Milestones

His still pudgy little hands cupped his round cheek, smushing his last bits of baby fat up into his brow. With the other hand he rolled his new Hot Wheels across the pillow, reciting every feature and detail. I could tell he had studied those cars with microscopic focus. I listened and oohed and aahed at the appropriate moments. But what I really centered on was the moment itself. My baby boy laid in bed next to me during the magical minutes when night gives way to day. Mac Daddy was in the shower. Bird was still sleeping. Lark, the connoisseur of stuffed animals, crayons, and LEGO bricks, lay at my feet, his belly turned up just waiting for a scratch.

We spoke in whispers, perhaps not wanting to shatter the quiet moment we stole before the day butt in. Deal and I curled up in bed forehead pressed to forehead. I stroked his belly, his cheek, his nose. While he examined his cars I examined his every pore, not wanting to forget a thing about the very fiveness of him. He still pronounces Rs like he’s from Boston and can only spell three-letter words that rhyme with cat. He runs like a child who’s more concerned with the chase than the finish line. He delights in all things on wheels. He can go from honeyed dollface to whining gremlin in no time flat. Sticky fingers dripping with remnants of syrup don’t faze him as he plunges his hands into the box of his special treasures, grabbing tid bits like Littlest Pet Shop dogs, toy Revolutionary soldiers, rubber farm animals, and a rail ticket from Rome.

As we laid in bed I inhaled the little boy who is growing and changing and morphing into a big kid in front of my very eyes. I can’t rein in Time but I can etch these memories into my brain. I want to tattoo these moments so that when my sons are no longer underfoot and on my lap, I can recall these little sands of time. I fear that some of those grains will slip into the folds of my gray matter and get lodged and lost. I want to remember Deal’s warmth and sweetly puppy-like morning breath. I want to remember the feeling of our foreheads pressed together so closely that our eyelashes brush and tickle. I want to hear his childish inflections and utterly joy filled giggle.I want to feel his soft palm as he grasps my hand unconsciously to lead me to his new discovery.

Milestones aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. It’s the little teeny tiny meaningless moments that make our hearts swell. After all, it takes a trillion bits of sand to make a milestone.