1. My pockets, purse, and car are full of kleenex and Cheerios. In the event of a disaster, specifically that of the snotty nose/snack attack variety, I am prepared. Yes, it's likely that there will be paper towels, toilet paper, and vending machine snacks almost anywhere I could end up, but what if the bathroom hasn't been restocked and the vending machine has nothing left but a pack of Doublemint? That's the sort of thing I think now that I have a child, and now that I am responsible for another human, one who is even more prone to low blood sugar meltdowns than I am.
2. I worry about the price of milk and a dozen eggs, and not just because I want to have something other than ramen for dinner. I can say things like, "In my day, a gallon of gas cost a dollar."
3. I get called ma'am, and not just by newly enlisted boys from the South. "Ma'am, can I help you with that?" the grocery checker will say. And I want to say, "I have a tattoo. Look closely, that's not a zit - it's the scar from my nose ring on the side of my nose! I paid my phone bill two days late! Honey, I'm no ma'am." Ma'ams occur more often when I have Axel in tow. I guess I look like his mother, not his cute young nanny.
4. It's very hard to resist the urge to throw a blanket over every skimply-dressed middle school girl I see. I want to run up to the 13-year-olds in the tiny camisoles and mini skirts that barely skim their still-flat butts and say, "If he's worth anything, he'll like you for YOU, not for the nonexistence of your skirt. Besides, it's freezing in here! Put on a sweater." I'm turning into the busybody neighbor that ever kid hates, and I don't even live on these girls' streets. I haven't actually gone up to any of these girls in public, but I know I'm giving them disapproving eyes and maybe even tsk-tsking under my breath. I look at kids smoking and say to my husband, "There's no way they're 18! Don't they know they're going to get cancer? Axel is never going to smoke" What is happening to me? Did having a child release some sort of pent-up busybody fussbudget? My own 13-year-old self would be very, very disappointed in my uncoolness.
5. One word: mom. I am somebody's mom. Moms are responsible adults who keep things in order and make cookies. I do both of these things (even if I do make the cookies for no one so much as myself). I will participate in future parent-teacher conferences. I will sign permission slips and notes. I will be invoked as a reason not to - or to - do something, as in, "My mom doesn't want me to jump off the highest rung on the monkey bars and, therefore, I will/won't do it."
As of 18 or 21, I should've felt like an adult. And I guess I did to an extent, since I could vote and drink and was no longer a minor. But now I feel like I'm an officially recognized grown up, like motherhood lifted me to a fully sanctioned level of adultness that elementary students recognize and is therefore permanent status. I can hire a babysitter, not just be a babysitter. Soon I'll get called Mrs. Spies (or by my husband's last name) on a daily basis. I'm now one of the old people at concerts thinking about bedtime and carefully avoiding a hangover. Girls prank calling their classmates will hang up on hearing my voice and laugh to each other, "Axel's mom answered the phone!" I'll be the one begging for just one more picture before the homecoming dance. I'll be the one talking about using protection and not drinking and driving and getting homework in on time and teeth brushing. I'm already a dictator about bathtime and bedtime and not playing with electrical cords or eating too much dirt.
I am now someone's authority figure. Yikes.
