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April 28th, 2000
My Son
So, here I am. Pulling my early thirties on a trailer hitch,
living in a home with a trailer hitch and getting the kids off to school without a hitch. Doesn't get much finer
than that. Well, that's not true. Living in Barbados with an income supplemented by Ted Turner would be finer than
that, but Ted already has a woman. Instead, I've changed a million diapers, picked up countless Legos - enough
to build a striking addition to the Whitehouse - and have managed to keep a relative level of sanity throughout.
Excuse me for a moment while I pop my medication.
On the day your children are born, you sense your life is changing. In fact, I had a phone call from a friend the
other morning. She had become a first time mother just months before.
"What an odd day I'm having," she said to me. "My phone wasn't working earlier and now my power
has gone out." I could hear a small child wailing in the background.
"It's the baby, you know." I stated, matter of fact "They're energy vampires. First they suck it
out of your utilities and then you're the next to go."
Early in my life I made the very rational and well thought out conclusion to have four children. This way I could
ultimately enjoy all that motherhood had to offer me.
Please pardon me for a moment while I laugh myself into a coma. Okay. I'm better now.
Just run with me a little while on this. If I do not rationalize this parenthood, I shall be forced to gather my
rolling pin, clamber to the top of a highway viaduct and leap before the next passing semi.
In an extra venture to make this experience of motherhood even more worth while, I spaced my children out so that
at any given time I would have one in every facet of growth. I have a teenager, a preteen, a preschooler and a
toddler. Therapy is my friend.
My teenage son. What can a woman say about a young man in the throws of maturity that does not have to be said
while shouting through the backside of a sealed bathroom door? He spends many an hour in the sanctity of this room.
I did catch him once as he emerged from a forty-minute stint. It was a toss up between immediately placing a call
to Unsolved Mysteries or talking to him. I decided I should seize the moment.
"You know I know what you're doing in there, don't you?"
He looked at me almost stricken, unable to speak.
"Ever since you were two-years-old and I caught you balancing a Lego on the tip of your nether-region, I knew
you were destined for a perverse fascination with it." I remind him again, "One of these days I shall
share that Lego story with your prom date."
"Then I'll just never go to the Prom, Mom." he offers defiantly.
"Well, then I'll save it for your wedding." I counter.
"Then I just won't get married," he pronounces victoriously.
With a smile I inform him, "Honey, even if you grow up to be homosexual I am going to share this with someone."
I watch him leave the room defeated. As a parent, you must always maintain the upper hand.
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