Life in fast lane shifts to square circles

"Mom, you are a square!" Mike said the other day.

At first, I thought my eldest was commenting on my complete lack of hipsterness, but then he continued, "And dad is a rectangle, Peter is a triangle, and I am a circle."

Oh. So I shouldn't take being a square personally, I guess.

But being named the square got me thinking. Once upon a time, I was decidedly unsquare. I partied with rock stars -- literally -- without worrying what it might do to my reputation. I traveled around the world, for months, by myself -- in spite of the fact that as a grad student, my major source of income was selling my own plasma. And, I pursued a graduate education in poetry, without giving a thought as to what my employment prospects as a poet might be.

I'm not sure when I became decidedly square, but I am fairly certain it has a great deal to do with becoming a mother. For instance, once, when I was in Rome, a very good-looking Italian man pulled up next to me on his motorcycle. "Would you like to see Rome from the back of my bike?" he asked. "Sure!" I said and hopped on.

The next time I rode a motorcycle was this past summer. My uncle, whom I know very well and who is most definitely not some strange Italian man who barely speaks English, offered to take me out on his motorcycle. This time, my first reaction wasn't "Sure!" It was to go rummage around for a suit of armor to wear.

My uncle, who has owned motorcycles forever, is a very careful and experienced driver. We safely and slowly cruised around back roads, where there are few other vehicles and where it is very unlike downtown Rome. But the entire time, I kept thinking to myself, "Who is going to take care of the boys if I break one of my legs ... or worse?"

I just couldn't relax.

Which has pretty much been my status ever since having Mike. Perhaps while giving birth to Mike, some worry gene was triggered as he shot out of the chute. I certainly cruised through my pregnancy with nary a thought, let alone a worry, about baby preparations. In fact, we were so unprepared for Mike's arrival that while I was in labor, Brent went out to Target and bought everything we thought we would need -- from a miniature bathtub to a pack of diapers.

Today, however, I am definitely that parent who sniffs suspicious foods; washes hands obsessively with anti-bacterial soap; schedules everyone for flu shots; and looks up anyone who might come in unsupervised contact with my children on the correctional offender network Web site.

I worry that Mike is really bad at using scissors. I worry that Peter is going to have permanent brain damage from hitting his head so often. I worry that Mike talks too much and that Peter doesn't talk at all. I worry that their wooden toys have been painted with lead paint from China and that their plastic toys are going to give them cancer. I worry that Mike doesn't like to participate in sing-alongs at school. And I nearly have a heart attack when I walk into the living room and find Peter jumping from one piece of furniture to another.

I worry and worry and worry and worry. I even worry that I worry too much. Somehow I have morphed from the exorbitantly-priced high heel-wearing girl who partied with rock stars into the mom who buys my kids orthopedic footwear so that they have good arch support. How did this happen? When did this happen? And more importantly, did it have to happen?

"Mom, today you are a bottle of dish soap," Mike said to me this morning.

"I'm not the square anymore?" I asked him.

"Mom, you were never the square," Mike said, forgetting who was who in this strange naming game of his. Then he dropped his voice low, "Dad is the square, mom. You know that!"

Sara Groves is a weekly columnist for the Independent Record. Check out her updated blog online in the "Community" menu at helenair.com.