Caught in the Middle

As I finished tapping away on this here bloggity late last night, I heard a rustling behind me. Assuming it was the Sadiedog, I barely flinched. Then it rustled, sighed, and fake coughed. Sadiedog hasn't been well but even she isn't that slick. It was Grayson. Grayson who had snuck into our room and curled himself up on Sadie's dog bed.

"What's the matter?" I ask him in a whisper so as not to awaken Andy whose hand was still on the remote, channel surfing in his sleep.














"I don't like my room," Grayson begs. "There is a monster in there. It is puh-puh-(gulp, swallow hard) purple. And in my room and so I don't like my room. I am afraid of this monster. It is purple and it is the same one as last night in my room."

"Oh, Honey..."

"Mommy? Will you come with me to my room?" Oh boy. A big scary purple monster and you think I'm the best man for the job? Should I grab the Febreze bottle before we go? The dog? The Daddy?

"Yes, of course I'll go with you. C'mon now."

"Will you read me Cord-ooh-woy (Corduroy) and two more stories with more stories too?"

"We'll see. Let's go together back to your room and see what we can find that's good."

In between reading "two more stories with more stories too" we giggled and chatted and nuzzled noses (which is the real reason I love Corduroy. He rubs noses with Lisa at the end and that is an excellent lead in for nuzzling with my favorite little nose around.)

Then, when I was about to kiss his forehead and say goodnight he says to me, "Mommy? Are you a little girl or just my mommy?"

Struck by the weight of this question, I hung in midair for a second longer than necessary. My body vertigoed and all of the sudden I wasn't sure. I am taken back 30 years to when I was a little girl reading stories with my mommy wondering the exact same thing. Was she only my mommy because I was becoming suspicious that she might be other things too. There was this awareness that she was many things and not all of them were just for me. She was a playmate, a daughter, a wife, a secret keeper, a reader, a glossy smile, a macaroni and cheese maker, a hair brusher, a monster squasher, a real life and a fantasy. All of it was her and she was all of it. Now, here we are a million miles from that life and I can still remember how it feels to not be sure. I am grown, this I know, but not too grown to forget that little girl with all those questions. Now, here we are in real time and my own little boy is sitting right here, having those same thoughts about me.


"Good question, Bud. I am both. I am a little girl. I am a big girl. And most of all, I am your mommy. This will never change."


Whew, crisis averted. This time.