Saturday, June 17, 2006

Calvin's birthday

My oldest child is now nine years old. On this day that many years ago my life changed in so many ways. Today we celebrated with a small ceremony at home, a new video game, and a special hug when no one was looking. His best friend is spending the night; they plan to sleep in the tent but it's been raining so we'll see.

Parenting, the act of discerning when the time is to let a child test his/her wings, is naturally fraught with anxiety. Lately I've been simultaneously trying to let my children know that I trust them to be responsible for more things, and then feeling concern for every fledgling bird around here. There is a family of young ravens nearby, and sometimes I can't discern their raucous calls from human cries of "Mom! Hey Mom!" Which I hear often enough.

Then there are the moments such as this morning, when I awoke briefly, stretched, and my youngest son, feeling my movement in his sleep next to me, rolled over to put his arms around me. I stayed in that position, that innocent embrace, as long as I could (well, until my cat started intervening...)

Sometimes they can't mature fast enough, but most of the time you just want to hold them a little longer.

2 comments:

R.Powers said...

Oh, great, I have to follow dpr's eloquent wisdom.

I was just going to say soak up every bit of them.

Madcap said...

Happy birthday ... to both of you. The kids' birthdays always pull me in all kinds of directions, I know what you mean about the hugs. I try to enjoy them for all they're worth every time I manage to snatch one.