lesser of two irritations.

I successfully maneuver around the pot holes, I out run the deer and I beat the train....

Pooo-pooo-peee-freakin do....I am the man (just ask me).

Arriving at Taco Bell I see that I am number 36 in the drive-through.

I people watch, all the while Satan sits on my shoulder and urges me on, I critique the parking lot's walking dead, which seems to be every person entering and exiting.

I'm beyond evil and judgmental.

Waiting to be the next car to order, I'm able to read the entire 10x12 foot menu board in the 15 minutes I spend in front of it.

While reading I see this...

Taco Bell's new Crispy Potato Soft Taco....

A soft flour tortilla filled with crispy potato bites, Pepper Jack sauce, crisp, shredded lettuce, and real cheddar cheese.

OMG.....potatoes and cheese!!!!

I'll take ten.

Just kidding, I ordered 8 crunchy tacos and one potato taco.

The invisible person I was placing my order with asked if I wanted to donate a dollar to ckeoriendljkfneorue and for nowierh;a skjdfb;isuer;awe t.

"Yeah, sure" I answered, still riding high on my excitement about the new taco.

When I got to the window, I asked what my dollar was going for.

The kid left the window and me searching for an answer to my perplexing question.

Silly me, I'm such a pill…possibly I crossed some kind of boundary asking a question like that??

I was sitting at the front of the line holding things up… and getting a tad nervous.

I could see the guy behind me in my rearview it appeared he was getting madder by the minute.

The kid came back and explained that he was collecting dollars for moias'ro;tj werkgaw'r and kha;woeir hwejkf and to help kids graduate.

I gave him the buck; wanting to tell him that my own kid just graduated and I probably would rather give the buck to him...I just cut my losses and went forward.

When I pulled away from the pick up window the bag dangling from my free hand seemed a bit light.

I breathed a sigh of relief seeing that my new potato taco was in there.

But there were only 5 crunchy ones.

I pulled around and parked.

After a little 20 minute wait I was given my shorted tacos and out the door I ran.

Towards Vreeland Road and the flashing red lights.

I cracked open the bag, took out the potato taco, ate a bite and wrapped it back up.

Then I did it again, and again and again.

I was feeling a bit piggish downing that taco in the car.

I crumpled up the evidence wrapper and shoved it way down deep into my very dirty purse.

Cleaned off my mouth.

Dental flossed my teeth.

And wiped the huge smile off my face all before I walked in the front door with our dinner.

“It took you a long time” Daddio said when I came in. He walked toward me, squinting his eyes.

“Why do you have cheese and lettuce stuck to your chest?”

I wasn't sure what I should answer..."the counter guy and I got into a taco fight?"

"My chest is littered with shreaded chedder cheese and lettuce because the guy screwed up my order, and stole a buck from me and I was caught by another train on the way home and the tacos smelled so damn good and I was just too freakin hungry to just smell it any longer and so I tore into it and devoured it in a few piggish bites"...

"AND since you asked......"

"I'll tell you what is really going on and why I have a chest full of lettuce and cheese it's called emotional eating and buddy I am frickin starving....

I'm all stressed out, I'm working on a big party for Saturday, I love/hate parties, I'm worried worried worried and my last kid is graduating and I am scared to be the mother of completely grown children.

 I don't know if I know how to do that.

There I said it...now somebody needs to hide the peanut butter cups and the potato chips.

Secrets, lies, and a damn good coffee cake....

I went to a meeting this past Friday morning. It was a steering committee meeting. (lots of e's in that sentence)...I'll explain soon what this steering committee is all about.

In the meantime suffice it to say that Beth Gump has been invited to be a member, WHY she has been invited is one of the great mysteries of her life....HOW she can pretend to fit in, may be another.

Secrets.....

                                                                          

I hope this young woman hangs around for a long time. She makes my boy a better person (which is saying a lot since I already think the kid is the shit).

I pass this sign every day on my way to work. It used to identify a busy, bustling with life hospital which is no more...a victim of this crappy economy.

