Nine months and 3 weeks

   I clearly remember the day I found out I was pregnant for the first time.   I had a bunch of pregnancy kits in my apartment.  That bears explaining I am sure.  I work for a company that at the time made them so they were significantly less expensive that retail price.  I bought them for friends who at the time were trying to get pregnant.  I was not trying for that outcome, bluntly speaking I do not understand the surprise element when adults who have unprotected sex seem to have at finding out it led to pregnancy.  I was in my mid-thirties, I had recently realized I did in fact want children and I did not plan it the way some people I know did, I went with the flow.  

So there I was, about 5 sticks around me  (seriously why such a light pink? - I should have ponied up for the ones that spelled Pregnant or Not Pregnant), surprised.  I was in that category, the famous “they” said that after 35 and being on the pill for many years, where this should not have been this easy.   I had friends who struggled, it was heartbreaking.  I expected that to be my need to try and try again.

I enjoyed being pregnant, I wasn’t ill during both pregnancies, and enjoyed the normal level of anxiety about it that reading “What to Expect when you are Expecting” gives you. It is a great book but you do find yourself thinking you have to be experiencing everything as the book says, even though the book states you shouldn’t be.   Labor was tough, epidurals are great and I still do not get the whole “you shouldn’t get them” mantra - I experienced my birth just fine, felt the horrible pain prior to the epidural and do not see why I would subject myself to pain if I didn’t have to.

Nine months - I worried that I might not do things right, I wondered what my child would be like and fretted about my lack of experience with children (no interest, only child, did not babysit).  He came along and I adored that small bundle in a way I never knew love could be.

Nine months - my first son was born, I watched this small being and wanted to protect him from the world.  I watched his milestones, got on my belly to try and get him to rollover until he did and commando crawled out of his room once he fell asleep as a baby so he would not wake up.  Not for me sleep training or letting the child cry.  There is enough that they will encounter to make them upset in life, I was not comfortable hearing his cries and took to staying with him on the floor of his room until he fell asleep in his bed.

Fast forward 15 years later - WHOOA - that was difficult to believe when I saw it on paper. Fifteen years later and my child, teen boy so not child but still my baby wants to go to live in a dorm for 3 weeks while he goes to the New York Film Academy for an acting course.

We do not do sleep away camp in this house, neither kid ever wanted it, we did not grow up with it and we love our time with the boys and taking vacations with them.  Summers are for beach family time, for laziness and arguments about said laziness of kids.  I get it some other families are different - embrace what makes each of us happy.

So he is 15, frankly due to me he is not exactly self-sufficient.  He is a suburban kid.  I was roaming a much less clean, more crime ridden New York way before 15 - in the time of no cell phones, no tracking.   I was much more street savvy than he and his friends.  I love the city, I would love to live there for a bit, I still miss it even after living in the ‘burbs for 15 years (yes we moved when I was pregnant).  We live in a great, diverse town (financially, ethnically diverse) which we picked on purpose but it is not the City.  

Three weeks.  I mean really 3 weeks.  He could do this,  could I?  

We dropped him off - he did not know how to put a fitted sheet on his twin bed, in a room of 3 other boys he would share with I did notice 2 flat sheets on top of bunk bed mattresses instead of the fitted kind (My kid was not the only one who did not know how to do put on a sheet me thought).    They would need to keep their room clean, no more sighs from me as I picked up what seemed like 10 glasses with bits of water in them from around the room.  He would have to do laundry, I got him pod detergent and joked that he shouldn’t eat it.  I got a teenage eye roll for that comment, what ? This generation does that - no worse than say my generation who popped open Redi Whip to take in the chemicals.  

Three weeks - might as well be 9 months.   I wanted to be supportive, to make him not feel badly that I would miss him.  That we would miss him.  

I was encouraging, cheered on our daily text exchanges about what a great experience this was, I misted up typing the text.  He loved it, loves it - one more week to go.  We met up for dinner, he is in love with the City as I am. He cannot say enough great things about the program at New York Film Academy - his fellow students who hail from all corners of the world.  

Like after 9 months - a new person has emerged.   He learned to budget his money, he learned to look for places to eat and manage his entire schedule.  He learned to walk and be more aware of his surroundings, to see the wonders of New York City ( total bias even after much travel - my favorite of all time).  

Three weeks of almost daily excursions to explore the city - Coney Island was a big hit - in all aspects.  To learn how to act on film, which has been his dream job since he was 5. 

Most of all I hear a more mature son.  One who learned to battle the fitted sheet and put it on the top bunk mattress, do his own laundry and keep his room clean (with his room mates) for inspections.   

After 9 months I brought home a baby, after 3 weeks now I will bring home a young man.  Ready to do anything, changed in many ways, still his loving self who I cannot wait to hug and kiss (I did not tackle him for the one dinner we met up for - I held it together) in a way that will make him tolerate it after initially he enjoys it.   

We want to protect our children forever, to hold them, to make it easy for them.  We try and teach them life skills and yet we are right there for them, as we should be.  In a world of uncertainty and danger we are a safe harbor as parents.  Much like any successful launch it is the planning, the thought process and the care you put in before take off  that makes it go well.  That is how I felt watching him,  

He will be ready to take care of himself, he will be ready for college and beyond - I will not be but I will deal because it is good for him.  Besides I know from this experience he misses home cooking and time to hang with me .. he will go but he will always look for the light in the harbor that we created and call home.   

Nine months - three weeks - next chapter?