"This is the best thing I ever tasted!" my son exclaimed. "I can't believe how good this is. Mommy, you could quit your job and be a chef!"
     It was cheeseburger Hamburger Helper. Okay, so he's easy to please...but then, I think most boys are when it comes to them and their Mommies.
     I remember one day standing in line at the grocery store. I was checking out the cashier; she was checking me back. Get it? Checking me? *groan* Anyway, my son was like grabbing at my arm and it finally got to be such a nuisance that I spun around and said with exasperation, "What?"
     And loud enough for all to hear (especially the cashier), he replied, "I was just pinching this little roll of fat hanging off your elbow."
     Over the years I had perfected the thin smile. I offered one then.
     When I was pregnant someone once told me that "the sins of the mother would be visited on the daughter." I prayed for a boy. Funny thing though, since the day I realized I was pregnant, I knew I was going to have a son. All those "experts" on the style of *carrying* a child insisted it was a girl.
     I never had a doubt. I don't know why. I'm not particularly prophetic. I've never had the leanings towards psychic ability that many Pisceans do. But I knew...
     Nine years and two days ago (he was born the day after Mother's Day that year), I found myself in the doctor's office, three weeks from my due date, threatening to implode if the doctor didn't "take the baby" right then and there. I had long since passed the phenomenon of waddling. At that point, my family and friends were basically hoisting me along, lined up three-deep behind me with a "Shove!" whenever I had a doctor's appointment. I could feel water sloshing in my feet when I walked. That was gross enough.
     My OBGYN was so cute. He had a crew-cut, was from the Phillipines, had a heavy accent and used to say "hickey-doo" for items he could not name properly.
     "It's 'doo-hickey,'" I corrected.
     "The baby come today."
     "What?"
     "Baby come today," he repeated.
     "Uh, no...I don't even have diapers yet. My baby shower isn't even scheduled until Saturday!"
     "You just say, 'Doc, I picket you office if no take baby today! I unloose pigs wif diwwhea in you office if no take baby today.' Now you say no!"
     "You're going to let the threats of a pregnant woman determine when a child will be born?"
     "No, I let bwood pwessure determine. 200/140. You pwe-ecwamptic!"
     And so, he was born. My son. Three weeks early, all 8 pounds 14 ounces of him. By C-Section. At 6:20 p.m. On a Monday.
     I remember so clearly the day before--my little friend Jaime (who was 7 years old at the time) and I made a Mother's Day breakfast for our moms. We served them and waited on them and at the end I was so tired. Jamie made me sit down at the table and then she served me breakfast. "You don't have to, sweetie," I told her. "I'm not officially a Mommy yet."
     "Well, you will be, in like 15 minutes."
     I will never forget what she said the first time she saw my son. "His lips look like an upside down heart."
     Recently he said something to me that I will never forget and kinda goes with that Mother's Year post of last week. I had been crying. Now, I have a rule that I occasionally let my son see me cry. I want him to know that crying is allowed, that sadness is inevitable...that happiness is not our only valid emotion. (I had never seen my own mother cry and I think it kept us from getting close all these years. There is a certain parameter placed on a relationship when negative emotions are not allowed.) But this particular time, I wish he had not heard me.
     He simply leveled a gaze at me and said in a soft tone, "Maybe love only exists in fairy tales."
     *big fat sigh*
     I did not mean for this post to be so melancholy. I meant only to wish everyone a Happy Mother's Day. But I guess that's what being a mother is all about? Emotions. All of them. All the time. Served raw.