Tonight Jackson did not want to go to sleep.
I knelt beside his bed quietly and gently rubbing his back. Then slowly I'd rub his neck and his scalp and the contours of his face.
He lay there with his eyes droopy and a lazy yet unmistakable smile would spread across his face...
kind of like a newborn baby making gas smiles in his sleep...
Then he started to snore................with his eyes still droopy but somehow still open.
He laid there very still for a few minutes distinctly snoring with his eyes open while I rubbed and rubbed and rubbed......
....all the while praying that he would just close his eyes and drift fully into dreamland; my knees just aren't what they used to be....
But still he lay there giving me that sweet precious smile every so often...
....and I realized that he was not the only one savoring the moment.
* * *
Last night I was looking at his growth record from his Dr's appt the other day.
Jackson has always been a tall little guy, but looking at his actual height in inches really hit home.
I got online and looked up the "double their height at age ___" rule....
It may not be an accurate thing, but I used several suggested methods of predicting a child's potential height....
The different methods all used a different calculation to come to a final result, but they all somehow came to the same final result....
If their predictions are accurate, Jackson's average adult height will be 6'6" tall. Given the margin of error, all the estimations predicted he would end up between 6'4" and 6'7", favoring more towards the upper end of that scale.
I was struck with a near wave of panic imagining that somehow magically I would wake up in the morning to find my baby a grown man towering over me.
I calmed myself by remembering that I have years still before he will even pass me up. Plenty of time to adjust to the fact that children just have to grow up.
* * *
Sometime awhile back, I went through a phase where I felt like I was needing to mourn the departure of the baby stage.
Realizing Jackson would be my last baby, it was like I had to come to terms with putting away the "baby years" of my life.
I cried often over the course of several months, until finally that stage passed as Jackson made the transition from baby to toddler.
I think the turning point for me was actually when he hit the terrible twos and I decided I was more than ready for him to grow out of something for once!
* * *
Tonight after sneaking out of his room believing he was asleep, then having my belief shattered by a groggy and upset child who came chasing after me, I picked him up and rocked him gently on my shoulder.
As I paced the living room, I caught a glance at he and I in the mirror and noticed how long he had gotten...
....he is well over half my length.
And I resolved that he may not be little forever, but I am going to try my hardest to make the most of it while he still is....
