There are those magical ages in a person’s life. Milestones if you will. 16 – driving. 18- voting and adult status. 21- legal drinking age. 30 – The true change to maturity (if we’re lucky). But there is another age change that happens. And it means nothing when we hit this age but it means everything when our child does. 10.
Seriously?! I have a child with a double-digit age. Seriously?! Well, not quite yet. But I’ve begun to prepare myself for the cold, hard reality. When people ask how old he is I say, “He’ll be ten in July.” Seriously?!
I guess it’s even harder for me to believe since mentally I’m about 17. Its really not my fault. I’ve spent the last two years on a college campus with traditional undergrad-age students sitting in classrooms with 18-22 year olds. That deserves many posts all on their own.
Many people tend to guess my age about seven years younger than I am. A lot of that has to do with being on a college campus, but I do admit I’m lucky with the family genes. So this makes it that much harder to believe I have a 10 year old.
I mean, in eight years (with any luck) he’ll be out of the house and off to college. Eight years and I will have an adult child? The more I type, the more I’m stunned. It just boggles my mind how time flies. You always hear it and you never believe it until you recall ten years ago like it was yesterday.
It doesn’t seem that long ago the little one understood Spanish. Scurrying off after I told him, “Dame los zapatos” (give me your shoes). Like the true slacker I am, I didn’t keep up with it. And at 9 he’s learning Spanish all over again.
It doesn’t seem like that long ago I was bawling my eyes out when he went to kindergarten. I couldn’t understand how a little baby could ride the school bus.
But in less than two months he will be ten. Like older transformations, I wonder if there will be automatic changes at the strike of midnight. Like, will he stop wanting to hold my hand and kiss me in public, not caring who sees or what they think?
And even though I play hard-ass anti-sitcom mom who is not at all big on affection, will it hurt?
-I’m No Clair (INC)
