I've been reminded about all the transitions we have to make in parenting.  How our kids subtly move from one phase to another.  They're always eager to advance, but we, mothers, tend to drag our feet in moving along with the natural progression of things.  We like to get all comfy in one phase, prop our feet up on the ottoman and sit back and think, "I like it here"......you know, like that's where we'll always be.    

Well, Carson's basketball season is about to start, so he's been having long practices after school.  My neighbor and I have been taking turns picking the boys up and bringing them home.  Let me just say that when 9th grade boys have practiced basketball in an "un-air-conditioned" gym for over 3 hours, they do not make the most ideal car passengers. 

I remember back when Carson was small, he had that little kid smell when he'd get hot.  You know the smell.  It's the smell that fills a classroom full of little kids when they've just come back in from the playground on a warm April day.  The smell is so overpowering that it's almost visible......like a cloud of funk hanging in the air.  That smell of wet hair and young, sweaty skin.  That's a bad smell. 

This was different though.  This was a man smell.  The boys got in the car and the stench filled the air in every crevice of that Toyota.....all the way back to the optional 3rd row seating.  My eyes started to burn.  They smelled like two dead, bloated goats........that had been sitting out in the sun for a few days.  I had to crack the window to welcome in just a little bit of nontoxic air.....at least enough to dilute the funk.  "Hmmmm", I thought......"this is a new smell".   

Little kids smells and 9th grade smells.  Neither are a fragrance in which you'd want to purchase a candle or room spray, but it's a shock to a mother's system when the smell moves from one level to the next.  My baby boy should not be smelling like his Daddy yet.  To a mother, a boy should always smell like powder and Baby Magic lotion when she kisses him on the top of his head.          

Yesterday, Blair came home for a doctor's appointment.  Nothing serious.  She just had to see an ENT about a problem with one of her salivary glands.  Anyway, there she was in the chair with the doctor's hands all up in her mouth.  His big headlight was shining in there.  The nurse was filling a syringe with lidocaine and Blair's eyes grew wide as I saw them peeking at me from over the top of the doctor's head.  I smiled at her and cracked a joke or two to lighten the mood.     

I remember when she got her first shots at 6 weeks old.  I brought my mother along because the whole thing about inflicting pain on my new baby was just too horrible to face alone.  She held Blair, while I sat in the chair and wiped the tears as they welled up at the sound of her screams.  You're like that with the first one, you know.  The second one..... well, you just plop them up there on the table and say "there, there.....shake it off".   

Anyway.....Blair is never sick, so it's been a long time since we've been to a doctor's appointment together.  So yesterday, the doctor would ask Blair questions and I would start to answer.....you know, like I did when she was 4.....and she kept trying to talk......like she knew more about her own mouth problem than me......her mother......who lives 90 miles away from her mouth now.  After a couple of  more questions that Blair seemed to know the answer to, I assumed my rightful place as a quiet bystander in the chair, who was needed for nothing more than to hold her purse and pay the receptionist. 

Somewhere along the way, it slowly happens.  Your little angels start to speak for themselves and smell like dead goats.  As much as I'd love for Carson to still carry the scent of Johnson's Baby Shampoo, it's just not going to happen.  And as much as I'd love to go back to the days when I could quiet Blair with Goldfish so I could talk to the doctor.......well, those days are gone, too. 

Life rocks on. 

Mama's just gotta rock on with it.