“Maaaa-Maaaaa!”
The wailing is coming from my first
born from down the hall. He was
about 15 months old, standing in his “cribbie”, as we called it back then,
shaking the railings and letting us all know how mad he was. It was the culmination of days and
weeks of preparation by his dad and I, after careful consultation with his
pediatrician, books, magazines, relatives, and friends. John was going to have to learn
to sooth himself at bed and naptime and this was the day we determined we would
let him cry it out despite pleas to “sing song mommy!”
As the firstborn child to parents
who put off having children until later in their professional working careers,
he was perhaps overly welcomed into the world having his every whim catered to
without delay. So this rude jolt to his system didn’t pass quietly.
Standing in the bathroom with the
fan vent blowing full blast I was crying as much, if not more, than my sweet,
sweet baby down the hall. I
remember the complete emotional upheaval my body endured that day and the
following days as he managed to learn how to fall asleep without the lengthy
routine we had grown into over time; the routine that I loved beyond words in
the beginning with gentle rocking and humming but one that eventually became so
drawn out and frankly so ridiculously demanding requiring actual stealth
maneuvers leaving his room after his little princely eyelashes had finally
closed, that we came to this point.
I was so grateful when it had
passed; I never dreamed I would battle that same war again a few years later
when, at 3 it was time to go to sleep without a “nook” to pacify him. We had tried every tactic we could
think of to encourage him to give up his habit on his own. But naturally, expecting him to break
his own habit and spare me the toll of taking it from him was out of the
question. And so, we explained,
reasoned, and finally walked out of the room of a sobbing 3 year old and down
the hall to have my own emotional breakdown, mourning the difficult decision to
let go of another milestone in this journey we had not expected to be so heart
wrenching.
And so it’s been with my oldest all
these years, true to his earliest nature, the cautious observer, the one to
hold on as long as possible to the familiar, to cling tightly to routine and
never stray far from the comforts of home.
That’s why preschool found me
again, sitting in my car in the parking lot, head against the steering wheel,
again searching my soul for strength to drive away from the pleading
outstretched arms and tear stained chubby cheeks standing just inside the red
door a dozen feet away. How
tempted I was to just sweep him up and take him back home and just do it all
another day. How tempting it was
to try and fool time, and actually hold on as tightly as he was to the moment I
really didn’t want to pass either.
I remember once actually returning
to the same preschool to say good bye again a half an hour after I realized I
had forgotten to slow down and wave at the window where he stood each day for
the final glimpse of mama driving away.
And so, is it any wonder now, as he
stands at the threshold of another turning point in his life that I would
simply like to stop time and allow him to just wait a little while longer for
it to happen. And is it any wonder
that my boy, a teenager now, hesitates to embrace all the freedoms, changes,
rebellions and experiences that await him on the other side.
And so, here we stand, his father
and I, again debating our age old story with this beautiful, blue eyed teenager
who we love more than life itself but we know won’t mature without a
nudge. So, it should come as no
surprise that it is once again upon me, this feeling I keep thinking I have
left behind at a stage long passed but instead it seeps in through all of my
pores, all of my senses, and pulls at my heart. I am again standing at the edge of change, preparing myself
as much as my son for the task at hand, the next steps of growing up that are
so much less clear cut and simple as giving up a nook, but just as important in
the journey as changing from an infant, to a toddler, to a boy and now to a
young man. All we have to do now
is jump.
