What happened when I told the boy

The Not Boyfriend and I have been discussing these plans for him to move to Chicago for some time, vaguely at first and then in more detail. We'll take it slow, we've agreed again and again. He will move here and we will learn what it is like to date in the same city. Eventually, we'd like to share a home (but not closets). First, we'll tend to the transition.

I told a few of my friends. Shared the information with my parents and brother. But I kept the news casual, in that vague space until it was time to share it all with Lil E. When he knew, I knew it would all be crystallized and real.

No more one days and maybes. Stuff that we could mark on the dry-erase calendar propped on our kitchen floor. I knew the conversation was coming but I couldn't plan it.

Then one night a couple of weeks ago, we were eating dinner and talking lightly about something that happened during the day.

"I have something to tell you," I said. He looked up. He loves news. "The Not Boyfriend has decided to move here. To be closer to us."

The light in his eyes turned up. His half-smile shot out to the corners his dimples make on his face. 

"OH! This is so great!," he blurt out. "Because you will be happier and I will be happier and he can get to know Grandpa and Grandma more and it's going to be so great!"

I couldn't cry. I was smiling too wide myself.It was time for him to talk.

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Because...we're all going to be happier. And he can stay here sometimes and we can stay at his house sometimes. And you can have someone to be with when I am at Daddy's and we can all hang out together."

He was saying all the words. The ones that may have been prompted. The responses he may have thought I wanted to hear if I asked more questions. But he was saying them all on his own.

"So while he is at his training for the National Guard, you and I have a very important responsibility to help him in his move. We need to find him an apartment. Can you help me with that?"

He was quiet for a moment, so I took my turn. 

"He asked that you help me because your opinion is important."

"Oh YEAH," he interrupted excitedly. "Like maybe his place can have room for some of my Legos. Or a room where I can spend the night if I want to."

How had he known this was the discussion? We were in sync.

"Would you like to do that?" I put it back to him.

"Yes. And like, maybe sometimes, we can hang out there or here," he went on. "Either place."

"And he'd like an apartment that can fit a big dining room table," I told him. "Where we can have dinners and invite our friends."

"Maybe some of my friends, too?" he asked. "And their parents?"

"Yes, of course," I answered.

"Yeah," he said, and spooned another bite of mac-and-cheese into his mouth.

The next day, we visited my parents. The sun was bright in the living room and Lil E dumped a bag of soft blocks he has loved since he was a toddler out on to the floor. He pulled Lego Clone Troopers out of my purse to play in the foam structures he built.

"Tell Grandma the news about the Not Boyfriend," I whispered.

His head popped up.

"He's moving here! And Mommy and I are going to find him an apartment with a big dining room so we can have dinners there and he can cook. And Mommy will be happy and so I will be happier, too."

My mom squealed like she hadn't known.

"This is so great for all of us," she said. Lil E nodded at her, then turned to me and flashed me the face he uses for private, across-the-room communication -- a closed-mouth smile, eyes soft, then a wink.

It is all coming together, I thought. 

It won't all be easy. The fear still resides in there. Tough moments and trying talks are ahead, I am quite sure. But I will hold on to that private smile, that "You will be happier. And I will be happier..." tightly, and with two hands. 

This summer we will be seeking a new apartment together. Not one that he and I will live in more than a night or two at a time. But one that will hold more than a bin of toys or a few stray Legos, a lipstick and a hair band. Our hearts will be there, gathered around with the Not Boyfriend's and our friend's and all those beats of hopefulness for this next place we meet.

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This getting to know the Not Boyfriend thing is not easy

The Not Boyfriend is exiled for the National Guard training for four months, which is grueling for him and tough for me and a strange limbo between coasts and visits. To help, I keep telling myself when he can't return texts or is exhausted mid-Skype that is just a pause.

It's a pause of 12 weeks before we hit play in a big way. In September, the Not Boyfriend is moving here, to our city. 

It's big news. Huge news. A major commitment that I've wanted and asked for since we hit the year mark and decided that maybe, probably, yes, this was something serious. 

And now that it is a reality, I am terrified. I am thrilled but I am also scared, not about the Not Boyfriend. About The Boy. 

We have a good gig, Lil E and me. We have a routine, a way of being together happily and with lots of laughter, dance parties, inside jokes, quiet times to snuggle and read, ways of arguing and apologizing and being stubborn that all seem to work out into a home we are very comfortable in. The Not Boyfriend wants in and oh, how I want him to be closer as well as nearer.

Lil E feels the shift and turns clingy and sensitive and talks in a baby voice I don't recognize him as ever using. The Not Boyfriend pulls back and I try desperately to make everything OK for everyone. And in my head, I am grabbing my son and running far and hard and justifying the thoughts like, "I don't need to be with someone. It can just be Lil E and me. It will be fine. I will be fine."

It's ridiculous to think like that. Being in a happy, healthy relationship (even one that's hard sometimes, too) serves Lil E as well as me. I get to have that kind of big-time gooby love. I choose this man, this Not Boyfriend, not only because of who he is and who he is to me and with me, but who he is with my child.

And it's good for my son to see what that actually looks like. He says he doesn't remember his father and I being together at all and I see the truth in that when he looks at photos of the three of us like it is a map to a foreign country. Lil E has very few models of what happy couples are like together, and I am aware of this. I point out when I see parents who are affectionate and silly and supportive, make little notes in conversations about how those families work -- "I love it that that mom and dad take time to go out and enjoy each other every Friday," I have said. "That means the kids get to have a fun babysitter and the parents get grown-up time." Sometimes he joins in, asks questions, nods in agreement. Other times, he's quiet and I wonder if he'll bring it up months later, as is often his way.

