mother

Sometimes it's strange to have a "grown up" child roaming about in the world. These days I find myself having to make constant small readjustments to my perceptions. It is hard not to still see my 18 year old first born as a child and occasionally I get flashbacks to when he was lying in my arms or sitting in a pram being admired by a swarm of young women. I had one of those exact flashbacks last night. I went out for a drink with a couple of girlfriends to the pub where my son is working. "You look much older standing behind the bar" my friend, (who has known him since he was at nursery) told him. I can't quite cope with seeing my child in a normal working environment interacting with people WITHOUT MY HELP. It was quite tempting to leapfrog over the bar to help him unscrew the wine bottles (THANK GOD HE DOESN'T HAVE TO USE A CORKSCREW LIKE WE DID) and get the glasses out because he was probably going to drop them.... Just being on the cusp of total independence now, as a mother I feel a curious mix of immense pride tinged with sadness. How amazing it is to know that your own child is now capable, not only of being left alone on his own without blowing things up but can actually mix successfully with people of all ages and has become a thoroughly likeable and sociable, fully functioning adult in the real world.....but at the same time I long to wrap him up in a duvet and put him back in a cot. I can't quite believe that he will never ask me to help him tie his shoe laces again (although to be fair I did have to spend about an hour untying a huge knot he had created the other day). Anyway, we left him to it so as not to embarrass him and went and sat at a table elsewhere. Several empty wine bottles later, we went back to the bar to say goodbye to him only to be accosted by several glassy eyed women literally sitting on bar stalls staring at him. "OMG - IS THIS YOUR SON????". REALLY??? "He told me his mum was here and I thought you'd have grey hair and a walking stick". She then proceeded to tell me how she'd been flirting with him, but in a good way because she was 39 and married with kids and obviously wouldn't really do anything at all and it was all a bit of fun, but wasn't he beautiful and look...." then she lent across the bar and said to him "go on - make your angry face". So he did. "Now make your happy face". She was laughing and I was taken right back to nursery days again. "Now make your really really sweet puzzled face". Good Grief. I was thinking "I'm his mother, I don't need to see him make stupid faces - he makes them all the time!!". I can't cope with older women fancying him. I'm allowed to fancy young barmen but other women aren't allowed to flirt with my son. NO WAY. So you see? New territory for us. I'm going to have to find another bar to go to now so we don't cramp each others style!