My Boy Is No Longer My Baby

There has been SO MUCH going on at our home as of late. There has been so much reflection on life that would lend a lot of context to the serenity I experienced tonight. Hopefully I will remember it from that stance when I re-read this post in the years to come.

Tonight was my turn to watch the baby nursery at church for our evening service. I always love this time. Though it occasionally may make me a bit sad to realize it, I nevertheless feel at peace in the knowledge that we have likely expanded our family as much as we ever will by natural means. And so each time I get to spend this hour and a half with the children of those I have known since they were my own students in Youth Group, I enjoy it immensely. I soak up all the silliness in their nonsensical games, the feel of their tender rolled skin as I hold them in a hug, the "baby smell" that nestles especially in their newly washed hair. And then I go home glad for every single vivid memory I have of my own kids in those moments and yet equally happy that they are who and what they are at this very moment. What they now lack in innocence as compared to these young ones, they make up for in accomplishment that these kids don't yet even dream of. I have thanked God often that for every loss in a particular stage of childhood growth, there seems to be an equal blessing that wasn't there before.

As I went to tuck the children into bed tonight at 11:00, because they ARE getting older and wanting to stay up late as big kids do, my son made a request. "Mom, will you lay here with me for a little while?" He didn't have a bad day (in fact he told me thank you three times for letting him stay and play with his lifelong buddy though I needed to come home and pay bills - again.) And he wasn't scared. As he quickly approaches his last pre-teen birthday ever, I realized that he just wanted my company. And truth be told, with all I have had to accomplish lately, I have been desperately missing his - and his siblings'. I lied down and we talked for a little while about a few different everyday things until his words became softer and less frequent. Then I rubbed his back until I heard quiet but distinct snoring. He never did that as an infant or toddler. I couldn't help but notice, as he struggled in his sleep to pull the covers ever tighter around him (a quirk he gets from me and not his father) that he is beginning to develop the slightest little cut of tricep muscles. His tousled hair and dirty fingernails both need to be trimmed. His once chubby pink cheeks have morphed into a chiseled jowl and his tiny turned up baby nose is now straight and tanned and freckled. So I just lay there, immensely grateful, and took in his smell. It seemed like a mix of saw dust and faint sweat. Almost manly. Almost. And tonight I can honestly say.......it was even sweeter than that brand new baby smell.