good night

I remember when Jake was very small and I was certain that there had been some sort of mistake. When I held him with his head in the bend of my left arm, I just knew he was never going to grow. He would always be incredibly helpless and small and I would forever be unbelievably tired and needed.

It is funny to see him sprawled across my body when I try to hold him like that now. When he was born he was only 20 inches long and he was usually curled into a ball half that size. Now he is less than 30 inches shorter than I. He was 30 inches tall on his first birthday, nearly two years ago.

I sneak into his room every night to watch him breathe and I whisper all of the things I know about life in hope that part of him hears and I spare him a bit of heartache somewhere along the line.
Maybe I will.
Probably not.

He sleeps like a man.
On his back with his right hand either deep in his waistband or up the bottom of his shirt with his fingers spread across the left side of his chest. It's funny what men protect. It's funny that my boy does it without knowing why. His other hand is usually holding his bear. I wonder how long that will last. Not long enough. Nothing good ever lasts long enough.

I can't decide whether I'm grateful or resentful of the way he changed my life. It doesn't matter because I love him so much that it breaks me and makes me whole in the same instant. He didn't ask to be here but he demands that I be here for him and I do so without question.

Late at night, I hold him as best I can without disturbing him. Sometimes he will turn to me and sleepily tell me he loves me or that I look beautiful in his bed. When he is my age he will say that to someone else, and I hope it means as much to the person he chooses to begin and end his days with as it does to me.

When we are awake I can't comfortably make space for him in my lap anymore. He is too long to cradle on the tops of my legs so we sit face to face and too tall to fit on my lap without hitting my face with his head when he turns to talk to me. I can't curl around him anymore nor hold him against my belly when we lie down together. I can't pretend we are still vitally connected. He is too big to melt himself into me the way he was able to do his entire life but too small to stop trying.

Today.

(I wrote this last January, but I'm reposting today it because I want to.)