The Not Boyfriend is very different from Lil E's dad. This is a choice and also a blessing. His dad will always be his dad, and they have a gig none of us wants to interrupt. And having a different kind of man in his life will help my son to see new ways of being and to be parented from a different perspective. Nobody can engage in full Nerf Gun warfare like the Not Boyfriend. No one else can speak to Lil E's Buddhist curiosities or teach him to roll pizza dough in the ways this new(ish) man can. He's disciplined, meticulous and has definitive rules -- all qualities my Virgo son needs soothed. 

The Not Boyfriend's own childhood has some similar threads to Lil E's life in three homes. He gets where Lil E has been and he sees where situations like this can go. I hold that tenderly. 

The Not Boyfriend has things to learn from my boy, too. Like that a messy room can be a wonderful space to retreat to and that "Penguins of Madagascar" is hilarious, that not much can interrupt a mama during the bedtime ritual, that parenting is exhausting and blissful and worth it.

There's much more to discover, of course. These two are complicated, layered, sensitive, intense. It will take time and ice cream and colluding and many more Nerf darts. 

Other single moms have wrapped their arms and experiences and understanding around me while I've told them about the quick weekends the Not Boyfriend has been in town that I've tried to pack full of FUN! AWESOME! activities and Lil E has gotten whiny and quiet or rolled in the grass being goofy or charged off to his room for some miniscule reason. They already know this will make the Not Boyfriend pull back and me frantic. They've related when I've told them I feel caught in the middle of these two, not knowing where to give my focus or sympathy or hand. All of them have said it takes one thing: time.

And another thing: stepping out of the middle.

They've said over and over I must let them figure it out on their own, sending them off on missions or walking away for a few hours. One told me to simply say, "I'm going to let you two decide together" or declare it Guy Day and hand over the wheel to the little sticky hands and the bigger sticky hands.

They've assured me it will come. One day, walking home from school together or planning a snack or watching a Penguins marathon, the love will wash over them. 

There have already been some of those moments. The Not Boyfriend visited us several months in a row, forgoing my trips to SF because it was simply time to involve E more. When he couldn't be here for my birthday, he engaged Lil E in a secret texted mission to find out what I'd like for my birthday. Lil E took that so seriously, and the Not Boyfriend nudged that along while making me laugh in the process. It was a delight. There will be more of that, right? Less planned, longer=ranged but still man-moments that call on the best of each of them to meet secretly, laughing and conspiring and having fun?

I hope so. I love each of them so much. I know both of them so well. Now it is time for them to find their way to each other. 

To be honest, I am scared for that to work as much as I am scared for it to fail.That seems ridiculous but it is the truth. I know that I can handle it if this relationship or these hopes for the life ahead don't work out as I'd like -- I've survived all that before. But I can't handle one more man breaking my son's heart. I can't protect him from that, of course, but the thought is unbearable.

Can there be great excitement, big love, huge news and no fear? I don't think so. At least not yet.

It's going to take more than weekends every couple of months for the Not Boyfriend and Lil E to see around me to trust and know each other. It could just be that we are all trying so hard, too hard, because we see what could be.  Or that we're lovingly, wonderfully protective of each other's hearts. Maybe it helps that we're all a little apprehensive, that it is new for every one of us, that we're all scared and squinting and tentatively holding hands as we chart his foreign land we're standing in.

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Essential weekend reading (and listening)

I won't even pretend that this weekend is going to be cushy with time to sit around and ponder Rumi or even make it through one (as my grandmother used to say) gol-dang chapter of the book I loved for the first 243 pages and am really struggling through paragraph by paragraph just trying to make it to the last word. I imagine you relate. So why I don't I just tell you what I loved on our old friend the internets this week, so you won't have to have any of your own reading trials and tribulations? Good. Done.

A note on friendship - Whit Honea is not only a fabulous writer, he's a hilarious texter who will get you in all kinds of trouble during solemn Oprah-revering moments at blog conferences and can kill it in Drawsome with scribbled pictures of sharks devouring bloody stick figures. So why wouldn't he write one of the best blog posts of all time on children's friendship break-ups and apologies? It's wonderful. 

Olympian, working mother, feminist hero -- Pat Summit is one of basketball's most legendary coaches. MamaPundit's Katie Granju writes that you don't have to be a fan of the game to idolize her, and I get that. I'm a non-sports fan who loves a great sports stor. Read every word of this as I did and you'll see, this incredible woman has one.

Not another mommy war -- I am so proud of my friend Joanne Bamberger. Not only is she whip-smart, CNN and a gazillion other people know it. Check out her assessment of this whole crazy business with Ann Romney, Hilary Rosen and every person in the world who loves to fluff up a nonexistant war between womenfolk.

Is it time for a financial tune-up? -- Duh, yes. Meagan Francis gets honest about money money money at The Happiest Mom and I was even inspired to wait on hold with the freaking insurance people for 32 minutes to get my own stuffs in order. Not lying.

A chord of sad -- In only a few days, Joy Unexpected's Yvonne will say goodbye to her military-enlisted son. I can't even imagine. Read this and make sure a flood of loving thoughts fill her living room while he's still playing his guitar in it and after they've said their farewells. 

And now some music to fill up your own busy, over-scheduled, too-talkative spaces. I'm totally digging this band. Did you laugh out loud reading this bit in Jezebel about "Somebody That I Used to Know lyrics seeming to be like a really crappy email from a duder you once dated? This cover will make it all better. I promise. It's a lovely guitar-fingering orgy of goodness and light. Plus, I love that the stare-y guy looks so much like Trent Reznor and maybe that's Robin Williams on the end.

Then "Someone Like You" in a non-American Idol cover version. And that smokin' hot blond lady at the center is really making me give some thought to my hairdresser's plan to make me go totally blonde as her summer project. Too much to process? Just listen then. 

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