Parenthood,....the continuing saga

Saturday, I wrote what I thought was, a heartfelt message to my firstborn. Please note I said what "I thought was", but I want you all to be aware that before posting it had to be daughter approved. It had been my intention to not embarrass her, and allegedly much of what I do is just that, embarrassing.  Now mind you, it isn't anything specific, apparently anything I do or say can be perceived as an embarrassment by my teenaged daughter. This is also the view of most teens with regards to their parents.  

I could sit here and regale in the stories of the countless times she embarrassed me, such as when she was still breastfeeding and decided it was time for lunch and unzipped my sweatshirt in public. She was 8 months old and at that moment I decided it was about time to ween her. I could also mention how I had to explain to a state trooper why I was pulled over on the Thruway crawling about trying to retrieve a Barbie she just threw out the window, or when she insisted I purchase a ticket for her to climb a rock wall and then decided she was too scared to do it. The end result, I had to climb first to show her it was safe. Did I mention I was wearing a dress? Yet, these are the things we do as parents, and we don't complain.

I have another child, fourteen years younger then her sister. Yes, you heard me right, just when I saw the light at the end of the tunnel I JUMPED back in the pool to do it all again. I think when she turns thirteen I am going to leave, I can always return when she is twenty-one! Frankly they say kids make you feel young but mine are making me feel my age, all forty-five years of them, but I digress.

I suppose that I am fine with the quirks, disappointments and blame that comes from being a mother. I never tried to be that cool mom, turned out I was because I watch anime, and once worked in the gaming industry and still played video games. The fact that I listen to current music didn't hurt my status either, but it was a status she used amongst her peers, never giving the compliments or acknowledgment to me herself. I suppose that would have been asking for too much.

Hopefully, this college transition will be easier than when I took her to school for the first time. Easier for me that is, she pushed me out of the class telling me to go, while I cried at the doorway and sat in my car. I was hurt and proud at the same time, proud of her self confidence that she could fend for herself without me. Hurt that she was so confident that she didn't need me to help her on her first day in school and could  fend for herself. So began the paradox of my role as her mother.

This blog entry was not daughter approved, but I think she will forgive my transgression. Our days together are growing fewer, so what is one more embarrassment.

Tonight's quote is from a woman who understood motherhood, and saw the humor in the madness; "Do you know what you call those who use towels and never wash them, eat meals and never do the dishes, sit in rooms they never clean, and are entertained till they drop? If you have just answered, "A house guest," you're wrong because I have just described my kids." ~Erma Bombeck

Parenthood

I am one in a legion of many, I am a parent. Worse than that I am a mother! You remember what mothers are, we are that half of the parent team that are blamed for all the ills when our children one day lay down at a therapist's office and complain about their lives. We are the ones that seem to have some inexplicable sense of knowing where all things are, for every member of the family. Unfortunately, we are the brunt of many jokes when we become in-laws. Some of us can be over bearing, over protective, and over indulgent, but what we all have in common is that relentless, never ending job, with the worse pay known to man, of raising future adults.

I am preparing to take my daughter to visit a college. These visits are to help shape her decision regarding her future, which frankly hadn't really hit me until a few moments ago. It just came down on me like a ton of bricks that my little chick is leaving the nest. I don't say preparing because the reality is that I have been preparing her since birth. 

I am blessed to have had the great fortune of having this person, my child, grace my life as she has. She is beautiful, intelligent, stubborn and outspoken. Qualities, that as much as I sometimes hate to admit to myself, she got honestly (the not so nice ones from me). My child is kind, considerate of others, with the exception at times being me. This is completely natural and understanding, after all she is not perfect, just close enough to perfection.

So here I am, with the great realization that next year at this time she will be in the midst of embarking on a journey that she will make mostly on her own with me in the distance. No longer on the sidelines, ready to scoop her up if she fell, no longer in front leading her by her hand. She will be doing this with the tools I have tried to give her and now I have to find a new role within her life and the definition of mother.

Still my job is not done, a mother's job never is. I have many new milestones to look forward to. Graduation, her first apartment, a wedding and God willing to see her step into this role of motherhood, one day herself. Scary thought isn't it. I just have to learn to let go of the child and wait on the future of the young woman, who hopefully will still need her mom from time to time.

When I look into those big brown eyes, I still see the baby they placed in my arms. Taking her to college I see the five year old, whose bus I followed on her first day in kindergarten. I kid you not, I am anxious and perhaps a bit wistful that the days where I was a Goddess in her eyes, incapable of mistakes and omnipotent knowing all the answers to her endless queries are behind me now. She will forever make me proud in all she endeavors, and in return makes me proud of a job well done, in rearing her. 

Funny though, I am still looking for the manual that should have come with her at birth, because somewhere there should be a reset button!

Quote for the day and please read and think on this one; "The moment a child is born; the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother never. The mother is something absolutely new."~Rajneesh