Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up…

June 2, 2008

At all. Period. Ever. Because it is just too sad. 

I guess I know it’s the law of the jungle, but today was a hard baby growing up day. I do have a soundtrack prepared, do not fear. (link at end)

Here’s why I want to cryogenically preserve my children’s childhoods:

1. J will be in 7th grade next year. That is insane, and it makes me old. 

2. E finished her first year of real, official preschool this year, and brought home an awesome DVD to prove it. More on that in a minute.

3. Baby W, who I really should stop calling a baby, started calling me “Mom” this week. As opposed to just grabbing my boobs as a form of address. It’s really weird what a difference it makes in how I perceive him. It makes him more person, less baby. 

So we sit down to watch the DVD, and it’s beautiful. Little Montessori kids working away, all intense. Then there’s a shot of them all running down a hill in slow motion, and I start to lose it…I just want to freeze them all there on that hill forever and ever. They look like they’re having so much fun, so full of joy. I feel like there’s a hot baked potato in my chest ready to explode, but I hold it in. Cause that would be way lame, to cry during the triumphant end of year DVD. 

Then I start thinking about the mom of one of the girls in E’s class. She was killed by her husband in October of last year, leaving behind 3.5 year old twins. He also killed himself, so they are now cared for by other family members. I watched all the moments recorded this year that she’ll never see, and the baked potato got hotter and bigger until I felt like my lungs couldn’t draw air. I saw their Christmas party, Diwali, Thanksgiving. And it was happy and sad. But I kept it together. 

THEN there was a video shot of E standing in the middle of the playground hula hooping for all her four year old hips are worth. Just going for it. That’s her awesome skill she gained this year, one that I’ve never mastered. She can keep it going forever, and it looks so funny, this teeny person effortlessly hula-ing away. She can walk from side to side while doing it, whatever. Soon I’m going to start throwing stuff at her just to watch her catch it and keep going. 

But when I saw her, so proud in the heart of her community, with them all cheering her on and yelling for her, the potato exploded and messy hot potato innards went spewing all over my belly, and I’m sobbing big messy gulpy sobs on the couch. She just leaned into me, like, “Yeah, we’re girls, I get it,” while the three boys in our family looked at me like I was A. Radioactive or B. An alien life form. I had to laugh. And cry. 

Why the hula hoop was the tipping point, I do not know. The point is, they’re all getting bigger. And learning the things they need to know to take steps further and further away. From me. And that’s the point, and I know it is. But it’s hard to watch in living color. 

The very best song I know that summarizes this for me is by the great Dar Williams. It’s called “The one who knows”, off of Beauty of the Rain. Great record. I saw her live with Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and someone else whose name is dodging me right now. It was an amazing show, and the best part? At the end, they sang “You are my fire”  (Backstreet Boys) a cappella. SO PRETTY. Yes, I’m a pop tart sometimes. 

So. If you’re pregnant, (or just randomly overemotional) like me,  get some kleenex before clicking on this song. But it’s worth it. 

xoxo, 

L

“The One Who Knows”, Dar Williams

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