Peapod

I have never been the type to lament how quickly my children are growing up. I loved the snuggly baby phase, I loved the toddler gibberish phase, but now we're in to playdough and HotWheels and Harry Potter, and I'm loving that, too. My friend Molly once said that when her sons were very small, she found herself repeatedly announcing, 'THIS is my FAVORITE phase!' Two weeks, or two months later, she would find herself saying, 'No, I think THIS is my FAVORITE phase.' And so on. For the most part, I feel that way, too.

But recently I have started to notice that Henry is in yet another new phase, one I can only call Big Kid. When I take him to school in the morning, he heads straight for the door, with nary a backward look, while the other kids in his class hug their mommies and ask, 'When are you coming back?' I am not complaining about this--I had two years of him crying and hanging on my leg when I dropped him at school; this sprint toward the door and his day is SO MUCH BETTER than that ever was. But yesterday morning, I missed the (very small) window, as he was scrambling out of the car, to ask for a kiss (which he always gives me). And he was gone. And I was a little surprised by how sad I felt, watching my baby high-five his teacher and run down the hall. Because he's not that baby any more.

















Henry was my first baby and he was a tough baby, from the very beginning. There was NO phase that came easily for him; he was premature, he never learned to latch on, he had terrible reflux, he was a bad sleeper, he crawled late, walked late, talked late . . . and on and on and on. When he was not quite a year old, he had an almost paralysing case of separation anxiety. We would visit my parents and he would cry inconsolably every time he lost sight of me, even if I had just stepped around a corner. He was a mess, and so was I.

So every successful separation from me has been a triumph, for both of us. I agonized about how Henry would adjust to preschool (and then to a NEW preschool), but he has done just fine. And now that I think about it, I can see other ways in which he is becoming more independent, more grown up. Until recently, when he woke up in the night (which is often, as he is still a terrible sleeper) he would come in our room and beg me to lay down with him and 'snuggle'. Now, if I hear him get up, he will say politely, 'I just needed a Kleenex. You don't have to come lay down with me.' He will still hug and kiss me, but unlike Charlie, who wants to sit in my lap and burry his head in my shoulder, Henry will give me a perfunctory kiss on the cheek and then say, 'Gotta go, Mom!'

This Big Kid phase is also a little startling because, in so many ways, Henry still needs to be coached to do normal five-year-old things. He still confuses what is real and what is pretend; he still has a difficult time understanding how his actions affect other people; he still has epic meltdowns. So I find myself doing a funny little dance, hopping forward to help him or calm him and then hopping away to give him room to learn. More and more I find that I can stand back and watch as he finds his way through his own life.












And while I am daily delighted by how much he is growing and learning, and by how independent and charming Big Kid Henry is, I miss the little smooshy baby. Today, for whatever reason, I find myself pining for the real Baby Henry, for my fat little Peapod.