Grown Don’t Mean Nothing

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Buttercup is gone.

Outta here.

Removed.

Missing.

In other words:
No Longer Living At Home.

She thought (and we agreed) that she needed the experience of living away from home and her mommy before she committed herself to living with another person for eternity.

So, she found an apartment and moved out!

I’m proud of her for making this decision, but I miss her terribly:

I went grocery shopping the weekend she left and I realized I don’t have to buy her favorite cereal any more. (Okay, I still choose to buy it because she doesn’t have a lot of money to buy her own groceries yet!)

In the morning, I still wake up suddenly when I realize that I can’t hear her getting ready for school. There were many, many times I’d frantically run down to her bedroom to wake her up because she overslept or missed her alarm.
I still have that impulse to bolt out of bed at 6:30 if I don’t hear her.

I listen to Pandora Radio through my BluRay DVD player and one of the channels I have programmed is Broadway music. (It also plays a lot of Disney and Glee songs.) I can’t tell you how many of those songs remind me of my girl!
The song that plays that most, that can make me sit down and bawl because I miss my girl so much is You’ve Got a Friend in Me by Randy Newman.
It’s from the first Toy Story movie.
That song was from her first dance recital when she was in kindergarten.
Even after all these years, I can see my sweet little girl, in her white tu-tu with silver stars and pink ballet slippers dancing while the teacher told them the steps:
”Heel….
Toe….
Heel….
Plié ….”

Even though she spent most of her days and nights at school and work, and she hasn’t spent a lot of time at home in the past year, the house seems unnaturally quiet.
She was never a real chatterbox or an “in-your-face” kind of girl, but I can feel that she’s not here anymore.

Someone said to me at church on Sunday:
”Motherhood. It’s the career that if we do it right, we work ourselves right out of a job.”

So, here’s my question:
Is it this hard on EVERY mom who says goodbye to a child when they move out?
Is it a secret “Mother’s Code” to not talk about it, and how sad it leaves you?

Or am I just a big cry baby?

Do I notice it more because I don’t have a house full of kids?
Do I notice it more because it’s only me and Inigo in this house that once seemed too small but now seems too big?

One mom I was talking to said her mom rejoiced when a kid moved out, because she had 8 kids and it made life so much easier at home when they left.

I guess I don’t understand that.

I recently found this quote:
“Grown don't mean nothing to a mother.  A child is a child.  They get bigger, older, but grown?  What's that suppose to mean?  In my heart it don't mean a thing.”  ~Toni Morrison

(Well said, Ms. Morrison!)

I read to Inigo every night. And when we get done reading, he climbs into my lap to hug and kiss me good night.
When I say good night and I love you to him, I find that I’m reverting back to saying it the way Buttercup said it when she was little.

”I’ll You!”
was the way she said “I love you,” until she was about 4 and starting to talk more clearly.

“I’ll You, Buttercup!!”

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