Hands

One of the most satisfying and infuriating things about having children is seeing your, and your spouses, physical traits, personality quirks, and character flaws on display in this little person. Whether by nature or by nurture, there they are: his eyes, my temper. His calves, my nose. Oh, and my nail-biting, insomnia, fear of spiders, and test anxiety. Wonderful. Sorry about that, kids.

Sam has inherited his father's hands. 

They seem to be a family trait, BJ having inherited them from *his* father. When I first shook hands with the man who would become my father-in-law, I couldn't help but notice them: Big hands. Big enough to make me feel very small. Fingers long enough to look delicate. Well suited to the man, who has spent his life practicing the art and science of surgery. In both men, they seemed up to the task of holding lives in the balance.

On Sam, those hands are still small enough to fit neatly inside mine, but they carry the promise of strength. He is a thumb sucker. Even in his ultrasound pictures, he was sucking his thumb. As a tiny baby, he would cork his mouth with that little thumb, and spread his fingers all the way out, covering his tiny face. Eventually he learned the more typical "fingers curled into a fist" method. I've always enjoyed seeing him smile with his thumb in his mouth, the single dimple in his right cheek serving as the first clue, and giving him a mischevious air. 

His habit of placing a single index finger to pursed lips and tap-tap-tapping as he considers his juice options never fails to delight me. Such a funny, grown up gesture from such a small person. I catch myself doing the the same thing while looking at things in the store, and laugh to myself. 

This morning, while watching his favorite dinosaur show and cuddling on the couch with me, he took my hand and held it, bouncing our linked fingers on his knee. Then he raised my hand to his lips, and kissed it. 

It took my breath away. It is something his father does. Has always done. The first time was on our first real date, sitting in his Jetta on a cold winter night, looking at the holiday light display at Falls Park, having the most in-depth literary discussion of my life. He did it from his knees, after proposing to me in front of our entire National Guard unit. At the top of the stairs to the banquet room where we would take our vows in front of a small group of loved ones. Standing beside me each time I labored to bring our children into the world. Even just in the car, as we drive into town. It is a casual, intimate, gesture that always seems to shrink the world down to just the two of us. 

Sam smiled up at me, as if he knew this was somehow a big deal to me. He is a bright kid. He notices everything. Dad is pretty much the best person in the entire world, as far as Sam is concerned. And when Dad does this, it makes Mama smile. I told him "Thank you!", gave him a hug and a big kiss. They are always watching. If Sam continues to learn the lessons his father is living for him, there is a little girl out there who will have wonderful future full of love and laughter and fun, and unyielding support in the hardest times. 

Days and years

The least appreciated parenting advice out there is "Enjoy every moment! It goes so fast!" The fact that it's thrown out by experienced parents whose own children are long grown and gone doesn't seem to soften the blow. There is NO WAY to enjoy every moment of parenting. A huge portion of parenting involves other people's bodily waste (usually on you), other people's needs (long before your own), and other people's demands...on your time, your body, your belongings, your bank account, and so on. Much of parenting is, simply, not fun.

There is, however, a kernel of truth. I am lucky, in many ways, that my children are spaced the way they are. My oldest turned 18 two weeks before my youngest was born. I am dealing with all the "baby" stuff (sleepless nights, teething, breastfeeding, diapers, gummy smiles, milestones), at the same time I am navigating the extremely tricky path of being the parent of an adult. It gives me a perspective that I otherwise could not have had. While enjoying every moment is not realistic, it really does go fast. Or maybe it's better summed up with the quote (from whom, I don't know) "The days are long but the years are short".

The days are long. Oh my goodness, yes! With a tween, a toddler, and an infant in the house, they often feel impossibly long. It's not unusual for me to be checking the time, hoping it's bedtime...at 5pm. Oh, right...dinner. Yeah, gotta do that first. And baths. And laundry and dishes and picking up the toys so no one breaks their neck and nurse the baby and put Sam to bed and take the dog out and put Sam back in bed and nurse the baby again and help with homework and rock the baby to sleep and go for my run and cut it short and get the baby back to sleep...and do it all again tomorrow. And the next day, and the next.

