time flies, part VII

It's officially over.

Charlie's childhood, that is.

There have been glimpses, in the last few years, and I knew it would happen.

Last summer, (you may remember) he informed me, quite happily, that he was stinky, and needed some deoderant. Yesterday, he asked me to pick up some body spray and matching cologne. You read it right, cologne. Old Spice Pure Sport, specifically. To coordinate with his deoderant, and body wash.

Oh, would my Grandma Betty have loved this! She always gave gift sets to all of the guys in the family for Christmas, back then it was Jade East or Old Spice. They usually got dusty in the boxes, as my dad didn't wear a lot of cologne or aftershave in his machine shop.

Today's Old Spice comes in many scents, to my nose not a single one of them smell like the original Old Spice. And I have tried to give Charlie scent lessons "don't let your cologne enter the room before you do".

And now, this morning, he took his bowl of oatmeal, and his glass of juice, and asked to eat his breakfast in his room, at his desk. So he could listen to his radio. I guess this means our mornings of sharing the newspaper at the dining room table are done. But maybe this is just a phase, and he will miss us, and join us again.

Especially when we start eating outside on the patio table...