if only we had made it

Angelina

The hardest thing about being a mother wasn't watching your children grow up. 

As a mother, it is my greatest pride to watch my boy go from a tiny bundle of blonde with a big red face that cried constantly to a man who was now taller than me and wasn't as red in the face.

Well unless Autumn was around then his cheeks always seemed to be some shade of red or pink, never the peachy complexion he was born with.

Watching Finny grow over the years was the easiest thing I had ever done. When I found out I was pregnant with him I wasn't excited to have a baby but someone I could call my own. Someone I could love and cherish and say 'Yeah I made that' when he did something amazing and 'how did I make that?' when he did something embarrassingly dumb. 

The hardest part tho?

Knowing that because they're growing up I won't be able to kiss away all the things that have hurt him and I can't have them listen to me in hopes that he doesn't get hurt. 

The hardest part is having to pick my battles and I've into him doing things that terrify me as a mother because children need to experience things to fully grow up and I couldn't keep my child sheltering because I myself am scared. 

Then theirs times when you knew deep in your gut that you shouldn't have allowed it but just let it go because it was something he needed to do. 

Driving was that thin for us.

I can't tell you how many late-night conversations we had about him getting his license. He told me that all the kids at school were getting them and it was his turn and that I wouldn't have to drive him places anymore. I argued that if everyone at school had gotten their license im sure one of them could take him places. 

It wasn't until I was sick and throwing up and we needed groceries really bad that I caved. Autumn couldn't drive yet and my lovely best friend had been on a vacation with her then-husband. 

The following week Phineous had gotten his license. 

"I can take Autumn to the library now" He had told me. his smile had dimmed shortly after the comment had left his mouth as if he realized that he and Autumn weren't close at the time. 

I don't know who was more devastated that the two had drifted apart, Finny or us mothers for watching our dreams go down the drain. 

He had still always found a way to bring her up though. He would sit across from her when all of us would get together just so he could look at her, he always blushed when I caught him. 

We didn't give up hope though.

It just so happened that whatever higher power there was, they were on our side this go around cause once we got home from our wine trip to found them attached at the lips at the front door. 

We had kept our cool.

Well until Finny had pulled out of the driveway, we abandoned our luggage in the stairway by the door and chased Autumn up the stairs to get some answer. 

She closed the door behind her and not in so many words told us to mind our own business. Not without a smile on her face though, we could tell with the way her words came out. 

Eventually, we pulled away from the door after teasing her a bit and backed away from the door enough for her not to hear us squealing like teenage girls. 

It wasn't confirmed nor denied that the two had chosen to be together until one night we had been up late talking and had overheard a conversation between the two where Finny had adamantly told Autumn that he chose her and loved her. 

Now when I take into consideration the conversation I had with Autumn last night I feel like a failed mother for turning my eye and allowing them to make the kind of accident they did. I wasn't an idiot though they would have found a way no matter what, I'd rather it have been somewhere safe than somewhere they could get into trouble for it or someplace that was seriously gross. 

I have talked to Autumn's mother as well and she agreed that the topic at hand would be better discussed between me and Autumn because she was afraid that she would go into mother mode. I ran everything by her first before it was said to Autumn just so I knew what to say without crossing any lines between me and Autumn as well as my best friend. 

I even asked if it was okay to run over the options with her if the outcome was what we were expecting.

 I was praying that we were wrong and it really was just the nightmares making her sick not because a baby would be a bad thing but because Autumn and Finny haven't fully been able to explore their relationship and now a baby was being thrown into the mix. 

It was almost exactly what had happened with Finnys father and me and I absolutely didn't want what happened to us to happen to either Finny or Autumn.

If the two were going to determine that they were better off as friends and they didn't want to be in a relationship with each other I wanted them to be on their terms with the cards that were in their favor but with a baby, the odds were automatically stacked against them. 

They couldn't experience things like normal teenagers freshly out of high school who were in love could, that baby would surround everything, and although we mothers would be happy to help because we honestly had wanted grandbabies from the two of them when the time was right. 

I know my son and i know Autumn as if she were my own daughter, I know that a teen pregnancy wouldn't be the reason behind them deciding to separate.

But maybe the stress and distance of Finny with medical school would be. 

And having to watch everything the built go downhill? 

Not being able to tell them exactly what to do because they need to figure some of these things out on their own?

That was the hardest thing about being a mother.