My Son Says I'm Old...

My Son Says I'm Old...

According to my son, I am old. I don't feel old and realistically, at 49, I'm not more than middle aged. My son, however, believes I am old. That has more to do with him being 19, than me being 49. He thinks his father, at 54, is positively ancient.

Our son, our one and only child, will be leaving to finish his last two years of college at a university approximately 100 miles from our home in September. This is both terrifying and exciting to me. I'm not terribly upset about it, which suggests it hasn't really hit me yet. I am looking forward to having the back room back. At this point, and for the last few years, it has been almost exclusively his domain. I walk out there occasionally, look around and giggle at all the plans I have for it. Don't tell him that.

Besides the son, we have a demon dog named Mickey who is just over a year old and not terribly well behaved. We got him when he was six months old, with a broken leg and we didn't get a chance to socialize him until his leg was completely healed. It's a work in progress. We don't know what kind of dog he is. People ask, we shrug. He kind of looks like an Australian shephard, but he's only 15 pounds.

We also have three cats. Gypsy's a Bengal who is 14 years old and still thinks with her claws. She's sweet, but if you startle her, out those claws come. I live in a constant state of scratched. Our black cat is Toby. He, and I'm not kidding here, had a sex change operation. His pipes got clogged up over and over and they said that was the only way to save him. We found him on the side of the road when he was a kitten. He is a very expensive free cat. Then there's Robin, the Maine Coon Cat. We inherited her from my mother and she's never really settled in. She always seems to be set off from the rest, no matter how hard I try to include her.

Then, there is my husband. A man with the patience of Job. He has put up with more from me and my animals than any man should have to and does it (mostly) with a smile. I married him because he was the first man I dated who was noticeably smarter than me. After 21 years, I haven't had any reason to regret it. He and our son are terrifyingly alike and tend to get on each other's last nerve because of it. On the other hand, it's always fun to listen to them write code at the dinner table.

That's our family. Stay tuned.