When my son walked through the door yesterday, after having broken the “no walking home” rule, I calmly asked him to sit down so we could talk.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I was conflicted about the situation.
The act of walking home isn’t a “bad” thing. He didn’t shoplift, or get in a fight, or snort crack. He walked home, with friends. HOWEVER, I had told me he wasn’t allowed to walk home.
So, I was upset that he had done something he knew he wasn’t supposed to do.
I started by telling him that I wanted to be clear that “walking home” wasn’t a bad thing, but the fact that he DISOBEYED ME was the reason I was upset.
At first, he tried to talk himself out of it. “You told me I could walk home if I had a friend with me.”
“That’s not what I said, Andrew. I said that perhaps I would consider letting you walk home IF you had a group of friends with you, but that for now, the answer is NO. Can I ask you why you didn’t just call BEFORE you took off walking?”
He put his head down and said “I knew you’d say no.”
“And you did it anyway?”
“Yes, because I really wanted to walk home with Ryan and Anthony, and I thought if I was with them, you wouldn’t get mad.”
I told him I needed a few minutes to think about what I was going to do.
“Mom, just know I’m sorry and I’ll never do it again.”
I spent a few minutes in my room, thinking of what to do with my son, the one I gave birth to almost 13 years ago, whom I love with every fiber of my being, whom I have spent my entire adult life protecting from anything that could possibly harm him. The one who is growing up TOO DAMN FAST.
I started to cry. I realized that the reason this upset me so much didn’t really have anything to do with the fact he broke the “no walking home” rule and almost everything to do with the fact that the little boy who emerged from my vagina after 2 hours of pushing, making me a momma13 years ago on March 3rd is no longer a little boy, but a budding young man.
Don’t get me wrong, he did disrespect me by breaking the rule, and that deserved to be dealt with, but, the fact of life is that kids do break rules from time to time. Even my perfect children. And yeah, I get upset and there are consequences, but this one act of disobedience is about much more than “not asking me first.” It’s about him growing up, becoming more independent, making big decisions…
It’s hard to put into words exactly what I’m feeling right now without sounding ridiculous. “He walked home without asking first, it’s NOT THE END OF THE WORLD.” I understand that, but this feeling that I have in the pit of my stomach the same feeling I had the summer before he began kindergarten.
I am not exaggerating when I say that I cried the entire summer. I couldn’t believe that MY BABY was no longer going to spend every day here with me, making me laugh, giving me kisses, making messes for me to clean up… I couldn’t even comprehend my mornings without him here with me. I cried every damn time I thought about him being gone for 4 hours a day.
And? I worried if I had spent enough quality time with him in his first 5 years of life. I should have taken him to the park more often! I should have read more books to him! I should have taken him to chuck e cheeses more often! I should have watched more movies with him! I should have cuddled him more!
I called my friend on one of my really “bad days” and told her that I felt like I hadn’t spent enough time with him. Her response? “STOP IT, you spend ALL of your time with him, you do fun things with him all of the time, you’ve been a great mom, DON’T YOU EVER QUESTION THAT.”
I’m having those feelings all over again. The feeling of “losing my baby boy to the big bad world”.
My heart is broken right now and I’m feeling a little lost.
I realize that I’m being very dramatic about this, but MY GOD IN HEAVEN I love that boy and I am scared as hell about all of the bad things that could happen to him as he becomes more independent.
I want to protect him, to keep him pure and innocent and the fact that I can’t do that for the rest of his life is a little hard to accept.
After a few minutes of thinking and crying and wondering what to do with He Who Disobeyed Me, I composed myself, walked into the kitchen, sat down next to him and talked to him.
I’m not going to go into the details of what happened when it was all said and done, but I will tell you that I know he won’t be doing anything like that anytime soon.
I also know that I need to sit down and reevaluate my “position” on the issue because the truth is that he probably is old enough to walk home with friends, but I just wasn’t willing to admit that until this very moment.

