peevish mama

It has begun. Saint James has jumped down the rabbit hole once and for all. He will emerge fully grown, taller and bigger than I ever imagined, utterly transformed from the scrunchy baby with the face of a boxer I held just yesterday. It has begun. When a child is growing up under your nose, you cannot possibly see the daily change, but there are certain points when the growth is palpable, obvious and crushingly bittersweet. The transition from tiny, tenuous newborn into unbeatable smiling buddha. The jump from toddler to big kid, seemingly overnight some time in the fourth year, when the baby fat melts away to be replaced by long legs, pointy scapula and verbose swagger. And now this. This.

It seems like forever he was the same. Maybe taller, in need of bigger shoes from time to time, but essentially the same. Always hovering around the 60th percentile, Saint James wore the same swim trunks from the age of 5 to the age of 9. Any time I tried to buy a new pair, I’d have to sew a little gather to make them smaller at the waist. My first clue that the winds of change were stirring the trees outside our house was when he ate five pieces of barbecued chicken one night earlier this fall. I could practically hear the latches of his stomach unbuckle to reveal a cavernous secret compartment. All of a sudden he was foraging for cereal after dinner, grabbing a banana on the way out the door, tucking into heaping bowls of pasta and then asking for more. All while I held my breath, giving him searching looks, bracing myself for what was coming.

And then he started to grow. Up and out. His hands are bigger, his face is bigger. His voice isn’t changing but he seems to be pulling it out of a lower spot in his chest. He still tries to climb in my lap when I’m on the computer but he’s really, truly getting too big. I can barely see over his shoulder. My legs start to fall asleep. He pokes me with his knobby elbows. Not that I would shoo him – no way. I will be the scrawny mouse with the giraffe in her lap as long as he’ll let me. I could be gasping for breath under his hulking boy mass, and I would still welcome him with open arms.

I can feel myself doing that thing that mothers do, staring at my kid just a moment too long, searching for the end point, the future, my heart thumping in fear, in joy, thinking: impossible, but true.