But it wasn’t a reflux thing.
You see, we went to Target and as we passed the $1 stand at the front of the store there was a lone Spiderman backpack with a shaft of light from the heavens illuminating it so that Chicken Little saw it right away. After that there was no question that it was meant for him. It was destiny.
He begged me to put it on him in the store but I told him we had to buy it first. He begged me to put it on him in the car but I explained to him that wouldn’t be comfortable, or safe for that matter. As soon as I opened his door he made me put it on him by refusing to walk in the house unless he was wearing it.
The whole car ride he spent digging through the box of car toys that is sandwiched between the two carseats and finding things that would go inside. By the time made it home he had thought about all the toys he has inside that can go in it as well.
He ran in the house and exchanged the contents, then came back out of his room and asked me to help him put it back on again. Then he ran back into his room and emerged grasping his Spiderman costume from Halloween. We had to take off the backpack, put on the costume and then put the backpack on again.
“Mama”, he said, “when I go to college I can put a real phone in here and all my books. Then when I come home I’ll give you a big kiss. Or maybe Toddler, I’m not sure who I’ll kiss first.”
I laughed at first but then when he looked down to re-arrange the contents of the backpack again it hit me just like it had the first time we read The Giving Tree together by Shel Silverstein, or Brundibar by Maurice Sendak, or worse yet I’ll Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. He really would be moving away one day. And then I cried.
As much as he is a pain in the rear I cannot imagine my life without him. I know it will happen, in fact I want it to happen. I don’t want him to be one of those 30 or 40 year old single guys living with his mom and dad. Or worse yet a 30 or 40 year old married guy living with his mom and dad. But it saddens me just the same.
He will grow up and have his own life and have no further use for me until he has kids. And that’s the way it needs to be. That realization is what helps me to still carry him around, even though he is 2/3s as tall as I am. I think of that while I snuggle in bed with him to help him fall asleep, even though it means I can’t start working until 9:30 at night.
One day he will have no further need for me but today he does and I relish every minute of it.