Where Did My Baby Go?

I’m folding laundry, a chore that seems to get bigger every year. I pull a pair of jeans out of the laundry and for a moment I wonder who’s pants they are. They are too small to be mine but they must be too big to be Jack’s. Except as I bring the legs together to fold them, I notice the size 7 tag and realize they are his.

Somewhere my baby grew up. I really don’t know when it happened. It felt like I was just telling people how he wouldn’t be in kindergarten till he was close to 6 because of his birthday. That he was just 3 and still had that bit of babiness to him. Somewhere that all faded away.

These days he’s 100% little boy. There is no baby there. He runs off to play with his friends on the playground leaving me to stand by the swings with his sister. At birthday parties he tells me that I can “pick him up after” even though I still find myself staying because we are in this weird place where the parties aren’t necessarily drop off.

He’s excited to play baseball this spring and to get back to soccer. He wants to know what our plans are the moment the school day is over. He’s learning to read and he can do so many things on his own. The other day he told me, “mom I like when I can do things by myself”. His baby days really are over.

I was looking at pictures this weekend and I found myself wondering where that little boy went. Where the shy little guy, with the baby chubs disappeared to and where this long-limbed little boy came from?

And I remind myself that not everything changes. He still loves Mickey Mouse and to read Snuggle Puppy at bedtime, though these days he reads it to me. He still likes his Imaginext playsets though he never asks me to play anymore and I’m not complaining about that. He still wants to snuggle on the couch and watch Disney movies and he still likes to wear his super hero capes.

I know I was warned that it would go fast, I just don’t think I realized how fast everyone meant.