Today my first born son turned 5.

We did the cake. We did the presents. We did the hoopla.

He was beaming all day and I was making a huge deal out of his ability to have accomplished 5 years of living.

Inside I was dying.

I spent the day in fear. I spent the day in denial. I put on a happy face but inside I was in PAIN by his big boy bike. His wanting to shut the door when he went to the bathroom. His growing up.

I don’t care what my job is supposed to be and I don’t care what sort of label you want to throw at me-THIS SUCKS.

It hurts. I’m not a fan. And I’d like it to stop.

The entire time I was encouraging him to sit on the new bike and test it out, and he was protesting that it looked too big and was too wobbly, I was thinking ‘it’s ok baby boy, don’t be afraid, Mom is here, don’t do it if you don’t want too, just come sit on my lap and lay your head on my shoulder and cuddle with me.’

I suck.

I stood there thinking to myself ‘god if you can’t handle the wobbly big kid bike I can’t possibly let you out there into the world and let you see how horrible things are, how your heart will be broken, how people will be mean, how sometimes your stomach will be in knots, how life can be very shitty…’

I was sick. SICK.

My children make me feel very weak. The kind of weak that could turn me into some insane helicopter mom who homeschools and layers the walls with foam. The kind of weak that makes me throw every ounce of common sense out the window in favor of whatever will keep my children in ignorant bliss for eternity.

It hurts too much. IT HURTS TOO MUCH.

Of course I gently coaxed him on that bike and eventually he was riding around the culs-de-sac and life was just happy happy but I couldn’t shake the amount of fear that came with this birthday.

Real school is around the corner. Big kids who bully. Teachers who may or may not find his quirks endearing. Expectations. Disappointments. Triumphs.

I ache for every moment yet to come that causes him to pause. I yearn for every moment passed that seems now to have been so much easier. I want nothing more than to stop time and pretend as though none of this is happening.

I feel like a failure of a mother for entertaining these thoughts and trying to will them into reality. Like if I blink hard enough I can poof us all back to when my biggest fear was him hitting his head while learning to walk.

I’m not good at this. I’m just not. I spend most of my day trying to keep them busy so I can ignore them and the other half complaining as I deal with them. Then I have the gall the be upset at the passing of time and the reality of children becoming adults. These small creatures bring out every weakness I have and throw it on the table for all to see, dripping in emotion and exposing what is best, but mostly what is the worst, inside my soul.

Tonight I watched my 5-year old glow as he blew out 5 candles. I watched his little sister, eyes as big as saucers, ready and willing to take her turn at the cake in 6 days when she turns 3. As I discretely exhaled harder to aid the extinguishing of the flames I wished right along with my baby boy.

Keep him safe. Make this hurt less. Make me strong.

Happy Birthday.

Minding my own business yesterday and half watching/listening to the local news I hear “Do images from Mars show life on the Red Planet? Take a look and decide for yourself.”

Thinking I had lost my mind I glanced up at the tv to see THIS.

Ummm. Ok.

Now none of this would be a big deal except my son is really, really, really, really into Mars and the Mars Rovers.

Spirit and Opportunity are household names around here and Count Waffles, at not yet 5-years old, is convinced he will one day retrieve his buddies from Mars. He’s serious too. He also thinks his Mom gets to go with him, but that’s another story.

So when I saw the images on the news I debated showing our budding astronaut. Here’s the problem though-he’s afraid of aliens.

He has nightmares about them and they totally freak him out.

I didn’t post the pic here because I’m afraid he’ll see it-that’s how bad he MIGHT freak.

So I stopped myself from showing him these rocks that look like a person, because I thought he would cry or scream or be convinced there are aliens on Mars and we all need to run and hide.

Does that make me a hover-mom?

Should I let him see them and explain they are rocks?

I KNOW he’ll be totally fascinated by the photo and the shot from Spirit (which we’ve look at a million times anyway) but I’m so afraid I’ll add to his fears.

I’m a big geek, aren’t I?

We’re going to watch the Disney documentary Roving Mars. Again.

I need a hook up at JPL. Or something.

Done babbling now.