The Womb is Closed

I'm an old parent. A lot of women of forty-nine have grandchildren. But, due to the miracles of an early marriage that wasted five and a half years of my life, two years in Jewish Singles looking for Husband #2, and then infertility, I have a fourteen-year-old and a ten-year-old. Basically, my life has been played backwards: instead of having kids young and then seeing them off to college when I'm forty, I had freedom up until age thirty-five and will see them off to college at the sprightly age of about eighty.

These kids of mine are very attached to Husband and me, especially Daughter. Bar Mitzvahzilla likes us well enough, but if he's tempted with certain things - let's say a game truck, an Airsoft gun, or any video game, any time - he'll leave our house and never look back.

Daughter's a different matter. If she had her choice she would probably crawl back in my womb.

I have some evidence. She hasn't slept out since she was six, except for when we sent her to camp this summer. After that, I had to practically wear her like a necklace for a week. She prefers that all playdates occur at our house, even if someone offers to take her to a water park - and we live in Arizona. She loves nothing better than a day with Mom, eating sushi and then off to the antique malls. She will even sit on my bed for hours watching HGTV reruns.

I don't know what this says about the future because, according to my calculations, in eight years she'll be leaving for college. Like to live in a dorm at college, not to live at home and commute to college.

I'll just have to tell her the womb is closed. Or change the locks.