b4ux1t3 Writes

I was holding my son just now. Putting him to bed. He’s two and a half and he still can’t fall asleep without being held by mom. So I usually come in and help put him down now that he’s getting kind of big.

I picked him up off of my wife.

He rolled over into my chest and snuggled in. Let out a contented sigh, and just slept. Comfortable and happy and safe.

And I just stood there for a few minutes. Because I realized that one day, I’m not going to be able to hold him like this anymore. My older one is four and I can pick him up just fine…. But I can’t really cradle him anymore. Parents, you know the difference. Or, if you don’t yet, you will soon.

Because today that just hit me. It just hit me that my son will probably never be…cradled by me again. Certainly not by his mom. But I still put him to sleep every night. I’m still there every night when he drifts off, sitting next to his bed. And there will be a last time that I do that. I get annoyed some nights because “I have stuff to do”. And there will be a last time that was annoying. Because there will be a last time that it happens at all.

We finally got the two year old weaned off of breast milk fairly recently. Maybe a few months. And like…there was a last breastfeeding. I don’t remember when it was. We celebrated the next day when he went to sleep without breastfeeding. I remember celebrating. And now I’m mourning.

No wonder he doesn’t want to go to sleep without mom; there will be a last time. And he probably doesn’t know why it upsets him, but that time will come and pass and he won’t remember. Only my wife and I will even know that something ended, that something was lost.

One day my baby boy is going to be a kid. And one day my kid is going to be an adult. And that adult will be…someone else.

My kid. My baby boy. But not.

Eventually the time without me will make up the bulk of my child’s life. He’ll have been an adult for longer than he’d ever been a baby or a kid or both.

Oh, shit, yeah, I dunno, something something computers, or whatever it is I usually post about.