He’s only half awake, angry, because he wet the bed, and he doesn’t usually but he’s been sick, and he’s so eager to be a big kid this week.
I take him to the bathroom to shower off and he has to go potty first, sick tummies lead to many potty emergencies. “Mommy, go out!” He commands. He’s three and he doesn’t want my help in the bathroom anymore.
When all is done and cleaned up and I’m carrying him out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel I ask, “Do you want to come upstairs and sleep the rest of the night in mommy’s room?”
Last month his half asleep angry was because I took him to the downstairs bathroom and back to bed and he wanted to come upstairs and use my bathroom and go to sleep on the floor mat next to my bed.
“No! Me no want to weep in yours room mama. Me want to weep in my woom.”
“Are you sure?”
I’m not quite ready for this. Plus, his bed is wet and I am tired and I don’t really want to change sheets right now in the dark.
“Yes, me want to weep in my woom.”
So I leave him on the bottom step and walk upstairs to get clean bedding to change his bed. He starts crying by the time I reach the top of the stairs. I rush down, clean sheets in hand and he cries, “Me want you mama. Me want you.”
I am relieved. I’m proud of him for the ways he tries, and wants to grow up. And I’m relieved, because my little boy is still a little boy after all, and tonight he wants to be near me still.
I tuck him in bed next to mine and he drops to sleep in and instant. I roll over and stare at the sleeping face of his baby brother in the moonlight, and force myself to imagine him getting older, and kicking me out of the bathroom in a few short years.
This tiny little face with the chubby cheeks that lights up the instant he sees me will change, and grow, and want to be free of me so very soon.
I lay there with open eyes and watch him sleep for a very long time.