Thank Heaven for Little Boys

The Husband and I watched the movie Thirteen last night. (Yes, we are behind the times. To have a baby is to knock out a complete year of popular culture from your memory.) Neither one of us is particularly naive about some of the more unsavory activities of teenagers - We are not Angels ourselves, despite the cherubic moniker I apply to my husband at times. He may be an Angelic Husband, but both of us were more the spawn of Satan as teenagers and young adults. But when I think of the Wild Children I knew as a teen, I think of them as maybe 16, 17, or 18 - Not as 13 year old sex kittens!

To say the movie made me feel uncomfortable is an understatement. Here in all its ugliness is laid out for all to see what it is to be a 13 year old girl. The yearning to be part of the in crowd and being willing to do things you know you weren't brought up to do to get there. The shunning of your old, stable friends for racier, way more exciting models. I have been that girl shunned and I have been the one that walked away from my childhood to put on the lip gloss. This movie brought back all the torture of being 13, of being trapped in a 13 year old girl's skin. It is agony. When the absentee father asks his son to just tell him what is wrong with his daughter, he doesn't know how. But there is no doubt that being Thirteen is a nameless cry for help.

Yes, I understood the need to belong, the need to feel adult, the desire to cross boundaries I knew I wasn't supposed to cross. But there was more to this discomfort. I may have seen and partaken in many of the activities portrayed in this film. But NOT AT THIRTEEN. At thirteen, I still wanted to play with my Barbies (although, admittedly, I didn't want anyone to KNOW I was playing with them) and to play dress up. But the dress up that the girls in this movie play is no game. Sure, I remember the thrill of wearing too-short skirts, and black eye makeup, and red lips. But I sure as hell wasn't thirteen at the time. I remember the drugs, the huffing in the bedroom, and the drunkenness, and the shoplifting. I remember the violence and just wanting to feel anything that I wasn't supposed to experience. But I wasn't thirteen!

The real torture of watching this movie was knowing that the mother really did love her daughter, but that there might not have been any way she could do to control the tailspin her daughter went into. The real torture was knowing that in 12 years, I might be suffering the same disbelief and disillusionment. My only saving grace and hope is that I have a boy. Yes, I know that it sounds archaic to say that I don't worry about a boy as much as a girl. But I also know that the movie, while it made my husband a little uncomfortable, made me absolutely want to crawl out of my skin. Because I knew what a tenuous grasp on sanity it is to be a teenage girl. I knew the hatred of self and others. I can only guess that a boy must have somewhat more of a grip at that age.

After the movie, my husband and I, who are already considering having another child, discussed the fact that if we had a little girl, we'd have the GPS tracking device installed before leaving the hospital.

And for now, thank heaven for little boys.

The Heart of the Mama Bear

I voted today. I hadn't planned to, but my husband and I realized that we were supposed to fly back from Miami the day of the election and that we could do an absentee vote at our local county office. So, I hopped in the car with the baby, and we picked my husband up to go vote during his lunch break.

It was a pleasant experience, overall. I had the usual rush of adrenaline and pride. "Look at me and my good citizenship! I made a difference!'

Or at least, that was my initial feeling. Until I slid the card in the machine and the big choice popped up right away. There they were. All I really had to do was choose the lesser of two evils. I mean, last election, I voted Libertarian. Do I consider myself a member of the Libertarian party? No. I'm an Independent. Those Libertarians are CRAP on the environment. No way I would align myself with such utter disregard for the natural world.

But this election is a little different. There is just plain more at stake this time around. In 2000, I was just a young lady planning a wedding. Sure, I thought I was stressed out, but really, I didn't have a care in the world. But these days, there are evil men struggling with all their black hearts to bring grievous harm to Americans. And by Americans, I mean MY BABY.

