9 Sampagitas: "Haha. Everything good, mama!"

I rushed through traffic. I was a woman on a mission. I had to grab lunch, take clothes to the cleaners, go to the pediatrician, go to the pharmacy, and teach an ESOL class. I have five hours to do all of these tasks. I do not get home till ten pm.

It is a month after spring break and my son is about to complete his first year of college in the Midwest. Only 19 years ago, I watched in horror as he threw up his formula in a projectile vomit. As I changed his bed sheet over and over again, I realized how much I really loved this little guy that I cradled. I knew the drill: BRAT and flat coca-cola. In the early hours of the morning, I called the on-call pediatrician to ask what to do. She asked me if the baby had a fever and I said his temperature is 99. She then quipped, “It is 99 and you are worried?” I tersely said, “You tell me. You are the doctor, are you not? I am just the ignorant worried mom. So why don’t you tell me?” She said, “Oh, okay, if it gets any higher, then you should take him to the emergency room. Do not show your baby that you are stressed because you are going to cause him to get worse.” I said, “I did not know that. So now you know I am stressed. Thank you for your time. I hope you appreciate the contribution I make to your salary.” I then bundled my son and took him to the emergency room of the Children’s Hospital in Washington, DC.

Of course I worried when I heard him crying but the nurse assured me that she was more the nervous one than my baby as he was kicking and screaming as she tried to get blood from his little feet. Countless times, I advocated for this little guy. When one nurse told me with the six month old baby on my lap, “Make him calm down so I can draw blood.” I told her, “You want me to make a six-month old to calm down? I tell you what, why don’t you calm down so you can draw his blood?” There is not one person in the world who would be a better advocate for your child than you.

At the instant moment I now recall, I was rushing to the pediatrician so I can get my son's medication refilled. This is the same doctor who has been seeing my son since he was six. I still take him to her for many good reasons. She has children almost the same age as mine. Her children went through the same growing pains as mine did. They went to the same school where mine did and most of all, what she says echoes what I say when it comes to issues I care about. It was important to me that his doctor shares the same values that my family believes in.

However, based upon our discussion on this day, she recommended a book to read as my child has turned into a teen-ager, “Get out of my Life, but first, take me and Sheryl to the Mall.” As a parent I have become a psychologist, a mentor, an enforcer, an advocate, unwanted presence, the controller, the one who knows nothing, the adversary, the dork, the enabler, the terminator all wrapped up in warm blanket of nothing but love for my child. The child loves you but hate your “control” over them. You use the familiar, “I am not your friend and I am not raising your friends. My job is to….” “I do this for your best interest.” The child throws a fit, slams the door, glares, refuses to cooperate, sabotages his/her own success but as a parent, it is my job to be patient because this is the child that his father and I are parenting and we love no other more than we love him. That love is tough. It breaks our hearts to say no or disagree but there again is the question: Is it for the best interest of this child to…? What I cannot do for my child is be his source of failure.

Now in his early twenties, I still worry that he is not taking his allergy pills; that he is not taking an umbrella when it is raining; that he does not wear a muffler; or that he is not eating right. It used to be my job to keep him safe and now it is his job to tell me that he is safe.

He just celebrated a birthday. He is all tall and lanky and mild-mannered. No longer confrontational, he must have concluded that his parents were not the control freaks he had when he was 17-18 years old. I have watched him transform into someone I like to have “my son be friends with.” He has a sense of humor, even goofy at times but he is a smart, articulate young man who is still a work-in-progress and he is still like a sponge who absorbs and learns from his own experiences and from the counsel he seeks from his parents. We no longer doubt that he can make it into this world; he is learning life’s lessons on his own. We just have to let him drive and allow him to hit and recover from the bumps along the way. My child, my forever love.