Wednesday, July 15th, 2009...11:07 am
when kids don’t need their parents ever again
It’s official. The Kid doesn’t need her mommy anymore. She’s dumped me like yesterday’s fried calamari, cold and limp.
What happened, I wonder. Even after she finished kindergarten, she still managed to talk in baby talk and call for “Mama.” She still wanted help drying off after a bath. She still asked to be carried to bed.
But today, a new page turned, a new chapter begun. Next, she’ll be hitchhiking with her surfer boyfriend across Belgium and putting down college as “so bourgeois.”
Yes, today, friends, I got the half wave when I dropped her off at camp.
You parents of older kids probably know this device.
It’s given when the child is not facing you, when the child is literally walking away from you.
She keeps her arm straight by her side, and as you squeak out “bye, honey, love you….’ she raises just her finger tips and move them in the form of a wave. But really more like a slo-mo basketball dribbling maneuver. Or closing a really big jar’s lid.
Only your heart is the ball. Or in the jar.
The half wave, I call it, but even that is being generous.
Made even more effective when your baby, your child, the person you’d give you life for, wears a hoodie, so you can’t even see the side of her face.
Sure, I chuckled out loud at her nonchalance, but inside I was sobbing that my baby, my only baby, is apparently just not that into me anymore.
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5 Comments
July 15th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Oh no! I know that feeling, all too well. Wait until she tells you she doesn’t want you around because you EMBARRASS her.
Jenn´s last blog ..Little girl in the city
July 15th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
i know that feeling too well. Got it straight to the hear this year when she wouldn’t hold my hand crossing the parking lot to class! Kindergarten!! Too young to be doing that to mommy.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
jenn, i have a feeling that is right around the corner!
maria, no handholding?! i just guilt mine into handholding, like, “won’t you hold my lonely hand??” sad, but true. it works.
July 16th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
And, how about the day your kid tells you not to call her even once a week when she’s in another city in college…. Wish we moms could feel relieved when kid is cutting strings; but, somehow, it doesn’t work that way.
July 16th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
ouch…it does sting a little. My kids have been doing that kind of stuff for so long now though, I barely remember what it was like before.
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