I Love This Bug
It is impossible that this face used to be small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. Now, it is impossible to get him to sit still long enough just to capture it.
He is a beautiful child (objectively speaking), but don’t tell him so, because he will blush and roll his eyes and in an attempt to show you how un-beautiful and manly he really is, will probably try to head butt his father.
I can’t do anything for him anymore.
Bug, Outrunning Me
I spent nine months growing him, protecting him, feeding him secondhand Snickers and Mexican food, a year holding him, rocking him, introducing him to grass and the effects of laughter, another year chasing him, reading with him, curling up on the sofa for a nap with him, another year leaving him with strangers certified in Child Development who taught him chapel songs and how to share, as his shadow went from one adjacent to mine to one yards ahead of me and picking up speed.
Sometime overnight he grew big enough and tall enough to help himself to a glass of milk, to make himself a peanut butter sandwich, to fold his own laundry, to comb his hair, to take a shower. And when I try to help, the mom in me taking over for the baby in him, he tells me, “Mo-om, I got this.” I know he does and I know he can, but what he doesn’t know is that I can’t let him.
Maybe one day I’ll be cool enough or smart enough or busy enough to be ready to lose my baby boy to manhood. But that day is not today.
(Tomorrow doesn’t look so good either.)
Meet the Buttrams 
Those eyes. I mean, really? They say it all.
“Maybe one day I’ll be cool enough or smart enough or busy enough to be ready to lose my baby boy to manhood. But that day is not today.” That is precisely how I feel every night when 6-year-old William commando crawls past our bedroom (to avoid detection from my husband, who is watching sports on TV), down the stairs, and into our library where I’m writing/reading/being. “Mom,” W asks. “Can I please have a cuddle?” Yes. Always. But it won’t be always. And to quote you again: “But that day is not today.”
Leanne
I know, those eyes are so indignant.
And I love W’s commando-crawl. I can absolutely see that happening in our house. Gotta love those nighttime cuddle requests…I choose to ignore that (in his case) it’s probably because he just doesn’t want to go to sleep yet.
Secondhand Snickers and Mexican food. Awesome.
And the description of your shadows moving apart is really good stuff.
But they come back for certain things/certain times. Just have to gobble them up when they do.
I’m hoping he’ll still let me move in with him when he gets married. As of right now, that’s still a go.
Thanks, Chase.
And I truly love this bug too…… And he’ll always be our baby….
We’ll never be ready to let go and think that!
I know, Moms. I’m just going to go on pretending like there will come a day when I’ll think, “Oh, thank God he’s a man now and not my adorable, needy little boy!”
Wait. Your son folds his laundry?
Just kidding. I feel this post in my bones. My son is 13. And believe it or not (perhaps this will give you hope) he still wants me to be there to say goodnight. Every night.
His bedtime is 10:00 now (!!!!) because he’s a teenager. I walk him into his room and say, “I love you.” He starts to climb into his top bunk and says, “Wait! I don’t love you yet….”
Then, when he settles under his comforter and lays his head on the pillow, he says. “Okay. I’m ready to love you now.”
So I repeat, “I love you, Jack.”
And he says, “I love you, too.”
I know, soon probably, he will not want me in his room at all. Ever. So even on nights when I’m tired and I think he’s old enough to put himself to bed, I still walk him in there and watch him clamber up to his bed.
Because tomorrow, he’ll probably shut the door on me. I never know when tomorrow will come.
The time is flying.
And today is not my day yet, either.
Haha, sort of. (I’m sure he’ll grow out of that, too!) He mostly just crumples it into a squarish shape. And when he’s done about 20% of it, he asks, “Can I have an allowance for that?”
“I’m ready to love you now.” – Ugh. Heartbreaking. When I tell my Bug I love him, he says, “I love you, too, but I’m too embarrassed.” Say it ain’t so!
Oh, well, at least he’ll always ask for MY cinnamon toast over anyone else’s.
“I spent nine months growing him, protecting him, feeding him secondhand Snickers and Mexican food, a year holding him, rocking him, introducing him to grass and the effects of laughter, another year chasing him, reading with him…”
–> I love this! I felt the same way too each night I put my 22 month-old son to bed, remembering that we did everything together for 9 months.. 😀
Thank you! And thanks for reading!
So I come here to search bomb ya and end up reading a super piece. Go you. Like it a lot. Almost as much as I like the bombs just dropped on yo stats.
I’m an ambush waiting to happen. And you are unstoppable. Except the joke’s on you because I LOVE JUSTIN BIEBER. I think. What’s he sing again?