We still don’t have the internet in our townhouse, and the prospect of it ever gracing our door is meager at best. Once school starts I’m sure I can steal a few moments on a computer more regularly to continue to share Turner’s latest and greatest with everyone. There have been so many things to happen in the past month – new accomplishments, funny axioms, conversations that surprise even his number one fan – and I hate that I don’t have them recorded in some fashion. Though I won’t say they are all lost forever, many of them won’t make it into a form of print to share with our family. Sorry for cheating you out of those because we have really watched Turner blossom in this last month. In the face of extreme stress, necessary patience, elongated bouts of boredom, and lots of being ignored or shooed away while Andy and I tried to get work done, Turner has stepped into his big boy body and now that we’ve slowed down enough to enjoy life with him again, he no longer seems to need us. We’ve all been forced to grow because of this journey, which is a good thing, and hopefully we will continue to grow together; but it is hard to shake the realization that all growth means we must leave something behind too and what Turner left behind was the little moments of baby that I clung to desperately only a month ago. Now, there is no baby left in Turner. He is struggling to hang onto moments of being a toddler and hitting high speed toward pre-K. Most likely, he has been forced to grow faster than I intended for him to. Do all mothers feel this way?
Perhaps I am overreacting. Maybe all of this utter loneliness is not because Turner has miraculously morphed into a big boy, but because he started preschool. He has a life outside of mine. He has friends whom I can’t remember their names. He has a teacher that is doing all the things with him that I wish I were doing with him. I drop him off in the morning and he is giddy to go alone into the world of preschool. He no longer wants to hold my hand, but relents when I require hand-holding in the parking lot. In fact, he looks defeated when we step out of the car into a parking lot. “Parking lot Mommy” he says with sad intonation, and he reaches for my hand. I remember not long ago when he wanted to hold my hand all the time, and I would tell him how special it made me feel when he held my hand; he’d look up into my face and with all seriousness say, “You are special Mommy, like me.” Now, however, he holds my hand through the parking lot and drops it immediately when we hit the sidewalk. No step is too big. No jump is too high. Nobody is scary anymore.
When I return in the afternoon to pick him up (I show up as soon as I can after his nap is finished so we can have time before dinner to play), he doesn’t run to greet me at the door. Instead, he looks in my direction, says “Mommy” and goes back to his work of playing. I always walk to him, sit down, and have him show me what he is doing and tell me about his day. He tries to include me, but loses patience when I don’t understand. I don’t know the children’s names; I’m trying to learn them. He tells me about lunch and I cringe knowing that my son is eating meatballs that probably are loaded with sodium and trans fat. I’m proud though he is eating well at school and is always one of the cleanest kids after lunch. Perhaps they strip them down to their underwear to eat because Turner never eats that clean at home. My mind is racked with all the ‘what ifs’ of preschool. I know no one will care for my son, love him, talk to him, or teach him in the ways that I do. That is what makes me the mommy. Yet, I’m not there to know everything of his day either. I trust these people with my child. His teachers and the director have really listened to me (which means a lot; I’m sure parents are constantly telling Laura too much information about their children, and I can understand how annoying this can be but I can’t help myself.) They all know him, not just his name but how to talk to him and when to praise him and when to redirect him and when he needs to be spoken to about his behavior. So while I trust them, I can’t shake the feelings that things are happening that I don’t know about. They don’t have to be bad things, but apparently anything happening in Turner’s life is a missed opportunity for me to see his personality form.
I know it is important for him to find his own place in the world. He shares his day with such pride that I know this is good for him. Cheryl told me it would be harder for me. I know, I know, I know he needs this, but he is only two, right? I am not ready for him to be such a big boy. At night when he crawls into my lap to have our quick recap of the day where I praise him for the things he did as a good boy and remind him why he got in trouble for the not so good boy things, I am always tempted to hang tightly to his little hugs…to not let him go. Of course he won’t let me do that, not let go. He yells at me, “Stop Mommy!” He wipes off my kisses if I don’t forewarn him they are coming or if he just decides he doesn’t want kisses. Normally I can turn it into a game of my kisser is broken and he is the only one who can fix it. That gets me at least seven or eight kisses in row with that beautiful giggle in the middle until I finally smooch back and he exclaims, “I fixed it Mommy. Hooray!” I just don’t get it. If everyone’s kids are this perfect why haven’t the world’s problems been traded in for kissing, hugging, and thanksgiving? Watching my son makes me want to do those things all the time.
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