By Suzanne
My eldest son needs to shave.
How did that happen? He's supposed to be two. Maybe three, max. He was the cutest baby ever. Seriously. You just thought yours was the cutest. You were wrong. He was the cutest. He screamed all the time unless you walked and jiggled him just right, and he could have participated in competition spitting up, but he had the most beautiful baby dimples you ever saw.
When he was three, I started taking him to preschool. In the beginning, he would cry something terrible and I always wanted to just take him back home, keep him my baby. I couldn't believe it when the day came that he started kindergarten. He learned to read and write and he developed this whole life with his own friends, his own world, and I just wanted him to stay my baby.
It was even worse when he went to middle school. Surely this couldn't be happening, and really, I didn't want it to. Where was my spitty baby with the beautiful dimples who once wore his Batman costume for three weeks straight?
A few months ago we started noticing he had this whole fuzzy thing going on over his lip. No, no, NO. Didn't I endure enough already when his voice changed and I had to buy him deodorant? Will it ever stop? Surely he can't need to SHAVE?! Grown men shave. It was just too much. We discussed buying him a razor and shaving cream and teaching him to shave for months. My husband kept forgetting to do it, and I didn't remind him (er, nag). The truth is, I just didn't want to face that my dimpled baby was growing up. This wasn't kindergarten or middle school. This was shaving. This was almost-adult stuff. I wasn't ready.
Then a friend's three-year-old nephew was killed in a car accident. I knew that children died. I see the news on TV. Sadly, terrible things happen to children sometimes, but they are usually TV Children. They don't seem quite real. Seeing the grief of a close friend over a child's death brought it home. That was real.
That little boy will BE a little boy forever to his parents. He'll never go to kindergarten or middle school or be old enough to shave. I realized in a new and starker way than ever before how lucky I am that my son is growing up. Instead of being sad at every new stage of his development that takes him further and further away from being my dimpled baby, it hit me that I should be celebrating it.
So we got him his own razor and his own shaving cream, and instead of putting it off any further, we had a party. My husband showed him how to shave while our younger son and daughter looked on. They chanted "Go! Go! Go!" And when our son finished his first shave, we clapped. He rolled his eyes at us because he's in middle school and that's what middle schoolers do.
He's not my baby anymore, and I'm glad.
Oh my goodness, what a lovely post. Can't imagine my 1 year old little guy shaving yet, but I suspect it sure will feel like today was yesterday when he hits 12 and needs a razor too :) Good for you on embracing your son's growing up!
Posted by: Jo | February 10, 2005 at 08:35 PM
Great post, brought up a lot for me!
I used to know all of the lanky curves and angles of my little boy’s body. Lately, I hardly recognize him at all. It’s as if he’s putting a mask on every day when he wakes up, trying on a new face, fitting into a new skin. The little boy smell, that sweaty-head-in-the-sun stink that we all wish we could bottle for those midwinter days without sun, warmth, or sweat, has disappeared and the hormonal-boy-becoming-a-man ripeness that has taken its place reminds me every day that I need to keep up on the laundry.
I’m trying to recall the last time I gave him a bath, and I think it’s been about six years since I’ve seen him without most, if not all of his clothes on. Each birthday heralds in a new level of privacy and self-preservation, mixed with higher doses of embarrassment.
He turns thirteen in July, and I suspect that pretty soon he won’t think it’s weird that girls from his old school call him, and he’ll figure out that they probably don’t want to talk about what types of guns were used in World War II by the Allied Forces. His request for rides so he can have a date will become more earnest, and laden with consequence.
I’m looking at all of the little battles appearing between us, and recognizing that my putting the kaibosh on his begged request to dye his hair metallic blue might not be worth the energy if he’s going to wind up doing the generic teenage thing and finding harsher, more dangerous ways to rebel and express himself.
Like huffing.
I don’t know if I’m ready to raise a teenager. Hell, I’m still one myself most of the time, freaked out by my hair, picking at a chocolate-induced pimple, looking at my own ass in the mirror to see if anybody else can tell that my Aunt Flo’s in town.
Posted by: kelly | February 10, 2005 at 09:19 AM
sniff sniff. Children are born to make us all gooey inside.
Posted by: Celeste | February 10, 2005 at 05:59 AM
Oh.my.word. This brings tears to my eyes. What a beautiful way to capture each and every moment. Thank you Mel for sending me over here.
Posted by: Pink Sun Drops | February 09, 2005 at 09:24 PM
Thank you all for your comments!
Posted by: Suzanne | February 09, 2005 at 08:50 PM
You know how important your kids are, how much you love them even when they drive you insane and you would trade them in an instant for a full night's sleep and some adult conversation.
I'm so lucky to have five healthy kids. To have nieces and nephews I love beyond reason. (Hi to my niece Beth!!) and to be able to celebrate the small, the big and the everyday.
Even to mourn what could have/should have been and to celebrate the life of one we've lost for now. We have our Chase and others, theirs.
May we all never forget to do that.
Posted by: katie | February 09, 2005 at 07:00 PM
How bittersweet. I love your post.
Posted by: Julie | February 09, 2005 at 04:24 PM
Thank you so much for sharing this story. I, too, would like to link it on my site if you don't mind.
Posted by: Mel | February 09, 2005 at 03:31 PM
Your perspective and beautiful writing put a lump in my throat.
Posted by: Emily | February 09, 2005 at 02:57 PM
I'd just finished reading Purple Godess in Frog Pajamas (heartwrenching & beautiful; link is on the left) for the first time, and then I came here and read this. I truly appreciate the healthy dose of perspective you've given us here, although I feel completely wiped out from all this heartache and crying. I need a cookie.
Posted by: Mama Sarah | February 09, 2005 at 02:29 PM
:sob: How touching and true, Suzanne. Thank you.
Posted by: trish | February 09, 2005 at 10:30 AM
It was a very nice story. The "nephew" you are talking about was also my nephew, Chase. We will forever miss our 2 year old little guy. He was very special. I also have two young children, my son is almost 3 and my baby is turning one in 11 days. It is hard thinking I won't have ny baby anymore,but a toddler. I will charish every moment I have with my kids, because unfortunately you never know what tomorrow may bring.
Posted by: Beth | February 09, 2005 at 10:26 AM
I am linking this story on my blog, it is wonderful! Thank you!
Posted by: cooper | February 09, 2005 at 10:15 AM
Count me in with the group of snifflers! Lovely, touching post.
Posted by: Jessamyn | February 09, 2005 at 09:23 AM
Yes, it's wonderful for them to grow up, and we must appreciate it. Some parents have trouble with it, becasue they think it makes them older. A friend told me that her parents didn't want her children to call them grandma and grandpa in the beginning. They weren't ready. How sad.
Posted by: muse | February 09, 2005 at 09:21 AM
Aaaw! (wipes away tear). That's how I try to look at it too, although it's not always easy. Beautiful post!
Posted by: Kris | February 09, 2005 at 09:13 AM
That is truly beautiful, Suzanne. To you, mom, I say "GO! GO! GO!"
Blessings,
Christine
Posted by: Christine Hohlbaum | February 09, 2005 at 08:37 AM
Very touching story Suzanne!
Posted by: Teresa | February 09, 2005 at 07:33 AM
thank you for that perspective. i needed that this morning. i just completely weaned jake over the weekend and i can't believe my 13 month old toddler isn't a baby anymore. i'm pretty weepy.
Posted by: joy | February 09, 2005 at 06:50 AM
::sniffle:: Beautiful story, Suzanne.
-Michelle
Posted by: Michelle | February 09, 2005 at 06:29 AM