There is nothing as sobering as having your "baby" ask for a cordless drill for Christmas.
A cordless drill! Was it only yesterday he couldn't go on breathing unless he had a fleet of Hot Wheels? What happened to the years he lusted after a catcher's mitt and a basketball hoop to hang over the garage door? Where did the Beany and Cecil years go? And the Mickey Mantle pajamas and the Etch-a-Sketch?It's no fun shopping for your child in a hardware store. It used to be such a kick going into a toy wonderland where shelves of dolls stared at you with glassy eyes and mechanical animals nipped at your heels. Music escaped from carousels and you bought batteries by the box.
Now, when our kids request a battery, they mean a real one from Sears.
A sweater or a calculator I could handle, but a cordless drill! This was the kid who grew up thinking that if you left the refrigerator door open, it cooled off the house in the summer. He thought clean towels reproduced themselves and had no curiosity as to how a towel rack was attached to a wall.
Why was I always in such a hurry for him to grow up? I bought him a tricycle before he could focus, hockey skates before he could walk and "Black Beauty" before he could read. And then the years went into fast-forward and I could scarcely keep up. The Partridge Family lunchbox that he threw out one day with the lunch so that he didn't have to carry it any more sent a message that I no longer knew him.
The other two kids split and went off to school, but the "baby" was still there for us to indulge with gifts that we enjoyed buying more than he enjoyed receiving.
A cordless drill!
I was going to buy him a video game and a ski jacket, and he's turned into Bob Vila. What happened? Maybe it's when he got married and entered the world of leaky faucets, pictures that need to be hung, and the homemade bookshelves made out of 2-by-4s that every newlywed makes.
I'll get the drill. I'll wrap it and put it under the tree. And the "baby," who has a bad back and a hairline like the state of Florida, will say it's exactly what he wanted.
But I'm a mother who refuses to let her youngest grow up. I will not be able to resist cautioning, "Be sure and read the directions, and don't hurt yourself."