This past week I lost my little boy. Before you get too sad, it’s not what you think. He is still very much alive and healthy, and still resides in my home but he reached a major milestone in his life, one which is hard for me to get past.
Mike, who is not quite twelve, and beginning to bypass my height of five-foot-four, got his first girlfriend. No matter how mixed up and misguided I thought it was, it was still . . . his first girlfriend.
Never having seen her face to face, or even in a picture, he allowed his buddy, Nick, to set him up with Nick’s girlfriend’s friend, Brittany. She is a mature, older woman of thirteen. Mike and Brittany talked for five minutes on the phone, where he had the fortitude to ask her favourite colour. Only after this, did she promise herself to him. I am told this means if he asks her to marry him, when they are older of course, she will accept.
While the two boys had a sleepover, and the two girls plus another had a slumber party, many phone calls were placed back and forth between the two. I just wish there was more substance to them than, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘No, I asked you first!’ ‘Why are you guys so hyper?’ I also wish it was a local call, as the girls and Nick live on the other side of the country.
Later in the evening, cooler heads prevailed as Brittany’s father told Mike when he called that ten o’clock was too late at night for phone calls. I was happy to be done with the teen chat, only to find when I woke up at nine o’clock the next morning, the two boys were sitting at my kitchen table, on the phone, saying, ‘What are you doing now?’ ‘Are you drinking pop again?’ A few more hours of sleep, and they still weren’t sterling conversationalists. I asked them to hang up so that I could eat my Cocoa Puffs, drink my tea, and read my paper in peace.
By the time Nick’s mum picked him and his X-Box up at noon, the boys had talked on the phone to their girlfriends most of the morning. My long distance phone bill was going to be astronomical this next month. I may need a second mortgage to pay for it. This is why eleven-year-olds don’t have long distance romances; their pocket money can’t pay for it.
Truth be told, I wasn’t really upset about the expensive phone calls or inane chit chat. I was upset because for the first time in nearly twelve years, I wasn’t the most important female in my son’s life. It’ll never be the same again.
by Laura Tucker
Laura Tucker is a freelance graphic designer and writer, and is a featured writer at realityshack.com and frazzledfamilies.com.
This past week I lost my little boy. Before you get too sad, it’s not what you think. He is still very much alive and healthy, and still resides in my home but he reached a major milestone in his life, one which is hard for me to get past.
