Publication: Freedom — OCR — Placentia News-Times; Date: May 17, 2012; Section: News; Page Number: 4
WHAT A DAY
Eventually, you realize your kid turned out fine
When you have an only child, you feel like you’re now an expert at child-rearing, but you have no further use for the knowledge. It’s almost as frustrating as raising several children and realizing that everything you learned from the first one is useless with the second.
This is just one of the reasons I enjoy babysitting my horse trainer’s son. Not only do I get to act like a grandmother, I get to share my stories of raising Marcus every time my trainer starts to worry about whether she’s doing it right.
By the time Marcus marries and has children, I will be too old to hold them. This is my chance to spoil a baby, then hand him back to his parents.
Last week, her husband left the baby briefly unattended. Tyler is 9 months old and very active, so he promptly fell on his head, causing lots of tears and a bruise. My trainer was, of course, convinced they were both amateur parents and worried for little Tyler’s safety.
I related the story of how Marcus, at age 2, was toddling around the family room while I was sitting on the couch. He suddenly tripped on his own feet and fell, face first, into the bookshelves. I still remember the “thwacking” sound of his forehead hitting a shelf, followed by a tense silence, then screams.
The tears eventually stopped, and he was fine. Since this was the day before we took him for his first haircut, we have lovely pictures of him at Rainbow Kids with a big purple knot between his eyes. At least his hair looked good.
I wasn’t sure if this soothed her fears, so I added that I used my own mother as a measuring stick of my parenting skills.
“She accidentally shut my brother’s head in the car door,” I said. “He turned out all right.”
Yesterday, she and I were having lunch after my lesson and I shared my latest news with her.
“Marcus found an apartment. He’ll be living in Long Beach this summer.”
She gave me a rather stricken look, which was kind of what I didn’t want to admit I was feeling.
“You feel it, too,” I told her. “And Tyler’s just a baby.”
I know it’s inevitable that Marcus will move out, and that he’s been in Long Beach for 9 months out of the year anyway. I also know that this is the way life is supposed to operate. You raise your children, then push them out of the nest.
His main reason for living in Long Beach over the summer is that he is trying to find a job he can work full-time now, and perhaps part-time during the school year.
Still, I’m going to miss having him around this summer. Last year he couldn’t find a summer job, so we hired him to work for us, doing chores and running errands. We had a few disagreements about his work schedule (“No, you can’t be vacuuming at midnight”), but I loved having a personal assistant.
The grocery shopping alone was worth his pay.
I’m certain I’ll adjust to Marcus being in an apartment. We’ll have a new routine. He’ll still stop by every once in awhile. I don’t know if his apartment has a laundry facility, so he might take advantage of the free machines and detergent at Casa de Carline.
I do know that time will put it into perspective. Maybe in 19 years, I’ll be telling my trainer the story of how Marcus moved out and it was all fine.
