Growing up.

[rivka]

We went to story hour today, our first time since Alex learned how to crawl. I put her down on the floor and she launched herself forward without a backward glance at me. She crawled into the middle of the circle, sat up, and watched Miss Regina closely as she led the rhymes and songs. After a while, she did look back to see where Mama was - briefly. That was it. She turned back to Miss Regina and started to clap.

I picked her up and brought her back to me for some of the lap bounces she particularly likes - "See saw, Scaradown, this is the way to Baltimore town..." "Two little monkeys jumping on the bed..." When they were over I set her back down, and she crawled confidently away.

She seemed so grown up - one of the story hour "big kids" I've been watching for months. She's shot up a bit in height and slimmed out a bit in weight, so she doesn't even have a particularly babylike sillhouette right now. When story hour was over, Miss Regina brought out toys for the kids to play with. Alex dove after the ones she wanted, reaching, searching, exploring, manipulating. Like the ten- and twelve- and fourteen-month-olds, not like the lap-contained baby she's been up until now.

I found it surprisingly affecting. I feel as if she's grown up overnight - as if my baby is replaced by a child - as if my time being the mother of an infant is over, and I never knew it was slipping away. I thought that this feeling would steal upon me gradually, that bit by bit her babyness would slip away until I realized that she'd been a big girl for a while. I didn't think it would happen so fast. Or so soon.

Okay, I know I'm overreacting a little bit. She's eight months old. She's barely eating solid foods. She still thinks cardboard is a tasty treat. She has no sense of self-preservation. She'll be my baby for a long time to come.

So maybe the change is more in me. She used to be a part of me, literally - I grew her and nourished her in my body. And then, still, for a long time after, I was the world to her. My arms, my sling, my curled-up sleeping body, encompassed her completely. Now she doesn't lie helpless and devoted in my arms - she flings herself at me, hauls herself upright using my clothes as a ladder, puts her arms around my neck, and gives me a sloppy open-mouthed kiss. She's so much more of her own person, separate from me. "Hey, Mama," that kiss seems to say, "I don't need you - I choose you."

I don't know if I'm ready for that yet.

Comments

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

I think I missed the news that she'd started to really crawl!

I know what you mean. I keep wanting Henry to do certain things, like roll over and sit up, but when he starts doing it, I feel a little nostalgic.

[threeringedmoon.livejournal.com]

IMNSHO, the best love is the one that chooses rather than needs.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Yes, the changes can be sudden.

Of course, this brings to mind the old song by Harry Belafonte, that Kodak used once for some very effective commercials.

Where are you going
My little one, little one?
Where are you going
My baby, my own?
Turn around
And you're two,
Turn around
And you're four,
Turn around,
And you're a young girl
Going out of my door.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

My fifteen-year-old just crawled up on my lap -- all arms and legs of her -- and curled up in a tight little ball and needed a long hug.

You never entirely lose the baby in the child.

Kahlil Gibran

[(Anonymous)]

On Children

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children."

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

That song always makes me cry :).

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Do you remember the Kodak commercials?

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Heavens, yes. Killer :). Got me every single time.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I distinctly remember being very deeply touched watching one of those commercials. It was during a Walt Disney Show episode, and I had to have been six years old because I remember the house and we only lived there for one year.

When I learned to play guitar, I think that was one of the first songs I worked out. Over the years I've played it for both of my daughters.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

Aww, I remember that transition.

[ailbhe]

http://lnc.livejournal.com/28413.html

It's hard, isn't it, and it makes one so *proud*.

*sniffs bravely*

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

The most recent shock for me was noticing how big Mr.X's hands are. Not that they aren't still teensy child hands --- but they're not *baby* hands any more. So big! And so small! At the same time!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Kids grow by getting fatter and then getting taller, and seeming thinner, and then filling out again, and then getting taller, like that.

It doesn't say this in child development books, it's something I observed myself and asked other mothers about and they all said yes, their kid did that too.

Zorinth is still doing that, though he's now taller than me and almost as tall as his dad.

He's still doing the bit where he suddenly doesn't need me for something he needed me for last week, too.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Well, of course that's supposed to be the end result of childrearing. I just wasn't expecting to hit the first example at age eight months.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Kids grow by getting fatter and then getting taller, and seeming thinner, and then filling out again, and then getting taller, like that.

Absolutely, which is part of the reason why parents should never worry that their baby seems chubby.

I remember reading about a study where they had mothers measure their babies every night and morning. They discovered that infants really do shoot up overnight sometimes, to the extent that they're measurably taller in the morning than they were the night before. So mothers aren't crazy when they think that's going on.

[richtermom.livejournal.com]

I call it "inchworming" -- she gets all chubby and concentrated, and then she springs forward taller.

D insists she "sprung taller" the past couple nights, which would explain why she slept 10 hours straight, 3 nights in a row.

--- A happy, rested Mom.