Christian is my oldest son. We're similar, you might say, and very close for a mother and 11 year old son.
We were driving home from San Diego last night, Brooks was asleep in his car seat and Peyton and Elliot were with Kenny at Basketball practice. A very rare moment for Christian to truly have my undivided attention and total silence at the same time.
His voice sounded serious, "Mommy, I need to talk to you about something." Okay, I said, go ahead. "Um, I've been thinking, um, that maybe I um, am getting older now and would it be okay if I called you something besides, Mommy?"
I was cool. Really. I said, absolutely! I can totally understand that, you're growing up, I figured you'd stop calling me "Mommy", sometime before you left for college. That's fine.
Then I parked the car in front of a Walgreens and turned around to assure him, I was okay with it. He, however, wasn't. Tears were trickling down his face, as he swallowed hard and said, "my throat is burning hot." Looking at my 11 year old baby, it dawned on me that this was a harder transition for him to experience that it was for me. Well if you know me at all, it doesn't take much for my faucet to turn on and participate in the emotion. I hugged him & told him I loved him. "I love you too", he said. Yeah, but I love you the most, I added. He answered with, "I love you the most, Mother."
My "Mommy" days with Christian are done.
