...billows and bellows...

I'm the mom of a 15 year old now.  It happened overnight.  I swear!

Just a moment ago I was cradling a newborn in my arms.  Now here I am a blink later and helping him develop his business.  

I can't wrap my head around it.  Where did that time go?  How did it just fast forward like that?  More importantly, where's the damn remote so I can just rewind and go back and stay there a while longer?  Oh, I miss it so!

The days are speeding up, it seems.  Frantic mornings and then the blur of school and work before he comes home.  There's catch up to do, conversing over espresso (or tea..but more often than not, he wants the good stuff!) about our days, reviewing the lists:done and to-do.  Homework and housework to get through.  Then on to the dream-building whenever there's time: designing and printing, refining and reprinting over and again until it's just right, then writing and editing, reviewing and listing.  

All the while I wonder as I look at him.

I wonder how this happened.

I wonder when this happened.

Surely I was there the whole time, wasn't I?

He's over 6 feet tall.  His shoes dwarf mine, lined up side by side by the doorway.  He bends at the waist, curling his shoulders in and down every time he gives me a hug.  When a meltdown seizes him and he comfort-seeks, sometimes he curls right up into me in a ball on my lap and I bite my lip to hold back the "ouch" of him crushing me.

Motherhood still confuses me.  I second-guess my every move.  I just know I'm doing it all wrong.

Why can't we go back?

I was good at baby-at toddler-at little boy...

But this is unfamiliar.  Being needed and pushed away all at the same time.

Being kneaded.

There were simpler days in the past.  Simple joys.  Simple fun.

I knew every trick in the book to make him smile or giggle.

Delight was in my back pocket, easily accessible.

Now, the smiles curve less frequently.  He's solemn.  Stressed or strained.  School is dragging on, and the homework is neverending.  It steals our time, making no room for splashes in puddles or sunlit walks or card games on the livingroom floor.

I'm confused.  I don't know what to do with myself.  I was good at splashes and walks and card games.  I was good at special snacks and silly faces and all the voices in the books.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do now, as he sits at the kitchen table tap-tap-tapping away at his computer, a furrow between his brows. 

I'm quiet.  Shoes off.  Step lightly.  I put away the dishes slowly, so as not to disturb the silence.  I put his snack on a plate and slide it carefully next to him, making sure it's far back from the algebra book.   I put his drink on the console behind him.  No more spills.

Then I, too, sit down at the table and tap-tap-tap at my computer.

I miss the giggles that used to fill up our house to the brim.

Last night I came home later than anticipated, having stayed to chit chat with the other program attendees after the session ended.  He was waiting, the very picture of responsibility, for me.  Already in pj's...homework done...

I was tired and achy and disgruntled, my tooth infection throbbing more after too much talking.

I dropped my bag by the door and took in the view.  Boy, in too short pajamas, upside down cat draped in one arm and one of his prototypes in his hand.

I took a breath and said "I'll make you a deal, ok?"

"What?"

"It's not even a deal.  There's no flip side to it.  Let's just stay up late and eat ice cream.  It'll hurt in the morning, when we have to get up.  But let's just do it."

"Ok.  I'll find something to watch, Mami."

We ate the ice cream.  We watched 'Krypton'.  We curled up on the sofa and fast forwarded through the commercials, then rewound each time we went to far and missed a scene.  His ice cream melted while he fiddled with his prototype, all the flavours combining in a mush.  

Then it was bedtime for real.  An hour behind schedule.  Extra tooth brushing "you don't want to have teeth like Mami's!" and shutting house.  Another page of Macbeth (Yup, Macbeth.  Bedtime reading.  We're quirky like that.)  Then bed, where sheets and blankets need to be unfolded.  The weighted blanket fights back every time.

He had his flat sheet out, still partially folded, sitting on the bed.  Arms lifted, he'd shake it up and out, billowing over his head.  I sat on the side of the bed, watching.  Just as the sheet came down and he pulled his head out from underneath...

Wham!

I nailed him.  Right in the head.  With a stuffed animal!

Womp.

 Silence.

Then...

a giggle.

An eyebrow raised.

A hand reached out.

Grabbed the next missile.

The battle was on!

(During spring break we tackled the storage, filling up car load after car load with discards and donations.  His stuffed animals...all those childhood friends...went into a bin, destined for donation.  He said goodbye to each one, giving it a final hug and "thanks for being my friend" followed by "I hope you like your new person".  In the end, I couldn't bear it.   We brought them all back home.)

Stuffed puppy and sabertooth and fox flying through the air.  The cat squeaked in protest, then hid under the bed.  He threw them all at me, one by one, and I grabbed them up.  Filled my arms.  Threw one at him.  He lunged for it...my distraction worked.  I tossed the whole arm load right at him and he burst out laughing.  The night suddenly full of sound.  Laughter bellowing right up and out of us.

We were right back there.  Those belly-shaking laughs of toddlerhood.

I grabbed the sheet and let it billow up over him.   Tossed those animals under before he even had a chance.  I won! 

He's 15 now.  And I am older, too.   But last night we were younger, just for a little while.  Just for long enough that I could breathe comfortably again...no worries, no doubts.  Just for long enough that the sheets could billow...the animals could fly...and the laughter could bellow.