Take it in, the sparkly eyes, the bright smile, the luscious long silky hair, the exuberant playful joy.  My BABY.

As parents we all have our ‘things’.  At least I hope we do.  Otherwise I am just admitting to being a tad freak-ish.  Which I would admit to anyway.  But, the things.  The ‘things’ our parents did for us that we loved and want to adopt for our own parenting experience and also the ‘things’ we vow to never repeat.  Oh, issues of religion, tv, allowances, discipline, embarrassment in public, eating habits etc all come to mind.  We all have our lists.  We also have our ‘things’ that we make up all on our own just to assert our own ‘parent power.’  So far mine are kind of silly.  For example, my babies don’t wear their first pair of shoes until they are well walking.  No newborns in Nikes and patent leather for me.  I also don’t cut their hair  at all until after their 2nd birthday.  No reason.  I just don’t.  I suppose it is to mark a milestone. The transformation from babyhood to toddlerhood.  Or for the simple selfish love of soft whispy curls.

Well Cameron is 32 months now, well over 2, with a full head of long hair.  Lovely soft whispy curls.  These curls make up the hair that was on his head when he was born. He is meant to be my last baby and each milestone that moves him closer to BIG gets prolonged a bit.  I threatened to duct tape him to the floor so he wouldn’t walk.  I talked baby talk to him  with no intentions of proper talk (and I abhor coochie goo talk.) He nursed past his 2nd birthday and will probably start preschool later than his brother and sister.  Heck, he may even go to high school in diapers and take his blankie to college.   HAHAHA…ummm no.   Well, despite my best efforts he walks and talks anyway.  He will say good bye to the diapers and go to school this year.  The blankie will be exchanged for some other thing by college I am sure.  But the hair?  It can just keep growing and growing can’t it?  Can he go to college wearing the same curls he was born with?  I knew a little boy once who had very very long whispy hair.  When he was 4 he told his mom he wanted it to be so long that when he walked across the street his hair would still be on the other side.  Nothing wrong with that right?  But he got BIG anyway.  And cut his hair.  If I don’t cut Cameron’s hair he will get BIG anyway.  He will cut his hair.  He will be BIG.  I have  no parent power in that.

You know where this is leading don’t you?

I did a baaaaad bad thing.  I let my baby get BIG yesterday.

And I am SAD about it.  I want to take it back.  He doesn’t look like the same baby to me.  His voice is familiar but when I turn to him it is coming from a different little person.  A BIGger little person.  I don’t want him to be BIG.  But he will anyway, no matter how much parent power I exert.  He just grew 3 inches taller in 6 months and before I know it he will be a GIANT like Aidan…who will by then be an adult and halfway around the world doing his own great thing.  India will be taller and better than me and Cameron will be BIG.  I know I will find other ways to discover my parent power, teenage years necessitate it.  But in my quiet time I will remember the little milestones that helped them grow and perhaps I will still have the locks of hair to remind me and I can find some way to secretly pack the blankies into  the college suitcases.

Okay, I’m a bit freakish.  I am okay with that.

xo

d.