As Cheyenne has gotten older my role in her life has changed.  At the age of 12 my role seems to be to serve as a never-ending embarrassment to my child.  I accomplish this role quite easily – often all it necessitates is being within her general vicinity in public when her friends or other non-related folks are around.  Of course the embarrassment scale is a sliding one and opening my mouth and attempting to be funny or clever increases the embarrassment factor exponentially.   

I have grown accustomed to this role.  Indeed, with three grown children I have perfected this role.  Heck, I have seven Academy Awards in the Most Embarrassing Mom Moment category. Truth be told, I could play the role in my sleep. 

There has been a slight change though over the years in the actualization of the role.  Now with social media generally and my blog in particular I can be an embarrassment without physically being present.  This has chagrined the older children.  The threats of being placed in a home have become more frequent since I have felt liberated by Facebook to say whatever I please.  When you add the “stuff” I write about in my blog the children’s talk of my very own white jacket with straps seems to be a daily occurrence.

I often speak of Cheyenne in my blog.  She is, after all, the last child (and God – please note that I am not seeking to tempt fate – I think four children are enough – I do not need to experience parenting again as the oldest mother of all time).  I have come to realize that the parenting of the last child is somewhat more salient.  I now know the general evolution process and am acutely aware of the penchant of time to fly by while you are attending to other things.  So I tend to marvel at, and linger in, the moments I have with Cheyenne and those moments are important enough to me that I tend to write about them in my blog. 

Typically, Cheyenne likes being mentioned in my blog because she figures no one she knows reads it.  Alas, there are occasions when I write about Cheyenne in relation to identifiable others in her life (a.k.a. friends or teachers) and when I do so I send them the link to the blog entry.  Herein is where it tends to get interesting.  Cheyenne reacts with absolute horror when I tell her I have written such a blog and laments that I am the MOST embarrassing parent in the world – that is until she sees the person that is named and they respond positively to the blog.  Then suddenly, as if the earth has shifted on its axis, I start to have some limited appeal as a human being and the blog entry is actually a good thing. 

Of course I tend to bask in the glow of my moment of limited appeal by following up with a funny or clever comment in public in front of non-related people and I end up right back where I started.  Yes indeed, I do believe I have at least one or two more Academy Awards in my future. 😉

Day seven hundred and eighty-five of the new forty – obla di obla da

Ms. C