On Silas

There is something I need to put down in writing because time doesn't keep, does it?  The days move on and sometimes I am lost in getting everything done that I forget to take a minute and not only think, but to see.

Our youngest is four and a half.  It seems impossible, but with every turn of the calendar, I am watching the baby days fade into the past.  I truly, like every mom before me, when I was living in those days of nap times and diapers, thought they would never end.  

And part of me never wanted them to.  

There is a sweetness and delight mixed with the messy and the hard of infants and toddlers.  Everyone told me to cherish it.  So I did.  Not every moment.  And not near perfectly.  But I did.  

So now our oldest is 8.  And there aren't any diapers here anymore. And everyone puts on their own shoes.  And could kinda get breakfast if they needed to.

And listen, no one told me.  

No one told me how fun this age would be.  No one said the conversations would be so rich.  No one said he would be so funny. No one said he would help so much and understand so much and want to know so much.

Silas had a costume planned for Halloween but on the afternoon of the 31st, he decided it wasn't going to work.  So much to my chagrin, he announced he wanted to make something different.  I was less than enthused but encouraged him to figure it out.  And as I watched him pull it together, I couldn't help but jump in and make it as good as we could.

He decided to be a lion.

It was the best.  His delight made my heart sing.  There was nothing he would have wanted to be on Halloween night more than that paper-maned, karate-belt-tailed, red and orange lion.

I wish I could have bottled some of his joy.  As simply as I can put it, he was pleased.

Last week our CC community celebrated medieval day so the children dressed up.  We had a princess and a couple makeshift knights in Star Wars garb.  

But Silas, he wanted to be Shakespeare.  (Who we all know was in the Renaissance Period, but let's not get technical, k?)

The pride with which he wore that outfit made every moment of cutting and pinning the old sheet onto my jacket worth it.   

I kinda wish someone had told me to love the baby days but to know that some really precious days are coming.  

Silas, I want you to know that I see you.  We are in a whole new chapter now.  And even though no one told me, it is so so good.