Room Mom

At Ross Elementary School, I gained fame, or notoriety, as the room mother who dumpster dives. Like most legends, it's not completely true. When Daisy was in third grade, I didn't dive dumpsters, so much as I pawed through an entire neighborhood's worth of driveway recycling bins at 6:30 a.m. in search of empty food cans.

I needed 600 cans so every child at Ross could make a tin can snowman as a take-home craft at the classroom "winter holiday" parties.  A month out, I started feeding the family canned corn, canned beans and canned tomatoes--but a family of four that doesn't like soggy canned vegetables isn't going to plow through 600 cans worth so kids they don't know can make tin can snowmen that'll probably get left on the school bus. And that's how I discovered the joys of other people's recycling.

No one actually asked if I'd come up with 600 cans--and I didn't singlehandedly. But at that point in my life, I always wanted every child to have what every other child had, and for holiday parties to be mellow.

Today, I'm not as concerned about everybody else's child as I used to be, but I still come running when Daisy calls. That's why, tonight, I'm sleeping on the sofa in her house in Columbia. Tomorrow, I'll be "room mother" for the day at her sorority as girls go through "Rush." My duties, I'm told, are to fill cups with water, collect trash and throw it in the dumpster out back.

I don't plan to dumpster dive. But if Daisy asked, if she really needed me to do that for her, I probably would. She is my daughter and I love her grown-up self every bit as much as I loved her as a nine-year-old.

To Be Child-Free

When tuxedo-cat Slim Jim woke me three times before dawn, I should have known that my vision wouldn't hold true. For me, there would be no self-pity Monday spent settling into the unfamiliar quiet of a child-free house.

With loud wrenching, Chihuahua blondie-mix Tequila threw up twice this morning. Then fresh off the final vomit clean-up, I watched as tabby Cracker scooted his butt through backyard blades of grass to quench a delicate itch.

Child-free? Not hardly. 

The two that left--Birdie and Daisy--are the only ones who sleep through the night and handle nausea without Mom batting clean-up. And neither one would scrape her fanny through the yard--at least not in the bright light of day, with Mom there to witness.

When Birdie Flew

Yesterday, Birdie and I stood in the evening shadows outside Pomfret Hall, her dorm at the University of Arkansas. We had unpacked her things, met her roommate and gone to dinner with the roommate and her family. We had even made a final run to Wal-Mart. Nothing remained undone.

Now, in the dark, Biride hugged me tight and I hugged back. The dog Tequila wound her leash around us. Birdie sniffed. I felt her shoulders start to heave. Even a good good-bye--one nearly 19 years in the making--hurts, I thought.

Staving off the tears, I unwound Birdie's hug. Gently, I grabbed her shoulders. I reminded Birdie: She is a good daughter, with good parents, and this moment of letting go is one that she and I are ready for. She nodded, then turned and walked through the doors of Pomfret Hall. Big Guy accompanied her as Tequila and I waited.

Alone for the moment, I felt my heart begin to break and prepared for my tears to flow. Then I spotted three juvenile skunks skittering along the dorm's brick wall. The mini-fleet of wildlife refocused my thinking. Big Guy returned, with Birdie in tow for one final good-bye. We hugged the brisk hug of good-byes already said. Then Birdie left for good, armed with one new bit of Mom advice: Watch out for skunks. Four-legged or otherwise.