Time. It doesn’t just fly lately. It has become a speed demon. Tearing through the crevices of my brain, picking up memories and dropping them down during random moments of my day. Peeking through the door of my heart, shutting it with a jolt only to reopen it again, getting it all warm inside and then slowly fading back to normalcy. I’m talking about motherhood. Life. Feelings of watching your baby grow up while his needs for you slow down. The feeling of being too needed, sometimes needed, and at times not needed at all. How quickly things evolve from year to year. Pacifiers turn into blow-pops. Diapers to boxer briefs (his favorite). Teethers to toothbrushes. The heartfelt books of Good Night Moon and Mommy Kisses have given way to video games and something called a 3DS that he is teaching me how to operate.
I don’t even know where this blog is going but what I do know is that my baby, my little pancake faced munchie, my love, my only is turning 8. Eight. EIGHT! And it’s making my heart turn to absolute mush and a knot ball up in my throat every time I look at him. I need to pour it out somewhere so we don’t have one of those weird mommies at the birthday party that looks all teary eyed red faced and emotional during the candle blowing. So I’m going to spew out all of my emotional love onto this little keypad and let the open page catch the dramatic thoughts of unconditional love and contain them peacefully here so I can have a nice clear open heart for celebrating this new age of my lovely Landon.
Peering through old photos today I am reminded how quickly we forget the moments therefore I am going to simplify my wide array of thoughts and contemplations in my mind of disarray and keep it simple. I’m going to grasp this very moment in time and embrace the top five most recent memories of Landon that squeezed my heart. I promise to stop at 5 or this will go all day and then we’ll have a frazzled Mommy trying to shower and clean a house at the same time.
1.) Today. This morning. Bright and early. I hear padded feet on the carpet and the light flick on in the bathroom. My little Landon is awake.
There you go. That’s the first one. My heart is squeezed the very second I hear him every morning! But really, it’s because he’s such a sweet morning person who always quietly gets out of bed with those long skinny legs and whispers “good morning” in that soft little voice. Tip toes down stairs, let’s Nico outside, turns on his cartoons just to have the t.v. on but is really playing a video game at the same time. He’s so routinized like a little adult. I swear those legs get taller every day and one day we’ll have to raise the ceilings just to accommodate those legs. Am I being too dramatic?
2.) Our pinky swears. We pinky swear to everything. I mean everything. Pinky swear that I can live with you until I die Mommy? (of course!) If I eat my whole sandwich can I get an ipad game? Better pinky swear. Hey Mommy, pinky swear that a robber will never come to our house? Sure! These little pinky swears make my heart want to burst. Not because a pinky swear means much because as we know half of these things will never actually happen! What I love about them is seeing his smile when our eyes connect and our fingers interlace. I love how his warm little pinky wraps around mine and they bend into that little curl connecting in that meaningful “vow like” form. Those 2 seconds where our pinkies lock makes my heart squeeze because I know that one day that little pinky will outgrow mine. One day this may not seem so cool to him and snuggling won’t be an anticipated form of lounging or me acting like the “tickle monster” will be annoying instead of funny, but I’m hoping that this pinky swear thing will keep going. I’ll take it as long as I can get it.
3.) His deep thoughts. The conversations I have with my “almost” 8 year old son are probably the same conversations that are discussed by psychologists and scientists and therapists. The most important conversations exist on the drive to and from school. The most recent one began when I put the car in reverse and said “So how was school today? What did you learn?” He responded by stretching his finger along the side of his cheek, looking up to the right and saying “I don’t know, the same stuff. Today was strange for me because I was doing a lot of thinking about life and how I got here and the meaning of it all.” I could write an entire blog on the deep thoughts he expresses and how many times I say “How do you know that?” He is wise beyond his years, an old soul in a tiny body. My heart tightens every time he expresses knowledge of things that most kids would never contemplate and yet he cares so much about. One day the women are going to swoon over his sensitivity. OK, I’m getting teary eyed- on to the next!
4.) His bravery and calm demeanor. It sounds odd to cite this but it stands out. In the sense that he’s never been a big cry-baby if he doesn’t get his way or win a prize. He’s not a whiner that begs for toys in stores. I’m grateful for this. It may have something to do with our parenting and that we never “gave in” to behavior like that but he has never really exuded it either. I look around at some kids bawling at Target because they want a toy or box of cookies and a hanging-by-a-thread Mommy who is not giving in to it. Every time this happens Landon looks at them in this puzzled way and usually whispers “Mommy that kid is crazy.” Most Moms would probably be able to say “You used to act like that too when you were 3,” but I can’t. Instead I squeeze his hand, look at him and say “Thank you so much for never acting that way.” Just this past week at the grocery store a kid was begging for some orange pop and stomping their feet and dragging along the cart and Landon turns to me and says “I don’t know why he wants pop, there’s way too much sugar in that. Can we go find the avocados?” My heart was squeezed and then it melted.
5.) His beautiful imperfections. Or rather his unique attributes. By this I mean his physical features that I find so endearing because our genes somehow formed this magical little being of cute quirkiness and at “almost” 8 (19 hours precisely!!) he is growing into such a little man! I love how his brown eyes aren’t uniform, the one that slightly droops is my favorite. His ears don’t match and I think it’s a sign of intelligence right? I'll just keep telling him that. I remember how the left one came out dented when he was born and I thought “I have a cone headed, bent eared little peanut and I think my heart is going to explode with love.” His mouth is going through an oral challenge with losing almost all of his upper anterior teeth and them popping in at random and his back tooth was extracted and a spacer put in and he never complains. He smiles that big toothy grin with pride and my heart gets squeezed every single time I see that face light up. I wonder if he knows how perfect he is to me? Or how much I want to kiss his face all day long but I don’t because I’d look like a lunatic. Does he have any idea how pure his heart is right now at this age and how much I want to preserve it somehow so that the world doesn’t taint it? Does he have the wisdom to not alter the confidence he holds at this moment in time? Will he always be able to come up to me and say “Mommy I have a question” and ask me anything under the sun without worry that I’ll judge him or fear that I won’t be able to answer? I tell him all this now, but will he remember?
That is why I am putting these thoughts out there right now at this moment, before the feelings are forgotten and it all fades away again.
Now I’m off to prepare birthday party games and open up to new “moment in time.” After I go kiss that 7 year old face at least 100 times because I need to embrace these moments when I have them. The kissing monster will always be allowed forever and ever right? I'm going to make him pinky swear to that.
