Slice of Lime-A Note to My Son

Dear Isaac,

I love you dearly. You are my son. You are the calm brother to two polar opposite and extreme sisters. You are my partner in wordplay. You make me laugh every single day. I adore you.

You are 13 now, which means your personal daily caloric intake is roughly equal to that of some small Third World nations...and yet you remain svelte. This is one of life's unfairnesses because if I merely fantasize about chocolate for more than 30 seconds I gain weight but such is life.

My real complaint is this. While I understand you can chug down a gallon of milk per day and you have recently begun to inhale similar quantities of orange juice I would like to politely but firmly request that you manage to spare your mother 4 ounces of skim milk and 8 ounces of orange juice for her breakfast each morning. Is that such a vast quantity to ask be held in reserve to splash upon my paltry serving of unsweetened bran flakes enhanced by a meager handful of frozen blueberries so I may start my day with a healthy breakfast in order to function well as your devoted and loving mother?

After all, I carried you in my body for 9 months and sustained you. When I saw your 9 1/2 lb newborn self, complete with a cranium the size of a small cantaloupe, I didn't even mind the 17 1/2 hours of labor followed by being gutted like a deer so you could enter this world since there was no way that melon head of yours was going to pass naturally. I won't even mention the stretchmarks that occur when a 5'4" mother carries a baby that big, or the way my feet permanently widened so much that even after giving birth I had to replace every pair of shoes. I gladly and lovingly nursed you for 18 months even though I could not seem to get through to you that the source of your nutrition was not so highly portable as a bottle may have been. The memory of having you clamp down hard and jerk your head around to take me with you while you tried to follow the activities of your older sisters still causes me to wince. But I endured this for the sake of your well being and health so you could grow strong.

Son, you are 13 and I accept it is difficult to keep enough food in this house for you. I know it will get worse in coming years. I have applied for a second mortgage in order to stock the pantry for next week. I am looking into how much I can get for a kidney and my plasma. In order to be able to recover from the surgery and the constant drain on my system I will require 4 ounces of skim milk and 8 ounces of orange juice each morning though. Should you deny me this comparatively small portion, the guilt of my ensuing osteoporosis due to calcium deficiency, (I am a middle aged woman now. You can probably hear the bone loss as it occurs.) and probable demise is on your head.


Lovingly,

Your Mother