New Mom-ologue from Deb Williams

Up at 6:30 with the kids to get everyone off to school with their lunches stacked into over stuffed bags and their agendas stacked with their over stuffed day. Not my doing. I would have them still knotted in their sweaty sheets for hours. In High School all you can hope for is that you will catch a glimpse of the loves of your life at a moment when their mood matches yours. It doesn’t have to be a good mood. A shared bitch is a very satisfying experience, as long as it’s not at each other. That’s a different category of moment together and I’ve taken to avoiding them at all costs. I slip into other rooms as soon as my daughter enters what use to be my domain. If she’s in the kitchen, it’s all hers. I was never in the living room if she finds her way there in one of her mood. I can’t really call them moods any more because they are more of her new demeanor. The positive moments between us are sparse and spaced. And I get sucked in! Every time my little heart starts to pitter. She sneaks up behind me in the garden and suddenly dangles at an awkward angle from my stalkie body. I stagger and settle, taking her weight. Off course I can hold her. No matter how much bigger she gets, I will hold her and my mind beams with the excitement that she needs me. She likes me again. And that’s the tiny dangerous thought. AGAIN. I am swept away… again. To the dream teen land. She and I sit with tea discussing books and boys, planning her future. Me always saying YES. But she doesn’t want me to say yes. She wants me to fight, forbid and dress in something…else. Anything else. Out relationship has become a TV sit com cliché We’re the bohemian family with the offspring who yearns to be a banker. It was funny to look at but is hurtful to live. Her words cut me. Her opinions bruise. And I am not to make anything of it. Accept it and know that she will return to me in years. And in the odd moment in the dangling garden.