Where did my little ones go?

My kids made me swear years ago that I wouldn’t write about them in the paper. “Don’t embarrass us!” they pleaded. And I haven’t. Yet. I also made them swear that in return, I would never have to put them in the paper for any bad reasons.

And they lived up to that promise — or rather they’ve never gotten caught.
But that was when they were kids. My youngest turned 18 on New Year’s Eve, so all bets are off, don’t you think? They have reached majority, in most ways, and I wonder where my little ones went.

Although I now have grandsons to buy toys for, I miss my own babies — the tow-headed, grinning, crying, whining, funny and handful of children that they were. OK, they’re still a handful, but they’re mine.

My first child, my first son, was born when I was 20. He was foreign to me. What did I know about boys? G.I. Joe’s, Hulk Hogan, Ninja Turtles, The Dukes of Hazard, running after him with a washcloth to get his ears clean. We grew up together, really, and for an experiment, he turned out really well. He’s a good man, and a good father. He has two sons of his own now, and they’re just like him. Hee hee. Payback is a — well, you know.

It wasn’t until fourteen years later that I gave birth to my first daughter. I knew right away that she was an independent spirit. I dressed her in red, black and white for her first birthday. I took off those clunky white baby shoes for her first professional photo and let her be photographed barefoot because it suited her. She gave me the backhanded wave (or waved me off?) when she went, a year early than most, to Little Pebbles preschool, because she begged to go (it was the last time that she insisted she go to school!) And, of course, that spirit, coupled with my stubborn mommyness, made for some rousing arguments throughout the years. Not that it’s over -- we still argue, but I hope she knows how much I admire her style and her determination and her beauty, inside and out.