The parking lot, long untended is getting weed filled and littered with bits of trash.

But the sign gives me a feeling of hope and optimism.

GOD BLESS AMERICA....a surprising, unexpected, beautiful message in a dreary cold moment in time.

Kind of like a rose in December.

Lies..... 

    

1. Baby's got back.
2. Yoga pants look good on everyone.
3. The family curse of "no butt" aka "pancake ass" has (thankfully) passed Googie by.
4. It's a sin to burn perfectly good clothing.

(Disclaimer...Googie does have back. This is how she looks every week when she's bringing her sleeping quarters up to white glove perfect.)


A few short weeks from now I will be perfectly fine sitting in a stuffy high school gym high in the bleachers watching as my last baby walks across a decorated stage and accepts his diploma.

I won't tear up or embarrass anybody by crying my heart out.  Big, gulping, body racking sobs won't cause those around me to squirm (or Daddio to threaten to pop me one in the nose), no I won't do that ...at least not out loud I won't.

Photo by Kathleen Foulkrod of Heartstrings Photography

www.heartstringsphoto.com

I know I mentioned something in the title of this post about a damn good coffee cake...not only did I leave the recipe at work, but I'm sitting here over my keyboard with leaking eyes and a boogery nose soooo I must excuse myself quick like and find some Kleenex.

Please, come tomorrow back for that recipe and a virtual bite.

And have yourself a merry little Monday....(i really really hate mondays).

What was that?

I scampered over sleeping Daddio and a smothering pile of sheets and blankets like a Jesus lizard running on water.

Seriously, I took about three giant steps, flew up, off the bed and onto the floor in seconds flat.

Then I stopped dead in my tracks.

Did I just hear what I thought I heard?

I stood silent and waited.

I cocked my head toward the sound.

My eyes scanned the clock.... 2:03 am

Then the sound came again.

The phone!!!

"THE PHONE IS RINGING AND IT IS TWO O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING"... I screeched at Daddio.

See, the thing is, I have a BIG problem with answering a phone that rings in the middle of the night...it may have something to do with the fact that I got the news of my brother's fatal accident by phone. That call came on a Sunday night around nine or nine-thirty.

For a long time I couldn't and wouldn't answer the phone on Sundays.

Phone calls after 9 pm usually bring nothing but trouble...unless you're expecting a baby in the immediate family, which we aren't.

As quickly as I was scaling Daddio and the mountains of covers  I was doing a mental tally of where my children should be.

In bed.

In bed.

In bed.

All the commotion had Daddio out of bed as well and in the split seconds it took for me to locate the ringing phone he had thrown back the blinds of our bedroom window to see if the kid's cars were where they should be too.

Reaching the phone, which had just stopped ringing , I ordered my eyes to focus and my fingers to find the TALK button.

I fumbled for the call log button.....WHO was calling in the middle of the night??????

Before I looked down to see WHO.... I remembered.

BEAR....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bear and his friends had gone to see a midnight flick (yeah, I know it's a school night..and your point is???)

 The opening night for the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street.

"Hello? Hello? Hello" I cried into the phone.

Nothing. Dead silence.

My fingers, on auto pilot, dialed Bear's number.

"Ma" he answered, his voice a whisper.

"Could you come open the door"?

"Googie locked the deadbolt".

When he stepped in the door I kissed and hugged him like he was returning from War.

"I can't take much more of this" Daddio said when I crawled over him to get back to my spot in our bed.

"People like us shouldn't have children".

Silently I thanked my Lord for safe children, the man sleeping next to me, and our strong aortas.

Aortas that have really been put to the test these past twenty four years that we've been parents.

I went to sleep thinking of home defibrillators.

And then I had a bad dream.

I'll tell you all about it on Monday.

The Bunny commeth....

My sister Susan does not read my blog.

And it is because of posts exactly like this one......

In the blink of an eye,

this happened.....

Maybe de'nial is just a river in Egypt. Now if you'll excuse me I have some top secret work to tend to...

(Happy Easter...see you on Monday)