“I want a paintball gun for my birthday.”
Those words were the the beginning of the hell of my life these days, which is known around this house as The Great Paintball Obsession.
I should state, for “the record” that I was against the paintball gun. You see, I KNOW my son, I KNOW how he is and I KNEW that all of our “ok. We will buy you one, BUT, it is NOT to be used here at home. You can ONLY use it when we take you to a place intended for paintball shooting.” talks would go in one ear and out the other and, he’d bug the hell out of us until we let him “shoot it at the wooden fence” or “at targets in the backyard”.
The day of his birthday, Tony decided to let him shoot at the fence “JUST THIS ONE TIME” and only if he promised to wash all of the paint off.
Bad, bad move.
Everyday, since that day, which, in case you are wondering, has been 21 days, he has begged and pleaded with me, the MINUTE HE WALKS IN THE DOOR from school, if he can SHOOT THE STUPID PAINTBALL GUN.
And everyday, since that day, which, in case you are wondering, has been TWENTY ONE DAYS, I have given him the same answer.
“No. You can not.”
And everytime I have given him that answer, he has begged and pleaded and begged some more.
And everytime he has begged and pleaded, I have become extremely pissed off and raised my voice and said “I HAVE ALREADY GIVEN YOU AN ANSWER AND IF YOU CONTINUE TO ASK ME I WILL DESTROY THE GUN!”
He’ll stop asking at that point, but he’ll go to his room, take the gun out, stare at it, and THEN, he’ll come ask me if he can “just shoot AIR.”
“No. You may not shoot air.”
I finally got sick and tired of The Paintball Gun being paraded around the house and I told him I didn’t want to see it until he was going paintball shooting with his dad next weekend.
Fastforward to last night.
I’m in my room paying bills. Andrew walks in.
“Um. Mom. Um. Ok. Um. I took my paintball gun down because I wanted to check on it and I looked in the chamber and there was dirt in their so I STUCK MY FINGER IN IT to get the dirt out and um, my finger is stuck and I can’t get it out.”
I look over and see a long, shiny, round piece of metal hanging from my sons middle finger.
Being the wonderful mother I am, I started laughing, I mean, IT WAS THE MIDDLE FINGER, PEOPLE! But he started crying (and he never cries, he’s 12!) and screaming “It’s not funny! My finger is stuck! HELP ME!” I’ll admit, it took everything in me to a)not continue to laugh b)not run and get my camera c)not yell at him “THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR NOT OBEYING ME!”
Ok. I did say that, but then? I realised that his finger wasn’t going to come out of that thing and I panicked. Seriously panicked.
I have a history of doing that when my kids get hurt. It makes Tony want to kick my ass because I’m “the adult” and it’s my job to calm the kid down, not “freak him out even more”.
I walked him over to the kitchen and got out the cooking oil. This is when “Smart Man Who Knows Everything” chimes in.
“Wait. Not the oil. That could ruin the chamber barrell.”
“THE BARRELL? WHO GIVES A CRAP ABOUT THE BARRELL?! I’M TRYING TO SAVE MY SONS MIDDLE FINGER HERE! THE BARRELL!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”
I greased the finger up, gently twisted and it came off. Thank GOD, I didn’t want to have to call The Law again and ask them to remove a metal object from my child’s body.
The second it slid off, Andrew started laughing uncontrollably because HIS FINGER WASN’T GOING TO HAVE TO BE CHOPPED OFF! And I dropped to the floor where I proceeded to pee a little.
It was awesome to watch Andrew WILLINGLY hand his gun over to his dad, so that we could put it out of his reach until he needs it to actually go paintball shooting. Had I known it would have taken him getting his finger stuck and almost having to have it CHOPPED OFF, I would have pointed out the dirt in the chamber 20 days ago.

You’d think I’d be happy for my son. Happy that he’s a year older, that he’s one year away from being The Teenager. He’s happy, so like any good mother, I should be happy for him.
I’m sorry to say, I’m not happy.
I’m sad.
Sad. Sad. Sad.
Sad because he’s growing too fast. I can’t handle the speed at which he’s approaching adulthood. I wasn’t prepared for the emotions that come with watching my babies grow up. No one told me it would be this hard, no one told me it would hurt this much. Why didn’t anyone warn me?

I remember the day he asked me if he could call me “mom” instead of mommy. Oh, how my heart broke into a million little pieces.
“Why do you want to call me mom? Why not mommy?”
“Because, I’m a big boy now, so I want to call you mom. Is that ok?”
I forced a smile as I replied “Of course it’s ok, mi hijo”
But it wasn’t ok. I wasn’t ready to be “Mom” yet. I wanted to be mommy for just a little longer.
Before I knew it, all of the little things I loved about being a mother, the things I had taken for granted, were being taken away from me.
I wasn’t allowed to kiss him when I dropped him off at school, nor was I allowed to hold his hand in public. Oh, and “please don’t shout out “I love you” when I walk away, Mom.”
Perhaps I knew that day would come, the day where my son would be too cool to hold my hand in public, but I chose to live in denial about it. I’d heard other mothers joking about it “Just wait until he doesn’t want to hold your hand in public anymore” they’d say, as they’d laugh. I’d laugh with them, or should I say at them. I’d think to myself “Ha! My kids will ALWAYS want to hold my hand! I’m so sorry for you, but that will NEVER happen to me.”
Boy, was I wrong.
I hate it. I hate it hate it hate it. I hate it so much I’m throwing a tatrum right now. A big, FAT tantrum. It sucks! It’s stupid! WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS? I want to be mommy again. I want to hold his hand and kiss him and scream “I LOVE YOU” at the top of my lungs whenver and wherever I feel like it and I want him to be ok with that, and not be embarrassed about it, just like The Old Days. The days where he was proud to hold my hand, where he loved my kisses on his cheeks, no matter WHO was watching.
It feels good to let it out. To cry about it, to be sad about it, to throw a full blown tantrum about it, because, what else CAN I do about it?
Accept it? Yeah. That’s what.
Sigh.