Just one bathroom

I only have one bathroom in my house.  Yeah. My dad built this as his first foray into construction back in the 70s and I think he was “adding as he went.” What I mean by that is that as he found something construction like he would add it to the house.  Takes a lot of money to build a house… and takes twice as much money and “construction like” stuff to build two bathrooms as one.  So we got one. And there were four of us.  At least now there’s just Sam and me.  

It’s interesting sharing a bathroom with a teenage boy. Very, very interesting. He takes showers that never end and apparently they coincide with local flooding in the area.  Yep. Every time he leaves the bathroom after a shower I will enter to find large puddles of water all over the bathroom floor.. not even connected to one another.  One here. One over there. I try to picture what he must be doing in there to amass these little pond areas… but then I realize I’m imagining my own son in the bathroom, get all icked out, sigh, grab a mop and just clean away the evidence.  But if the flooding begins to eke out into the hallway the boy and I will be having a talk.

I call him the boy but in reality I know he’s becoming a man.  In fact there have been times in the past year when I could have sworn he was possessed by my ex-boyfriend.. who wasn’t an ex at the time.  I would hear him talking to some girl on the phone in his room at the same time as I was listening to my own male counterpart on the phone from his home some 900 miles away. And may lightning strike me dead… ouch.. that would hurt… maybe I could just die in my sleep… if I am lying… at the same moment two male voices would merge… “You’re just crazy.”

My son.. my boyfriend… both talking to women… more or less.. Spouting the same typically lame and always inaccurate male observations about female behavior.  Holy crap.  It actually always made me laugh. Now I just get a little worried.  Hmm..  current son.. ex boyfriend..  maybe I need to be teaching the boy a few more things about what women need in a relationship.  Um.. yeah.  That might come in handy for future generations of females.  Putting that on my calendar now. You can thank me later.  Possibly with grandchildren.  Much much later on that part though.  Ten or fifteen more years would be acceptable.  Boy needs to get through college first.  Knock on wood.

Actually just got back from running him up to the local high school to see a band concert.  Right, son.  You want to go to a band concert.  Uh huh. Who is she? 

An ex-girlfriend who he still hangs out with is playing tonight and he wanted to go cheer her on.  I am told flutists need a fan club in the audience in order to perform with extraordinary skill.  And so she called on Sam.  They are still friends by the way.He is still friends with every girl … well almost every girl.. he ever “went” with in middle school.  

Have you heard a kid say that before?  “I’m going with Stephanie.”  Oh? Where are you going to, son?  I don’t believe you can drive and I’m pretty sure I’ve never taken you two anywhere.  “Oh mom.. I mean at school.”   Ah… so you mean you guys meet up at lunch and in the hallways to talk and stuff.  “Well.. sometimes. Mostly we just have math together.”   

Now he’s in high school.  I reflect back on those “going together” days with love.  Because when it comes to high school “going together” becomes “getting together” and that, my friends, is an entirely different action verb.  We have already had a discussion… embarrassed though he was… about the highly valued noun known as “protection.”  Of course in our talk the thing being protected was his teenaged life.  Because if he makes me a grandmother in the next year or so … well… let’s just leave it at that.  I may need to prove later the concept of temporary insanity.

I wish I didn’t even have to consider the idea of my son having sex.  At least not yet.  I kind of liked it when he’d follow me around room to room because he just wanted to be near his mommy.  *smiles* Those were the good old days to be sure. 

But those days are the past.  Now I have to look forward….new parenting adventures await.  Just this morning I “embraced” a new and hauntingly familiar one.  Walking into our single bathroom to brush my teeth I was momentarily taken aback to discover hundreds of tiny hairs sprinkled around and inside the sink.  I’ve seen those before.. I thought to myself.. as clearly as I could at 5:30 in the sunless morning.  But how did they get here in my house?  Aren’t they supposed to be all over the bf’s bath counter waiting for me to clean them away? Did they migrate south due to over trimming and under cleaning? 

And then it hit me.  They belonged to my boy.  My special little SamSam trailing behind his mom with a woobie in his hand and a sparkle in his eye.  

Now grown enough to shave everyday.  And leave little piles of fur for me to clean up.  In our one bathroom.  That we share. I suppose I should be grateful that he showers at night and shaves in the morning.  Otherwise the ponds would be furry. Gross.