Milestones

My kids are now 10 and 12, which means that I’ve been through a lot of significant milestones with them. From learning to smile, to finding out that their feet are actually attached to their bodies, to learning to read, to potty training, to riding a bike and roller skating, to first girlfriends, to (gasp) middle school: my kids and I have been through a lot. I have to say, though, not the first smile, not the first “Mama,” nothing came close to freaking me out quite as much as the one we reached this morning. Like most big milestones, this one happened by accident and by surprise. I am 5’6”, which puts me on the tall side of average, or maybe the short side of tall. I’m taller than most of my friends, but not all of them. Yesterday, I was taller than my son. Today, I am not. I have been trying, without success, to institute a “No talking to Mommy until she has finished an entire cup of coffee” rule. This morning, I was trying to enforce this rule while Jacob was what I call “up in my grill.” Jacob and the concept of personal space are not friends. I’m not even sure they are acquainted, though Lord knows I’ve tried my best to get them to meet. I looked up at him to say, “Please, buddy, just a half cup of coffee to go,” and then realized I was, in fact, looking up at him.

 I knew this day was coming. An early bloomer, his voice changed completely and totally about six months ago. His voice is now indistinguishable from his father’s. When I call the house, or when one of them calls me, I often have to wait for one of them to call me “Mommy” or some other context clue to figure out which one I am speaking to. (An aside: “What’s for dinner?” does not tell me which one I am talking to.) I’m embarrassed to admit that I can’t tell them apart, so I don’t ask. I expect my son will be tall. His father is six feet, and my father is six feet, so he gets it from both sides, genetics wise. I’ve known for a while this was unavoidable, and I know tall guys have it easier in every way, except, I guess, if they want to be jockeys, so I want him to be tall. So why don’t I like this?

 Of course, it is entirely possible that he is not only growing, but I am shrinking. I know for a fact that I am taller in the morning, and shorter in the evening, after the work day has literally beaten me down. I know this is true because I have to adjust the rear view mirrors in my car accordingly. My mother for most of my life was taller than me by a hair or two – now she is a good three inches shorter. I remember my grandmother, my mother’s mother, as a tiny thing. I towered over her and wore bigger clothes and shoes sometime around fifth or sixth grade. I remember being an older teenager, and for some reason or another I looked at her driver’s license, which said she was 5’6”. “Grandma!” I said. “Five foot six? Really?”

 She got a sad look in her eye and said, “I used to be.”

 I can’t remember if I thought a variant on “Baloney” or if I actually thought it out loud, but until I began to see my own mother vanish into the carpet nap before my eyes, I didn’t believe it. Back a hundred years ago when I turned thirty, it didn’t really depress me. I was glad to be turning thirty, because by then I’d been a lawyer for six years already, and I thought if I wasn’t in my twenties any more people might start taking me seriously. My mother, on the other hand, was mortified. She did not want me discussing my birthday. If it were up to her, she wouldn’t have acknowledged it at all. Because only an old woman could have a thirty year old daughter, and she was having no part of that. Maybe I’m just in denial about the passage of time. I spent so many years being the youngest in the room, that it surprises me to find out how much older I am than other people.

 This boy in my house – the one with enough hair on his toes that my daughter calls him Bilbo Baggins – is the same little boy that used to call blueberries “boo-babies” and bananas “manomaneys,” and is the same 6 ½ pound newborn whose legs were so skinny even the preemie diapers left gaps around his thighs. His whole torso was as big as my (admittedly man-sized) hand – laying my hand on his chest, I could reach neck to crotch and side to side. Now his hands are bigger than mine. Such is the way of the world, and there isn’t any point in fighting it or even being sad about it. Still, feelings aren’t always rational, and these are no exception. I know this much though: no matter how tall or big he grows, no matter how low his voice gets, or how thick the mustache that is now just one or two wispy hairs can grow, he’ll always be my sweet little boy, and I’ll always be his Mommy. Besides which, I will always be meaner, and can make him wither with that mommy-look that I hope will never stop terrifying him. And the taller he is, the more useful he is, able to lift any object off a high shelf and open jars. Soon enough he’ll be old enough to drive and I can retire from chauffeur duty.

 Now that I think about it, yeah. This is a pretty good day.

 Lori B. Duff is the author of the Amazon ‘Hot New Release’ Mismatched Shoes and Upside Down Pizza, a collection of autobiographical humor essays. You can follow her on Twitter at @LoriBDuff and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/loribduffauthor