How could I "throw my vote away" by voting for the Libertarian candidate? This year, more than any other year that I have voted, my vote needs to count. So, I have spent the past year going over and over in my mind the comparison of my two choices:

Kerry: I just don't agree with much on the Democratic platform. Welfare? Chuck it. Taxes? Please. No way is he going to lower them! Okay, so he wants to save some Alaskan land and animals. Yeah, I'm all for it. But that is still not the thing to base my entire vote on. I really have one responsibility and one priority. My son. There is NO WAY I think this guy is capable of protecting my son and my country. Now, Theresa? She might actually be capable! But her poodle of a husband? I think not. Plus, let's be honest? Does anyone want a President with a face this long? He looks like a horse.

Bush: Do I think he mislead the American people into Iraq? No. Do I think that it was a good thing to go into Iraq? No. Do I think he needs to show some humbleness and just say he's sorry that he got us into this mess? Hell, yes, he does! But I truly do believe that this man has some beliefs and he is running the country by them, and that's a lot more than we can say for vacillating ole Kerry. What does Kerry believe? Whatever he is saying at the moment. But I just can't get over the fact that Bush, whom I really don't want to believe is really stupid, can't understand the uncertain terms in which SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE are laid out in the Constitution. And then there is "the A-word." No, I don't want a bunch of people in Washington making decisions about my plumbing. Period.

So, what did it come down to? That's right, the old voting for the lesser of two evils. I looked at the two names there, Bush and NotBush. My finger hovered over their names as if over THE button, waiting to set off WWIII, while I thought of one thing: My precious son, laughing two machines over in my husband's arms as he voted.

I pressed Badnarik, Libertarian candidate. I voted what I believed. And somehow, I think I served my son well with my vote.

First Blood

The Boy and the Angelic Husband were sitting in the den, watching cartoons, while I cooked dinner. The Boy has been especially ornery the last few days, as he has two teeth ripping through his upper gum at once. I can’t remember what it was like to cut my own baby teeth, but I can only imagine that it is akin to the feeling of having your braces tightened, where every slight movement of the mouth, face, jaw, and tongue ache horribly, but with the addition of having no idea why it is that your mouth hurts so bad, but knowing that you are most definitely REALLY PISSED OFF ABOUT IT.

A baby cuttin’ teeth (which is what Southern babies do, rather than “teething,”) is a bundle of nerves and muscle and bone, ready to collapse in tears and tantrums at the slightest frustration. A baby cuttin’ teeth will not be able to fit a square block through a circular hole and it will be the absolute end of the world. A mother comes to know the sound of this particular type of tantrum, the cuttin’ teeth tantrum, and accordingly, takes the proper amount of time to walk around the corner from the kitchen to the family room and check on said baby.

But there is another kind of scream that emits from a baby: a blood-curdling, turn-your-veins-to-ice, make-the-hair-on-your-arms-and-the-back-of-your-neck-stand-on-end kind of scream. And that was the scream that I heard coming from the den last night as I cooked dinner. I shot around the corner into the den like a bullet, even though my Angelic Husband was there with him, because that is what mothers do.

My Angelic Husband had scooped him up into his arms and was soothing The Boy, and said, “He’s okay. He just slipped and conked his chin on the coffee table.”

But I knew that scream was different. I knew that scream was a little too “turned up” to be the result of a simple chin conked on the coffee table. I looked more closely at his face and there it was: The first trickle of blood from my baby boy.

Turns out that he had bitten his tongue with his only two teeth (lower center ones) and his tongue was bleeding. He continued to cry, we wiped the blood from him as it came over his lips, and I felt surprise when the tears welled up in my own eyes. We gave him ice water in a sippy cup and the bleeding soon stopped.

The Boy is fine now, but I don’t know if his mother is. It is difficult to glimpse that little bit of his pain and his blood and know that I must be prepared to see it over and over as he learns the things that come easily to me and my Angelic Husband: Walking, running, climbing stairs, riding a bike, learning to water-ski or snowboard, participate in sports.

I realize a little more every day what it is to be a Mother, and what it is my fearlessness and recklessness must have meant to my own Mother every day. I realize that to love is to fear and that there is no going back to the innocence of not knowing this never-ending fear. And I realize that I would not have it any other way.