kiwords

Tre and Max have asked me if they can start a blog. Each. Not one blog together. For heaven's sake, they can't even share a tooth brushing timer without fighting. They can't negotiate use the STEP STOOL in front of the sink without fighting. Neither of them NEEDS a step stool at the sink anymore, a fact that does not prevent them from brawling over it like a couple of drunken frat boys. If drunken frat boys brushed their teeth and drooled toothpaste down their jammies whilst they hurled invective.

Anyhow. My point is that they each want their own blog. Max started it. He might seem like the less likely candidate of the two, seeing as how he's a painfully slow typist and spells like he's having a  random phoneme party inside his head. But he is also the writer of the two, and will spend long hours, bent over his notebook, scratching illegible outpourings of his very soul. So when he started asking for a blog, I could see where that made a sort of sense.

"Hmm," I said. "I'll think about it. We'll see. LOOK, SOMETHING SHINY!"

I don't know...a BLOG? I've heard those people are horrible and self-centered and...what?

Soon Tre got in on the act, insisting that he, too, needed a blog. NEEDED. Because...it would be fun.

I stalled. I proclaimed to be thinking about it. I required them to write proposals outlining what they would write about, what they would name their respective blogs, and why they wanted to blog. Then I stalled some more.

The truth is, I'm afraid to let them out in the wilds of the internet. I'm lying to myself if I think they're not already wet at the feet in those particular pools, but still. A blog? There are blog trolls out there that can even make Dooce cry. They're MEAN. They're HEARTLESS. And then there's all that spam...and what if they develop their own community online? How creepy would that be? YES I KNOW. I rolled my eyes at my parents when they suggested the same thing about me, but I was THIRTY THREE AT THE TIME. My babies are...well, twelve and nine.

And yes, not babies.

I look at them all the time and think about how old they are, all of a sudden. When I first met Jennie, Clay's daughter, she was twelve. She was adorable, teetering on the edge of womanhood. I could still see the little girl in her. In a blink, she's fifteen, and she's no longer teetering. She's a woman, and I search her hands and her cheeks and the curve at the back of her knees, but there is no hint of the girl she was. Then I look at Tre, who is suddenly twelve, and teetering on the edge of being a man. Oh no no no, I think. I can do that math. Wait. Minutes ago he was NINE, and seconds from now HE will be fifteen, and Jennie will be a full fledged voting member of society and WAIT, now MAX is nine and can we just STOP FOR A MINUTE?

I spend a lot of time mentally paging through my choices as a parent, feeling the cold breeze of an end to those days. Up until two years ago, I pretty much made all the decisions, and here's how I think I've done so far. I've been overprotective and shockingly lax. I've hovered and been too distant. I've overstructured their lives and completely failed to build them a proper framework. I've lost my temper too often and treated too much with a lack of concern. And they still don't clean their rooms well, so what is the hope for them, really?

I suppose I'll set up blogs for them, with certain controls. I'll try to find some balance between their desire to strike out and my desire to zip them up in fuzzy footie jammies and tuck them safe away. I'm sure though, of two things:

1 - I'll manage to feel guilt, no matter what path I choose, and

2 - For about seven more minutes I've still got one little guy who doesn't want a blog and thinks his mom is pretty cool.