Thursday Morning, 7 AM
Every night, we climb into bed together and snuggle in under the blankets. We read a few books and then he says, "I want to nurse." Recently, he's added this, in a very solemn voice: "And I won't bite. I won't bite the nee nee."
Um, OK. Please don't! I'm not sure how this idea even got into his head, but I have to say that it makes me a little nervous. I've warned him that any biting means NO MORE NEE NEES, and this seems to have made an impression. I don't know if the nursing will last 3 years, as it did for the squeaker. I suppose there is more incentive to end it since then I'll have my body (and my bed) back for good. But it's so cozy and snuggly that I am not eager to end it; I'd like the end to come on our mutual terms, and not because I decide that it's time.
I was looking at some of the pipsqueak's newborn pix yesterday and was struck by how much the squeaker has changed in the last two years. Holding his new baby brother, he still has a bit of a rounded baby face; that roundedness has since vanished. He's still a tiny little thing, but the shape of his body has changed so much as he leaves toddlerhood further and further behind. Sometimes I just want him and the pipsqueak to hurry up and get bigger so that we can do all kinds of fun things together. Other times, I feel the fleetingness of their childhood so acutely that it's like being punched in the stomach; it nearly takes my breath away, and all I can think about is how in just a few short years, I won't even remember the moments that make up my days now. I won't remember how the pipsqueak sings Jimmy Buffet's Jolly Mon song, or that the squeaker set his giant T-rex up at the end of the train track so that it could consume little brother's carefully placed train in one quick gulp (while little brother shrieked in dismay), or how the pipsqueak whispered, "Pat me, mama, pat my knee," each night as we fall asleep. These moments are so vivid at the time that it seems unfathomable that I would forget them, but even now, I sometimes realize that I can't remember exactly what the squeaker was like when he was the pipsqueak's age. Or I read about the squeaker on my early blog postings and think, "Really? I don't remember that."
I think about how my mom had these kinds of moments with each of her seven children, and now we are all grown up. It must be kind of surreal.
I saw this quote on someone's Facebook page, and it has haunted me since:
"The years go by as quickly as you wink, enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think." - The Specials
Later than I think. It is, isn't it?






