We are making some changes to the inside of our home. I believe it was just two or three years ago when I painted the “Space is the Place” mural on The Baby’s wall and bought the matching comforter…..Yes, he loves space and wants to be an astronomer, but it was also my tribute to the late, great Colonel Bruce Hampton.

The Baby, now age 12.5 and in 7th grade, almost 2 inches taller than I am, recently decided that he wanted his room to be Sherwin Williams Agreeable Gray (like the rest of the house).

(We did not come to agree on Agreeable Gray very easily. I first went to Home Depot and bought some gray paint that I liked. I went around the house and painted some of this gray on various walls. Nobody liked it-including me. This led to JC researching gray paint colors on the internet and reading information to me as I nodded off to sleep. I did not really care, I just wanted the color so I could start painting. We agreed on Agreeable Gray, and it is very agreeable. Everyone loves it. )

The Baby’s room was a job. First of all, he is in virtual school. I cannot work in his room when he is in class. The room needed some sheet rock repair, which meant it would also need some sanding. There is also way too much stuff in his room, so I needed to move furniture out as well as cover everything with plastic. I had to put a coat of Kilz on the mural wall first, because it would have taken 10 coats of Agreeable Gray to cover that thing.

When I was finally able to sand in there, my asthmatic self should have worn my big Breaking Bad mask, because I was coughing and hacking and sounding like I was going to die at any moment. It took hours for all of that dust to settle, and when it did, everything in that room was white. Then I had to clean all of that up.

I did not start out to write about painting. When I finally finished painting, I was left with the job of cleaning up and throwing things away. Some of the things I found really reminded me of the old “of snips and snails and puppy dog tails, that’s what little boys are made of”….there were rocks and feathers and things I could not identify. Then, I opened a drawer and what I found in there brought tears to my overly-emotional-somewhere-between-pre-and-menopausal-eyes. There was a little pile of teeth in that drawer. I picked the teeth up and held them in my hand and cried. I realized that The Baby did not really get to be the baby as long as his siblings who are 10 and 7 years older than he is, respectively. I don’t mean that they told him about the Tooth Fairy. He just figured all of that out on his own. When he lost those teeth, he didn’t want to bother me with it and he didn’t know what to do with them.

At bedtime, I found our silver baby teeth holder thingy that goes under the pillow and has a blue satin cord attached to a silver star. This makes it easier for the Tooth Fairy to locate in the night. I brought it into his room and he watched me put those teeth into the little circle box thingy that holds the teeth. I stuck it under his pillow with the star hanging out. I kissed him and hugged him and told him goodnight.

The next morning, after we had been awake a bit, I asked The Baby if the Tooth Fairy had come. He had not even thought about it. He went to look. “MOM!” he said, as he threw himself onto his bed, “you didn’t have to do that”. “I know that, ” I said, “but that is for the little boy who did not get to believe as long as he should have, and the little boy who just didn’t want to say anything about it to his mother because he knows how much she loves all of that!”

The Baby sat up and hugged me. He may be 12.5 and taller than I am, but he will always be my Baby.