Maybe I should have Never put Shoes on Him...

(Aaron's baby feet, October 2003)

...because maybe then he wouldn't know that he could walk away.

A bit dramatic, but at least I'm true to form. It's after midnight, the tears have been rolling for hours, and I've stopped trying to stop. I've given in to the desire to scroll through his pictures from birth thru his first year and beyond.

Tonight's the night it came, without invitation, disrespecting my attempts to hold it off . Lying in bed, I realized deeply how much I'll miss him.

It's just kindergarten, I tell myself. He'll still wake up in the room above my head every morning, he'll come home to Timbers Court every afternoon, he'll eat dinner at my table each evening, and be tucked in bed under his handmade "Cars" quilt each night.

But what if he's frightened? What if he needs assurance? What if he doesn't get enough to eat? (we can never keep him full) What if he doesn't know how to respond? What if he feels insecure? What if he just needs something that only his mamma can give?

Despite my first-time-kindergarten-mom fears, I know his days will be full of all the things he needs. But, oh, what a hole there will be in my days!

I find myself regretting the moments that I didn't live more fully in with him, now that there will be fewer moments for us to share together.

I know we'll settle in to a new normal, he and the rest of us. I can hear more experienced moms saying to me "he'll be fine, you'll be fine, it's all the way it's supposed to be..." I'm grateful for the perspective of those who have done this before me, and I know I'll find comfort in it. But, at the moment, I don't feel fine!

So, I think I'll just allow myself a few more moments to grieve the era that is past before moving on to the exciting era that is to come. There is a part of me that still sees these baby feet and baby hands when I look at him, not wanting to see the feet that will walk into that big school door two weeks from this morning, nor the hands that will pick up a pencil to accomplish the tasks of a boy in school. My big boy in school.