Mom Mode

 Parenting doesn't stop when your children grow up.  

When your children are little, they need quite a bit of supervision and guidance.  As a parent you tend to lighten up a bit as they enter the teenage years.  It's nice to watch them take what they learned and blossom into their own person.  Sometimes you get positive feedback from other adults that lets you know that something sunk into their brains.  And, then they move out/go off to college, which brings about a lot more concerns.

Parents do a lot of worrying while raising their children.  

There's quite a lot during infancy and childhood.  When you think it should start to get easier, they enter another stage (teen, college, adulthood) and more worries accumulate.  When you don't see them all of the time like you did when they were little, your imagination starts to run wild.

Alex told me he was taking a day trip.  I had an idea of what he was going to do on this excursion.  As we were getting into bed that night, RT and I thought we heard Alex's car in the driveway.  We went to sleep thinking he made it home safely.  I woke up in the middle of the night and "Mom Mode" hit me.  I checked the driveway only to find that his car was not there.  What if he was trying to reach me?  I turned my phone on.  RT woke up and I had to explain why I was freaking out why I was making so much noise.  We sent text messages.  We agreed that he's an adult and can handle himself.  Unfortunately that does not stop your Mom brain from thinking that your son is lying on the side of the road.  I didn't get much sleep the rest of the night.

I'm not sure when or why this Mom Mode started.  I have a hunch it was the moment after I gave birth to Nick.   If my child(ren) aren't with me, my brain immediately goes to the worst possible scenario.  It's usually something gory like an accident, injury or even death.  There's no reasoning with the Mom Mode, either.  You can try to pretend all is well, but, Mom Mode does not agree and insists that the situation is much worse.

This story does have a happy ending.  Alex did text me in the morning to let me know that everything was OK.  

Have you ever experienced Mom Mode?

Do you have crazy worries about your children when you don't hear from them?