Are you KIDDING Me?!

As we sat in a crowded license office today, waiting for our number to be called, Eric reminded me of his intention to drive up to St. Charles tonight and watch his friend, Noah, perform in Music Man.   I made the mistake of actually THINKING about that reality: my baby is driving off alone...on the freeway...at night...on a Friday when the crazies are out...to an area with which he is unfamiliar.

You'd think I'd know by now not to go there.  Because you KNOW what follows those thoughts.  Random images flashed through my mother's mind - crumpled vehicles...sirens...coffins... - all in a matter of seconds before I could stop the flow.  Well, I didn't stop them quickly enough.  I teared up.  To make it worse, Eric saw me!  He put his arm around me and assured me, "I'll be fine, Mom."  And, of course, that sweet gesture ramped up the whole teary-eyed thing into an all-out cry thing.  Are you KIDDING me?!?!  Nice, Lori.  Nice.  Way to be a reasonable grown up.  Way to humiliate your son in front of 73 strangers! 

Only, you know what?  He wasn't humiliated.  He was sensitive and sweet and I THINK he recognized that I love him.  I had to laugh at myself and then told him, "I'll be fine...I did this when you went to Kindergarten too...and there was relatively little possibility that Kindergarten would end in death or dismemberment."

And now we're back home.  Well, not really.  I'M home.  He's already left for his first solo adventure.  And so it begins...