As I was yelling at my toddlers this morning, I couldn’t help but reflect back to the other night when my oldest, Nick, was sitting on the couch with his girlfriend. He’s 19, and has had several girlfriends throughout the years, but never mentioned a future with any of them…until Erika. Don’t get me wrong. I really like Erika. She is a super sweet girl, has ambitions, and deals with him way better than I do some days. I was sitting on the love seat folding laundry, and they were on the couch snuggled up watching a movie. A few days before this, Nick and I were in the kitchen talking, and he made the comment “WHEN he and Erika get married…” I stopped listening after that. He said “when” and not “if”. I remembered this just as I picked up a pair of his boxers to fold, and what popped in my head next literally shocked me….*****” I’ve always been the one who folded his underwear!”**** I know, right?! My brain sometimes just goes on auto pilot and there’s no stopping it! I remember folding those size 2t briefs with the cartoons on them. I remember when his preference changed to boxers, then to boxer briefs, and when he graduated from a 2t to a 5t, then a mens’ small, and all the sizes in between. I remember because I folded them all. Me. His mother. The first woman in his life. I changed them when accidents happened. I broke my back standing over the toilet holding onto him because he was always afraid of falling in. Yep. That was me. The more I thought, the more aggressively I began folding his laundry. And I caught myself glaring at Erika, with a squinty stare. I wasn’t angry at her. I just somehow slipped into my feels over holding a pair of underwear. It happens all the time, right? I watched them creepily as they watched their movie. Nick isn’t ready to even think about marriage. And she probably doesn’t even know what she’s getting into. Does she know what he’s afraid of? Can she tell when he’s having an anxiety attack and does she know how to deal with it? Does she know what foods he likes and which ones you have to blend up so small that he doesn’t know they are there? Does she know that he doesn’t care if his room is messy but his car HAS to stay spotless? Does she know that he doesn’t talk for 45 minutes to an hour after he wakes up, and when he comes home from work, he winds down by playing his video game at 1 million decibels at 2 am? No. She doesn’t know these things because she’s not me….suddenly, my thoughts came to a screeching hault, just as I saw her touch his hair. Oh, no…Nick doesn’t like his hair touched! Don’t do that! He’s about to get reeeaalll… Wait. He just smiled. Smiled? But he hates people touching his hair! And she just tickled him. And he’s LAUGHING! Not getting angry telling her to stop. Amnnndd, he just asked if she wanted ice cream and GOT UP AND MADE HER SOME! He didn’t even want ice cream. He came back with one bowl! WHAT.IS.HAPPENING. I continued folding laundry as I watched them play fight, laugh at her dripping ice cream on her shirt, and replay their “favorite part of the movie” 3 times. She shivered and he grabbed a blanket and covered her up. He gently brushed a stray strand of hair out of her face, and several times when I looked over, he was just staring at her as she watched TV, and I could tell by his face at that moment, he really does love her. My chest tightened for a second. I had to take a deep breath, and redirect my thoughts. Nick is stubborn. He’s hard headed and spoiled rotten, sometimes it’s hard to make him happy, but seeing him that night, I knew. She makes him happy. Thats all every mother wants for their child, right? To be happy. I smiled, though I was still clenching his underwear with white knuckles as I folded. “She makes him happy.” My grip relaxed. “She makes him happy.” I finished the laundry and left them to their movie. I let my mind relax as I started shoving clothes into drawers. I dont know if he will ACTUALLY marry Erika. And I can’t promise that if he does, these thoughts won’t come back. But for now, im gonna enjoy the fact that I know my son, and I know that for right now, he’s happy, and she’s the one making him feel that way. That’s the thing about having babies. You sink all of your time, energy, and love into this little person. You smile with them, and cry with them. You hold them and comfort them. They are a piece of you and you have a love for them that can never be described. But then one day, they grow up, and you have to let them go. And though part of you is proud of who they’ve become, I dont think your heart is ever truely ready.