Stop it! Stop it with the growing!

Stop it! Stop it with the growing!

4:34 AM.

Grand Slam cries out in the night for me. And when I say cries out I mean yells out at me like he's been doused in burning lava. I run through the house. My heart is flailing. I'm imagining he's chewed his own arm off in his sleep. Or some swamp snake has made its way into his bedroom. Or he's drowned on his sippy cup of lukewarm water. It could be anything! I brace myself and open the door....

"So Mom, what does Charlie Brown mean when he says 'Oh Brother?'

Oh, and I need you to pull the covers up."

I stand there waiting for the rest of my brain and body to catch up to me post hallway renegade run. He's all cute and sweaty in his dino pajamas, holding his stuffed T-Rex, rubbing his grubby little feet across his wall that I painted the color of Decembers Eve three years ago. Not a care in the world. Just, ya know, thinking about Charlie Brown dialogue at 4:34 AM.

"It's like when you say...Oh man! I think honey." "So is it like calling people stupidhead? Does he get in trouble for saying ugly things to people?"

Stumped. My tongue feels like a sloth tail. My brain knows I have to get this right and yet has no caffeine to arm itself. I bait and switch..."Baby, tomorrow is pancake day. Let's hurry and get the sleep part over with so we can go stir up the batter."

Thud. His head body surfs into the Tonka scene on his pillow case. I pull up the construction vehicle comforter and tuck the tip of the digger right under his chin. I notice his body is the length of the entire excavator truck right beneath it. In fact, I'm pretty sure if he were totally stretched out his toes would be in Concrete Mixer territory. How can this be? Just yesterday he was barely long enough to reach past the windshield and now he's two trucks away!

I lie down next to him. Really, just because I'm his Mom and I because I can. I wrap my arms around his little Humpty Dumpty tummy and shove my nose into his hair. I suck up a snort of sand and make mental notes about moving shampoo night but let's face it- shampoo night is so hideous on the entire family maybe I could just suck the sand out with the mini Dyson. Kinda present it as a game? Remembering I don't even own a mini Dyson brings me back to the night. And his little snores bring me back to him and all at once I am screaming in my head, "I wanna put him in a box! I wanna smoosh him down and stop all this growing up! It's going to fast! Can't he just keep on asking me things like "What's dirt?" and "Why can't we go to Australia today?"

Have I wasted too much time running around cleaning my house, doing errands, texting on the phone, surfing the web for things to do with my kids while my kids are right there asking me to build a fort out of brown sugar? What's the big deal about building a fort out of brown sugar? At the end of my little life I'm sure the Brown Sugar Casita would stick out in my mind far better than the improvising I did to get them interested in Legos vs. brown sugar.

Sigh. I have to let it go. They are growing up. No way to stop it. Gotta just ride that sucker as hard as I can and enjoy the heck outta bolt upright sleep stops. And missed chances to further the career or make dinner without breaking up fights. Or learn to play piano or make more money. Hell, I gotta let go of ever getting the garage cleared out and EVER having all the laundry put away.

But here's the rub. There's a little dino in my bed that's betting I won't regret a minute.