Savoring the Moment

A breather. I'm finally sitting down and relaxing.

Where's my coffee? Oh...it's in the coffee pot downstairs. I'm in the office upstairs. Yeah, coffee will have to wait. I'm not moving.

For some reason today I decided to reorganize my house. Yes. My house. I cleaned out and organized the drawers in the master bathroom, I organized my cabinets (except for pots and pans...I need a little slide thing for the cookie trays), I reorganized my living room...moved the furniture around, basically tried to make things a bit more "cozy". I decorated the bathroom downstairs.

I ran to the store to pick up birthday cards, sympathy cards, birthday presents and a few groceries I forgot.

The toddler was talking non-stop today. He's not speaking clearly on everything, but clear enough. "Momma, I wanna show you something. Look, an firetruck. Momma, I wanna show you. Look. Look."

He's shown me a dozen fire trucks, trains, buses and cars today. He's asked what, where and why all day.

He is dressing himself now, taking himself to the potty (the big potty), putting himself to sleep (after prayers and songs about Jesus of course), he brushes his own teeth, he feeds himself. He rarely nurses anymore and even then, it's just for a moment and then he's off to explore or destroy something.

Tonight, after changing his sheets for the hundredth time (cause this whole diaper free thing means frequent sheet changes) I stopped and looked around his room.

The changing table is now a shelf for shoes, blankets and sheets and clothes that haven't been hung up yet. The diaper caddy now organizes blocks. The soft toys have been replaced by loud metal and wooden ones. There are train tracks everywhere, toy guns, cars, fire trucks. The books of choice are about bears, snakes and frogs. The crib is in pieces under his twin bed. The seersucker outfits have been replaced by jeans and corduroys. Lighting McQueen and Mater's faces are sprawled across the underwear cover little man's bottom.

The boy himself is filthy. He showered this morning. Then we went to Target where he insisted on crawling around underneath the cart. He's got a cold and has crusty snot around his nose. There is a little bit of enchilada sauce next to his mouth.

He hands me train and says "Look...LOOK! A train!!" As if I've never seen one before. Then he climbs into my lap, asks for "neh-nehs on this side" and grins.

There is a list of things to finish. The skillet is soaking and needs to be washed out. The dishes are dry by now and need to be put away. There is a pile of things on the stairs that need to come upstairs. Bella needs to be fed. I need to post a question on the FB wall for the group I help moderate. There is laundry in the dryer. I'm trying to get back on schedule after being gone for 2.5 weeks.

But that can wait.

My child is growing up before my eyes. Every day he gains a little bit more independence. Before long he'll be going off on weekend camping trips, hunting trips, fishing trips with his daddy and Poppa. Saturdays will be soccer games or recitals. Soon after that, my weekends will be quiet as a tall, lanky blonde teenage boy slips out of the house before dinner and slips back in at curfew, a brief head nod to me before he's upstairs to his room.

I'm not going to be the world to my little boy forever. He won't always fit in my lap and he definitely won't always be saying "Look, look! A train!!"

So I take him in my arms and nurse him right now, while he wants to. While he's still needing his momma.

For a few brief minutes, he's the soft, cuddly, sweet little newborn who changed my life forever.

He pops off, runs out of the room and yells for his daddy. Philip comes into the room and asks if he's ready for bed and the little one replies "Yeah, I'm sleepy."

I slip out of the room, come into the office and collapse.

Where's my coffee? Oh yeah, it's downstairs. And I'm not moving.

I'm savoring this moment.