Don't Wanna Close my eyes- I might miss something

01/15/08
Well, it's official… ok maybe not "OFFICIAL official" but it's damned near it… my baby is growing up! Daniel has his first loose tooth!

/sniffles with mixed emotion

He was eating strawberries last night and kept asking me to cut them up. Curious, I asked him why and he said his tooth was "killing him." When I checked, I saw that it is indeed loose. Of course, he wanted to call everyone (at 11pm) and tell them all that he has a loose tooth. He was so excited; he could barely get to sleep. He keeps asking me how much the tooth fairy usually leaves and wants to know what she does with all of those teeth she gets. So I went digging for one of our many tooth fairy books so we can read them when he gets home today. I am still trying to locate a copy of the one I had when I was a kid which went out-of-print long ago. If anyone has or happens to run across a copy of "The Tooth Fairy" by Anita Feagles, please pick it up for me. I will gladly pay you for it.

It's not that I didn't know this day would come. More like I knew it was coming, but was hoping it'd be much farther off. He's become such a sweet little man. I say "little man", because he's just that. I find myself having a hard time remembering sometimes that he's only 5.

Yesterday, he came into the kitchen with his hands shoved in his pockets, wearing a pair of sweats with a long t-shirt, looking an awful lot like his Daddy, and watched me make dinner. In a very serious voice, he said, "I'm so glad I'm a grown-up now, Mom. It's hard being a little kid like Christopher." I nearly burst out laughing, but then I saw how serious his face was. I just had to smile and choke back the lump that was growing in my throat. It's amazing how interesting the skylight becomes during moments like those.

In perversely appropriate timing, the kids located a home movie D made of one of our various Disney trips. It just happened to be the DVD of Daniel's first trip when he was about 10 weeks old. It also has the subsequent ones we took that year, including the one where he got his first Mickey ears, when he was still small enough to be contained in a pack n'play. He kept smiling while he was watching the video and saying, "Awww! I was so cute!"
"Modest too", I thought to myself.

My Lord, where has the time gone? I remember that trip with vivid clarity. Right down to the color of the Boppi pillow I used in the nursing room at the baby-care center in the Magic Kingdom. I remember it better than I remember yesterday. In fact, it feels like it was just yesterday. Can nearly 6 years have already passed? Will I blink my eyes and another 6 years have flown by even faster than these last 6?
You know how when little kids get sleepy but they're around a lot of people, they fight it to the bitter end? I've always half-jokingly said they do that "so they don't miss anything."
Well, now I can sympathize. I can't close my eyes, even for a second. I might open them to find my boys married with children of their own.

*GASP* The very idea delights and frightens the hell out of me all at the same time.