My son is home!  I’m ecstatic!  And weepy!  (I can’t help it, I’m a mom!)

Then we busted his chops, literally, first thing this morning.  There’s one problem with going to college out of the country, when he comes home he has to go in for ‘Maintenance’ with a capital ‘M’.  He hits the doctors, dentists, optometrists and pharmacies, and basically wipes out my flexible spending account in a mere two weeks.  So this visit home, he had to get his wisdom teeth pulled.  All four wisdom teeth. 

Wisdom Teeth + Jet Lag = 1 Tired Guy.

He’s been sleeping for four hours.  I just stood and watched him sleep.  I made sure his chest was rising and falling, anxious that he was not healing properly. Then I realized it’s been almost two decades since I did that exact same thing-watching him as an infant, so tiny, so vulnerable, worrying so much about his safety, his health.  It didn’t seem possible that I could have produced something, someone, so perfect and beautiful.  I always worried that something would happen to negate his perfect-ness.

My baby, and my worrying habits are back.

The holidays are coming up as well as my spouse’s and my 10th anniversary which is on New Year’s Day.  We never had a honeymoon.  It wasn’t necessarily a shotgun wedding, but the dress had to be expanded to fit my 4-month-pregnant self.  So, ten years later we’re going to town for our belated honeymoon and anniversary.  WAY outta town.  We’re heading to Egypt for nine days, and I have asked my now-adult son (how did that happen?) to watch our girls during that time.  Since I’ve paid for umpteen airplane tickets for my son to trek back-and-forth to Paris for college, plus living expenses, plus ‘oh Mom I need a new pair of shoes and some Biology textbooks’ charges, I figure he’s a very well-paid child care worker! 

I still worry, of course.  That’s my job.  What if something, anything, goes wrong while we are out of the country?  Yes, I’ve made a list five pages long for my son, and checked it twice, but what if I’ve missed something?  What if he forgets to pick up the girls from school because he’s too busy partying with his old high school chums?  Well, he wouldn’t do that.  I think he wouldn’t do that.  What if there’s a robber (which my girls call ‘a Robert’)?  What if my daughter finally finds that one thing she’s highly allergic to, and swells up like a Thanksgiving turkey like she did a few years back, and my son can’t find the Epi-Pen?  (They gave me a DVD to watch about how to operate the Epi-Pen.  A DVD.  I didn’t get a DVD to change a diaper, how hard is it to jab a needle into someone’s leg?).  What if he loses the house key?  What if he loses the spare house key? What if he leaves the front door open, the toilet un-flushed and the water running like he did when he was in high school?

You catch my drift.  In my instructional tome that I left for my beleaguered boy there are scads of phone numbers of neighbors, friends and family that can help.  I also included a mini-will, medical release forms and photo copies of, well, everything in my wallet. 

Maybe I should just calm down, and go on vacation.  That’s what my spouse is telling me to do.

After ten years perhaps I should listen?

CAUTION! SANTA SPOILERS!!

So…I have this 10 year old, Logan, and he is a really great kid.  Really. Truly. I don’t just say it because I’m his mom. If you want me to back up this statement, trust me, it wouldn’t be hard. One of the greatest things about him is that he possesses this rare kind of innocence that only a handful of people can still claim by the age of 10, boys especially.

He also still believes in Santa. Not that I haven’t tried to fix such a problem.

Yeah yeah, call me a Scrooge, Grinch, heartless b-tch, whatever comes to mind, but I am not going to deny that for the past couple years, I have been waiting, patiently, VERY patiently, for Logan to ask me The Question. Or maybe not even form it as a question. It could be more of a declaration. Like, “Hey, Mom, I know there’s no Santa. I know it’s you and Dad. Don’t even try this year to pull that bullshit on me, OK?”

When he does, I will step around the corner, breathe a huge sigh of relief, and then I will go ahead and make the mortgage payment come back to him and say, “OK. I won’t try and pull that bullshit on you.”

I won’t really say it that way and please don’t think for one minute it will actually be a fantastic moment for me. Being sentimental doesn’t generally come easy for me, but sheesh almighty, I have put in my time during this past decade to really play up the OH LOOK WHAT SANTA BROUGHT! idea and you have to understand–this comes with staying up til all hours to watch my husband put together various 100 parts plus contraptions and literally begging Logan’s 2 year old soul to notice the half eaten cookies and milk “Santa” left. We used to even have this big boot we tried to convince the boys was left behind by Santa as he scurried back up our chimney. We created this, I won’t deny it, and I won’t deny either that a huge part of my soul aches to have those precious years back.

It’s just that…well, two things:

1. Logan doesn’t understand about “Santa” being on a budget. It was much easier to push the Santa idea when it was I who controlled The List. Seriously! That drum set in the basement? $10 at Toys R Us one year. His Top 3 Wii games this year? $50 a piece. Life would be a lot easier if I could just scream “ ARE YOU CRAZY!? WE DON’T HAVE THAT KIND OF MONEY!”

2. He’s 10. Many of his friends know the truth. To make an honest guess, I’d say most of his friends have known this truth for a couple years. I worry about  his precious innocent soul getting humiliated on the playground.

Any mom will tell you… the fear of her child getting humiliated on the playground packs a lot of heat.

I recall a conversation I had once with a mom who mentioned her own similar worry and she finally, in desperation, called her 5th grade daughter in and blurted out the big ugly truth. Her daughter cried and the mom cried and it was a horrible moment for both of them but at the same time, the mom held tight to her belief  that she’d done the right thing in sparing her daughter the humiliation of being teased by her peers.

It’s very tempting to have such a conversation with Logan.

A couple weeks ago, he was going over his List and when I interjected a snarky comment about hoping Santa also had a nice bonus check for mom and dad this year, I caught his eye and couldn’t help but notice the tears which sprang to his big browns.

He suspects.

It’s that kind of moment that shakes me up a bit. Who the hell am I to ruin this for him? He’s 10. He has many more years to learn of disappointments. He’s a kid. He’s 10.

He’s just a kid.

Go ahead and believe. Didn’t we all once?