Too Much Growing

Ben and I have a routine.  We have lunch at 11:30.  At 12:00 we go upstairs to the rocking chair and snuggle together and watch 15 minutes of Paula Deen's homecooking, I put him in his crib, and after a few minutes of muttering to himself, or vrooming cars around his bed, Ben falls asleep for his nap.

Today when we went upstairs we watched one minute of Paula Deen eating a fruitcake and Ben looked at me and said, "Mom, my room."  "You want to go to your room and go to sleep?" I asked.  "Mmmmhmmm."  So I carried him to his bed, put him down and a few minutes later he was fast asleep.  Without any snuggling from me.

Have we reaching this point now?  Has my little buddy started to get too big to snuggle with me before he naps?  That can't be possible.  I'm not ready for that to be possible.

I imagine most parents struggle with the bittersweet moments of their youngest child growing up.  It feels a bit more bitter and lot less sweet when your youngest child is also likely to be your only child.  I love my son tremendously, and appreciate him more than words can say, and am so happy that he's growing up so well.  But I'm also not ready for it.  Oh if I could just rock him on my lap forever....

If all the lights in her son's house were out, she opened his bedroom window, crawled across the floor, and looked up over the side of his bed.  If that great big man was really asleep she picked him up and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.  And while she rocked him she sang:

I'll love you forever,

I'll like you for always,

As long as I'm living

my baby you'll be.

-Love You Forever by Robert Munsch

Can't he just be little for a little while longer?