Lori Shaw-Cohen

Staying focused on the goal, not the arduous journey and uncertainty — that crippling unknowing — seemed impossible. Waiting to see my OB/GYN, surrounded by miraculously swollen tummies draped with open parenting periodicals and bored toddlers, I felt small and inadequate. My husband of three years held my hand protectively amid the human incubators. For us, there’d be no listening to the “glub glub” of a brand-new heartbeat, no exuberant exit waving fuzzy photos of sheer bliss. Not yet. Not ever, we thought during the darkest days.

This is the month when romance permeates the air and a Brink’s truck backs up to the Russell Stover estate. Couples buy into the red and pink frenzy, and retailers rejoice while singles ponder a heart-(and Hallmark-)less existence.

Politics, religion, and the exes — the unholy trinity of what not to bring up during polite adult conversation. Well, that and the OctoMom. Adults often avoid these impassioned subjects like the dreaded Back-to-School Night sign-up sheets. (I’ve fantasized about bringing my own clipboard and recruiting volunteers to bring cupcakes and juice to my house.) 

Whenever I said, “Ready or not, here I come,” she was hiding. Whenever I say, “Remember when … ?” she remembers. And, whenever I’d like to forget … she still remembers.

My extraordinary (in every way!), red-headed sister and I shared a bedroom and bathroom for most of our personality-shaping, formative years. We also have a family resemblance — she looks like one side of the family, and I look like the other. Both of us sport small feet, big mouths, and zero patience.

I always thought I was a quick study, however, I didn’t catch on right away. In fact, it took two adamant teenagers, several unnecessary trips to office supply stores, and one assembly from hell without instructions (read: they might as well have been in Japanese for all the good they did!) before it dawned on me … KIDS DON’T USE DESKS!

I don’t EVER remember seeing either of my oldest kids do their homework (or anything, come to think of it!) at their desks. Now, history is repeating itself for a third (charm-free) time.

If only there were a scientific formula or mathematical methodology. A psychic and a crystal ball couldn’t hurt either.

The decision to have a child is a monumental one. The transition from none to one can feel like 10 children to new parents because there’s a huge learning curve the first time around the baby bend.

My friend Cindy is a riot. Always has been. I met her in the early ’90s at Meadow Oaks School, nestled in the foothills of Southern California’s Santa Monica Mountains, where both of our oldest children attended. I got to know her, however, during a nothing-like-your-mother’s-Tupperware party (wink, wink). That’s right. Over a couple (read: as many as necessary) glasses of white wine and nipple tassels, Cindy and I cemented a friendship that has spanned almost 20 years.

Remember when the days were long
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky
Didn’t have a care in the world
With Mommy and Daddy standing by …
    — “The End of the Innocence,” by Don Henley
 

This month, countless families will export their most valuable home-grown resources to colleges near and far. Chances are, not all parents (over)react to that milestone the way I did the first time around, but trust me, even if Junior is just moving to a dorm downtown, it’s a heavy day. A heavy day that I remember in HD detail …The usual third click of the camera’s shutter was conspicuously absent as my two youngest children posed for their annual — and mandatory — first-day-of-school photos, waving by the front door.

Remember the Johnny Cash hit, “A Boy Named Sue?” Well, I have a girl named Drew. And though she undoubtedly belongs to the ovary-packin’ pack, her name does not. On most incoming mail, “Mr.” precedes her moniker, which has landed on a boy’s PE roster more than once. Unlike poor Sue, though, Drew likes her nonconforming handle, the one I chose for her light-years before the conception of her conception. Fortuitously, an atypical name for an atypical gal.