My children are growing up even more magnificently than I ever could have imagined.
By the time anyone reads this, it will be Tuesday, March 3, and my little Dash will be a big 4 years old.
On the one hand, I look at him and think: where did the time go? But on the other hand, I think: why is it still so hard? Petunia was never this challenging, especially not at 4. When will it get easier?
And then my brother started planning his wedding, and I realized something. They grow, but it doesn't get easier. They just live greater distances from us and have different needs -- happy and exciting needs right now, perhaps, then deeper and more complex needs in the longer term when they have their own children (all the while trying to fake knowing what they're doing). It's the circle of life, and, as much as we grown children come into our independence, we also always come back to mom and dad. Of course, I've circled back to mom to request babysitting for a weekend in Vegas, but hey -- fulfilling some needs can be fun for all involved!
Tonight, I ask Dash if he'd like to hear about his birth, and he thought the story was a riot, especially the part when I told him that Petunia told her preschool that she was going to have "either a sister, or a brother, or a dragon!" Dash had fits of the sweetest giggles, and he kept asking me to repeat that line. I almost had him convinced he was actually a dragon.
Finally I said, "Alright Dash, goodnight. I love you all the way up to the moon and sun and stars."
Dash: "That makes no sense, Mom." (Where did Mama, or Mommy go? When did I become just "Mom"?)
Mom: "What doesn't make sense?"
Dash: "You can't love me up to the sun. The sun is just a mass of burning gas and lava and fire."
Mom: "Okay, I love you up to Pluto then."
Dash: "Mom, can you just love me up burnt the light?" (We have no idea what this means, but it appears to be his greatest form of love, as he loves his dad merely "stuck on the wall." *snicker*)
Mom: "I'll love you as much as you'll let me love you, always, Dash."
Dash: "Okay, Mom, I'll love you forever too."
It's hard, this parenting thing, harder than I ever dreamed... but it's also much, much more wonderful than I ever imagined. We've still got a long row to hoe, this four year-old boy and I, and, at times, it's going to seem like too much hard work. But as I sit here listening to him snore, I can't help but think that no one could pay me enough to have more kids I'll never do this again -- yet it's been so very worthwhile to have not just one, but two very different, extraordinary children, siblings who love each other so protectively and surely that I know I birthed not only children, but friends. I am so tired, but I am luckier than I am tired -- and that makes all of the difference.
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