Life After I "Dew"

I remember the moment I first started to notice Kendall's baby-ness going away.  I remember, vividly, rocking her in her glider {now James's glider} and noticing the tiny creases slowly filling in on her wrists.  Her knuckles no longer resembled dimples.  Her sweet little pot-belly looking more lean.  I soaked that last bit of baby-ness up like a sponge to water.

It actually feels like that moment was just seconds ago but, sadly, it's been about two years.

Two years and now it's James's turn and it's happening.  All of the sudden I looked at him and it was like, "whoa, he's a little boy".  He loses his baby face each day.  One of my favorite features on him is his teeth {weird} and his whole life you really haven't been able to see them thanks to his chubby cheeks. Now that his face is maturing and thinning out you can see his teeth a little more now.  Once he got a big boy haircut I pretty much said goodbye to any bit of baby looks he had left.  What is it about a haircut?

The older he gets the more independent he's becoming {as is true with most kids}.  He doesn't like to be rocked to sleep anymore, a milestone I always dread.  Except today was different. He wasn't convinced that he was tired {thanks to big sister barging into his room with a cupcake in her hand} but he almost fell asleep on the way home from church so a nap was in order.  This time he let me rock him.  He laid his big boy head right on my shoulder and wrapped his arms and legs around me so tight as to say, "please don't let me go, mommy".  I jumped at the chance to rock my baby and as I did I felt the baby-ness once more.

Although his little body is so long and heavy.  Even though it takes both of my arms, under his butt, to hold him.  In that moment he was still my baby and he needed me.  He snuggled right into my chest and tucked his little arms underneath the weight of his body and he was still.  I felt his skin, still so baby soft.  I rubbed his back and sniffed his head {which doesn't smell like a baby anymore}.

Pretty soon I won't see even the slightest trace of baby left in him.  Sooner or later he's going to be all boy, even more so than he already is.  I have such a love/hate relationship with this stage.  I love watching them become the little people they are destined to be.  I hate saying good-bye to my babies.
Tonight I think I'll study him extra hard.  Notice all his fine lines, his dimples, his creases.  I might give him a bath and lather him with baby lotion, the same lotion I used when he was just months old.  Would that be weird?

"The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow, For children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.  So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.  I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep."