Changes

I thought it was just a frog in his throat.  Maybe he was coming down with something.  It’s not that I didn’t notice his voice was different, but I was totally caught off guard when a friend commented that my 14-year-old son’s voice was changing.  Really?  It’s happening already?  My boy is morphing into manhood right before my eyes?

He’s grown two inches in the last six months.  He’s eating more and sleeping longer.  I should have known this was coming, but I’m not sure any parent can ever be prepared for moments like these.

When he decided to be done with diapers at age two and a half, I still had a load of them hanging on the line to dry.  I never even got to have a little farewell celebration with them – I just took them down and put them in a box, never to use them again.

How is it these moments come and go so quickly?  I know parenting is all about letting go - and if the child lets go, then we’ve done our job - but these milestones should be celebrated in some way.  Stone pillars in the yard to commemorate such occasions might be good.

Before he was born, we took a “birthing” class to find out what to expect, being first time parents and all.  It was mostly about breathing techniques and how to manage the pain.  When the instructor asked if anyone had any questions, my husband raised his hand and asked, “So, how high up in the tree can you let them climb, so that if they fall they just get hurt enough to learn the lesson, but it doesn’t kill them?”  He was serious.  I was mortified.  Really?  This is the kind of things fathers think about right before a baby is born?

The day did come when our son was up in a tree, with his father’s blessing and without my knowledge.  He was four year’s old and when he fell, it was only by the grace of God he avoided serious injury.  I guess that particular parental mystery of my husband’s is now over.  It was about fifteen feet.

I don’t know many fathers that give as much contemplative thought to the parenting process as the mothers, as our tendency is to think and worry about everything.  Fathers rarely have worries, and this is why, it seems, all the accidents I read in the newspaper, that have happened to children, happen when they are in the care of their fathers.  We mothers see these things coming, and safety is our utmost concern, but then we’re blindsided by the day they give up using diapers or their voice starts to change.

One particularly bad day, when my son was still a toddler, a friend consoled me with this thought, “The years go by so fast, but sometimes the days are really long.” 

Now I’m wishing I could figure out how to slow down these last few years.