Letting Go

Monday, August 22, 2011

Letting Go

by Patti

This morning I officially became the mother of a FIFTH GRADER.

Do you know what this means? It means I have one school year left with a little girl, and then she will be in JUNIOR HIGH and the world will end.

How can it be that just a second ago she was this blinking, curious little creature fresh out of my womb, all smooshy and wrinkled and new,and now, she’s this long-legged KID begging for a bra and rolling her eyes at me?

This weekend I was helping my mom clean out some old files, and I found a dusty cassette tape. (Remember those? The 8-track’s futuristic replacement and now totally obsolete?) On my way home, I popped it into my player and suddenly a little munchkin voice filled my car. It was a 5-year old S, singing silly songs and saying prayers for her runaway cat, Sally. My face was immediately swallowed up by the hugest smile, and I felt the sunshine of the little girl S fill my whole body.

When I got home, I made S come into the car with me and listen to the tape. When she heard herself, she too broke out in a huge grin and gushed over that little girl. “I was so cute, mommy!” We listened to the entire tape, and when it ended, S sighed heavily and said, “I miss myself…”

She looked a little sad at not being a baby anymore, and it made me realize that life seems to always be about letting go of something. For mothers, it is letting go of babyhood and those precious milestones that come along with it. For kids it is letting go of childhood and its magic. For all of us it is letting go of friendships, letting go of jobs, letting go of homes, letting go of places, letting go of youth… It just seems we are always letting go of something.

But then this morning, as I saw my now fifth-grader onto the school bus, her new backpack weighed down with shiny new markers and folders and clean notebooks, I realized that we have to let go to make room for all that is yet to come.

S is not a baby anymore; in fact, she is hardly even a little girl anymore. But the future is wide open, and I can’t wait to watch her fill it up.

The Glassary
(what we say)

A-List: The group of friends a married couple calls first.
B-List: The group of friends a married couple calls when the A-List doesn't call them back.
Brat Legs: The psychotic, jerky movements of a kid's legs when they throw a tantrum while lying down.
Cave Manning: The process of continuously hunching over while swinging your arms and swooping up a slew of items left on the floor, such as toys, shoes, socks, cheerios, etc, all in a manner similar to what cavewomen likely did.
Closet Eyelock: The condition that occurs when you stand in front of your closet trying to figure out what to wear for so long, your eyes glaze over.
Disaster Glass: A glass that contains all the remnants of a restaurant meal gone wrong, i.e., crayons, salt, water, napkins, sugar, ice, coffee stirrers, bread...
Exorcist Moment: Parenting moments that cause the veins in your neck to bulge and your eyes to widen 5 times their normal size. When trying to get your point across to the shrinking kid in front of you, your voice will drop 3 octaves and shoot out of your twisted mouth in a distorted, possessed scream. These moments almost always occur at highly inconvenient times, i.e., while you are driving at high speeds on the expressway or trying to get out the door in the morning.
Hate Cycle: The time period during a marriage when you consider divorce, murder, or at least running away. Strangely occurs either right before or right after a particularly love-filled period.
ish: Add to end of any noun to convert to an adjective. Example: This spaghetti is so restaurantish.
Mommy Monologue: A speech given more times than anyone, including you, cares to recall, about the same daily things moms bitch about.
Mother Arm: The automatic bar a mother's arm forms across a passenger in her car when she is driving and suddenly hits the brakes. The passenger could be a grown man or even a bag of groceries; it doesn't matter.
Mother Sway: The rocking motion a mother automatically performs when holding a baby in her arms. This baby could be ANY baby: hers, her neighbor's, a puppy, a goat. If it is small and being held by a mother, it will be rocked.
P.I.T.A.: Pain In The Ass
The Shift: The slightest movement that occurs when a wife attempts to creep into bed so as not to wake her husband for fear of being forced to have sex when all she wants is sleep.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Letting Go

The Glassary
(what we say)

The Whinary
(what our kids say)

Grape Juice
(Stuff our kids think is cool)

Grapevine
(Stuff we think is cool)

Sour Grapes
(Stuff that annoys us)

The Whine Cellar