First Days

I feel the years slip away most on milestone days. First step, first word, and today, just one of the many first days of school… an annual cadence that to outsiders feels fairly commonplace (and probably a bit annoying as their Instagram blows up for a few weeks of those telltale pictures). To a lot of mothers, it is both celebration and sting.

It makes me ponder what it will feel like on the last first day of school. I know it is coming. Sometimes it feels as if it is coming at the pace of a racehorse’s clip. Each year sailing by in a sometimes feverish blur.

Gentle whispers to myself...

Slow down

Remember this

Be present

Be grateful

I’m no fool to believe that parenthood is ever really over. But as my boys grow in inches, I feel the inches of distance grow between us as well. What a brutal and beautiful privilege it is to raise a human. What starts as an overwhelming round-the-clock need from a tiny infant, softens into “watch me”, “show me how to” and “why???” And that ebbs into the days that are likely coming for me… where I’m ‘mom’ instead of ‘mommy’, when the hugs feel a little bit more forced, where the eye rolls become more frequent, and they want to be with their friends more than they want to be with me. When you hear that utterance of “Mooooommmm” that sounds more like annoyance than adoration or need.

I know my job is to raise them to function on their own, to be independent (and for goodness sakes to be a good human being), but it’s still hard when you start to see it happen. When they start to slip from your grasp. When it’s not so easy to sniff the top of their heads and smell the ecstasy of youth. Is there anything better?

It’s a pat on the back and a slap in the face at the same time. You’ve done well… he’s growing independent from you. Little boy to man. The slice of the umbilical never felt so real. Far from the surreal and cloudy chaos when that tiny one finally made his entrance and was laid bare on your chest.

So I will relish these days. 

I will hit the pause button, take the photos, pray reverently for happy, productive and safe days at school. 

These firsts are simply the best.