Hear That?

It's the sound of my heart shattering into a million pieces and falling onto my mother's floor that is so clean, you could eat off of it (take it from George). Why is my heart breaking, you ask? Because my little boy doesn't love me anymore. Why does Luke not love me anymore, you ask? Because my mother, Cookie, is a man-stealer.

Cookie is more fun than me. She never skips pages in books at bedtime. Cookie never says things like, "It's just a head wound! Shake it off, you're fine!" She never saves plates of food that he's turned into piles that look less appealing than some of the roadkill I've seen along highways in rural Mississippi to serve him later when he says he's still hungry as he's being tucked into bed. And I'm pretty sure that if Cookie had been offered a peanut butter and jelly crust that had been licked and squeezed into a ball at lunch, she never would have turned it down, hurting Luke's bizarre two-year-old feelings. Then again, Cookie isn't a dud like me.

Cookie has digital cable, so there are cartoons available at the snap of his fingers (if he could snap his fingers, that is); whereas I've just made the poor boy go four months without television while we were in Texas. Cookie springs out of bed and makes him french toast. She would NEVER cut a piece of toast into a circle, drizzle syrup on it, and try to convince him it's a pancake. No, not in a million years. But that's because Cookie is fun.

I had a feeling I was turning into chopped liver when Luke started preferring Cookie to take him to the bathroom. I felt a little bit jealous when he wanted Cookie to make his snacks and get him dressed. I knew my days as top dog were over when he needed someone's hand to hold going down the stairs, and as I stood right there with my hand outstretched, he looked at me as though I was trying to hand him a fistful of maggots, crying that he wanted Cookie to stop what she was doing downstairs and come help him instead of me. But Wednesday night, he told me in no uncertain terms that I should just give up.

Wednesday night, Cookie came downstairs after getting ready for church in a bright, sparkly Chico's jacket that would make Suze Orman insane with jealousy. She shook out her freshly styled hair and asked Luke, "Do I look ravishing????" Luke replied, "Cookie, you're a dish!" (Don't get too excited--I taught him that.) As she and Pops walked out the door, I licked my lips, ran my fingers through my hair, and straightened my exercise shirt. "What about me?" I asked, raising an eyebrow, "Am I a dish?" His response? "Mommy, would you pwease weave?" The most demoralizing part of this exchange was that I had to put a sticker on his chart for remembering to say "please" on his own.

I can't imagine that anything could be more heartbreaking. At this point, I won't bat an eyelash if he drops out of high school to pursue a record deal with his garage band, or lobbies for gun control or the single payer system. He'll probably get an unlisted phone number and only give it to Cookie, provided that she never gives it to me.

Hey, then again, with the monkey off my back, I could probably slip out of the house and go to Starbucks to sip on coffee in peace and quiet. It's probably worth a little heartbreak. Cookie, keep up the good work! It's exhausting at the top! Now hightail it to the kitchen and make the boy some pancakes!