The years are short. Maybe there is some parent out there who waves their child off into an independent life with no concern or qualms about their ability to manage. Maybe there is a parent out there who never lay awake worrying about how their newly adult child was getting by in the "real world". Maybe there is. But I've never met one. We can all remember the exciting, heady, terrifying days when we were finally out on our own. We can also remember the extremely bad decisions we made. Some people luck out and escape with nothing but stories. Others end up dealing with bad credit, criminal records, injuries, debt, or their own tiny human parasites (if you miss my humor there, I'm talking about children) for the rest of their lives. Even so, just as we can't hold on to the back of the bike seat forever, we also can't try to steer them into adulthood. It's for them to do. Crash, or soar. Succeed or fail. It's time to step back and let them do it.

We get a little practice. At first, every problem they have is something we can fix. Wet diaper? On it. Hungry? I got milk! Tired? Rocking chair and lullabies to the rescue! They take their first steps away from us when they take their first steps. Now there are problems they need to solve for themselves. We can guide, and we can teach, but nobody can climb out of that crib for them; they have to do that themselves!

We are still resource number one, right through elementary school. Jr. High, though, begins a whole new reality. We see this with Bryn. Suddenly, there is drama. OMG, is there ever drama! Friend drama, puberty drama, sports drama, boy/girl drama! Loads of it! Parents might only hear about 1/4 of it. The stuff we hear about, we can try to give advice, but this is when they are taking their first lessons in interpersonal relationships. We can't do much. It seems trivial to us, but it's MONUMENTALLY IMPORTANT to them. "Just tell Kiely that you didn't know that she liked Jordan, and it's not your fault that he likes you, anyway!" Umm. No. This is a LEVEL 5 DISASTER that is going to spawn at least 12 cryptic Facebook messages, half a dozen Tumblr posts, and a bare minimum one melancholy Instagram picture. It's even more huge when, like Bryn, your tiny school consists of 23 kids in your grade. Everyone is in everyone's business, there are fewer than 15 members of the opposite sex available to you, and your hormones are going haywire.

High school brings the BIG QUESTIONS. Dating. Sex. Drugs. Heck, even politics and religion gets thrown in there. They are grappling with fundamental questions of who they are. They may (if we are lucky) still come to us for guidance, but most of it is "none of your business, MOM!!" The smart parent will give advice obliquely. Bringing up a celebrity sexting leak, and saying "Well, what they should have done is..." A news story about a drunk driving accident is an opportunity to say "I know that you are smart enough to know that, if you were drinking, you could call me for a ride and I wouldn't freak out, because you know I just want you to be safe." Oh yeah, we get sneaky.

And then...suddenly...they are gone. They are at college. Or working. They are an adult. They could...I don't know, run off and get married! They can decide to start smoking! Get a credit card and run up loads of debt! Have a medical crisis and decide NOT to tell us about it! Vote republican! Get ill-advised tattoos and piercings! You know... the kind of stuff we were dumb enough to do! At this point, the only say we have is dictated by our child. Our adult child. We have to hope we did the right thing all along, so they are willing to let us in, willing to come to us when they need us. Because the will always need us, even (maybe especially) when we are gone from this earth.

Yesterday was busy and stressful. It was one of those nights where I really wished I could put them to bed at 4:45pm. Little hands had grabbed at me too many times. This cold was kicking my butt. I'd been trying to get ready for the long trip to drill this weekend. I was tired.

Around 1:30 in the morning, I woke up to running footsteps and hiccuped sobs. Sam had woken up. Something, a nightmare, maybe, or a shadow on the wall, had scared him, and he'd sprinted down the hallway to our room. It's happened a couple times before, but not often. I scooped him up, hugged him, and carried him back to bed.

He wouldn't settle. He curled into a ball in his bed, whimpering. I gave up, and carried him back to our room. He settled in between us, with his pokey elbows and icy feet. He looped one hand around his daddy's forearm and stuck his thumb in his mouth. With his other arm, he pulled my arms around him and curled into me. Instead of whimpering, he gave a long sigh, and his whole body relaxed.

We wouldn't get much sleep, BJ and I. We knew that. But there is far too short a time where our presence alone can fix everything. Someday the challenges will be so great that we can't just assure him that "everything is ok". Eventually, we won't even know when he is laying in bed, worried and afraid. For now, though, everything is ok. Curled up between mom and dad, all his problems are solved. For now.

The days are long, but the years are short.