call me crazy, but i love watching my kid grow up

lately my son won’t stop talking about his wedding. he’s two and a half years old. he just woke up one morning and said i wanna get married.

excuse me?

i wanna get married. i wanna get married outside. with rings.

okay, honey, absolutely. but why are you saying that?

he just kept going on and on about being outside, with rings. getting married, mom, duh.

it’s not an awful concept, of course. i’m a big fan of marriage myself. but he is not growing up in the times of happily ever after disney like we did, thank god, so i’m not really sure where the idea is coming from. and then i remember that he came to coffee with me and his aunties last week.

one of his aunties is newly in love and her partner is fantastic. we’ve known from the jump that he is the one and i’m over the moon for her. at coffee we’re smitten and giggly as she tells us about her dream wedding, where it would be, what kind of rings she might want, etc. ohhh. i smile and ask my son if he wants to get married like his auntie, and he looks exhausted with me for taking so long to understand him.

yes, outside.

she wants a backyard wedding.

the thing is, i’m not used to him talking about anything but sports and food. he has been laser-focused on sports since the minute he could pick up a ball and he continues to eat like a linebacker in training. he doesn’t much care for other toys. he enjoys his art and music classes, but if left to his own devices, my kid wants to study sports and practice his form.

he is freakishly diligent and oftentimes probably too serious for a toddler, but it makes him happy and he is already way more coordinated than i ever was. so i spend hours a day practicing with him.

every day we transition from one sport to another and back again. during this past winter i caved and bought him an indoor hockey setup. the first thing he did when he woke up in the morning was set up the nets and start shooting. in between making coffee and breakfast i would play with him and when i needed a break i would try to encourage him to practice his aim while i cleaned the dishes.

it was often a bit of a battle to put away the hockey nets at the end of the day before dinner. our apartment isn’t palatial, the living, dining and kitchen area are all part of the same room and the hockey rink ran straight through the middle. sometimes we let him play again after her was finished eating.

once it started to warm up a bit i took the opportunity to pack up his hockey rink in an effort to get more of my house back. the next morning i announced that hockey season was over, but now we have golf and baseball season! i smiled widely and used my best sports commentator voice, hoping to be well received. i also implemented a new rule for the season: all ball play is outside now, no more balls in the house. i braced myself for a meltdown, but nothing happened.

he knows that sports are seasonal. this logic made sense to him and he did not put up a fight. winter sports are over, it’s time for the backyard now, okay. i wanna go outside, mommy.

—

my son’s vocabulary is blowing my mind right now, it’s probably totally normal, but i have nothing to compare it to. the way he’s stringing together sentences the moment he wakes up is cracking me up and delighting me and i can’t stop thinking about how much i dreaded this age. don’t get me wrong, the meltdowns over nothing can feel just as catastrophic to me as they do to him, but my biggest work in those moments is to acknowledge his feelings and then help him snap out of it.

i sometimes fail miserably to do so, but for better or worse, i have plenty of opportunities to practice.

we laugh a lot. i’m trying to teach him to squeeze his body or hug me like a snake when he’s frustrated, to let his grip express his frustration instead of his vocal cords. i don’t know if this is a thing, it just makes sense to me. i try to help him name the feeling, feel the feeling, and then we move on.

—

he’s genuinely very curious about this whole marriage thing and will often ask about our wedding. when i put on my wedding rings in the morning his toddler logic turns on and he asks if i’m going to get married today. if dan and i leave the house together he’ll ask if we’re on our way to get married. i explain that we’re already married and point to a photo of our wedding, but the concept is still confusing to him, he’s never been to a wedding. he just knows he wants to get married.

one day i’ll tell him all about how we threw the wedding of our dreams, but for now i’m just appreciating the opportunity to talk to him about something other than golf.

—

his imagination is also beginning to take off and we make hotels for his dinosaurs out of magna tiles and speed ramps for his cars. the other day he made a functional toy car wash by combining his magna tiles and his lovevery play sink, complete with running water. he’s started playing with dolls and getting them dressed, helping them in the kitchen. my son has actually always shown some interest in playing with kitchen toys, but that’s because he watches his dad cook every night.

these days he insists on standing at the counter on his kitchen helper stool and yelling out daddy is best cooker EVER! while dan prepares dinner.

i’m obsessed with and exhausted by this age. my son is more interactive than ever and has no concept of how to regulate his energy. my days are incredibly hands-on and i do my best to anticipate his every need and respond in real time to his “big feelings.”

the payoff is real though. my kid is effusive, affectionate and engaged. he is polite and appreciative and so so loving. we’re a family that is always cuddling and hugging and he sees mom and dad kiss every day. for all of the frustration, overstimulation and fake tears i have to contend with, he loves in equal measure.

—

i’m very literal about time, aging, and my child growing up. probably to a fault because i get a little weirded out every time someone says that their kid looks “old,” or they’re “growing up too fast,” or they just “wish time would slow down.” (you’re not weird, i am). i’m the opposite of my best friend who has been lamenting about how “old” we are since we were twenty one. i’m sure i’ll still be saying we’re young when we’re well into our sixties, but if you met my parents you’d get it.

i love watching my baby grow up.

for some reason i’ve always been able to picture him as a teenager and i’ll be so grateful when he’s finally ready to potty train. i love love loved the baby stage, but that was more about me. i was learning him, but on my terms. he took to sleep training and breastfeeding easily. we did all of my favorite things with him on my chest. we curled up like little bears in a snow globe during his infancy and i slept just as much as he did.

there were no sleep regressions or late nights beyond the obvious first weeks and i used my new superpower of being able to function without sleep for fun. i went out dancing, threw dinner parties, and traveled solo to mexico city at four and a half months postpartum. i felt dumb as bricks as my brain reconfigured itself, but i had the energy of a child. adrenaline pumped through me and i felt invincible.

i watched the love of my life become a dad and i had the opportunity to share my favorite version of dan with our child. nobody gets access to our guy like we do and i cherish our home life deeply. the weird quirky dance moves dan made up to get our baby to fart, the songs he sings to him at every age, and the way we are all brought into the present moment with our kid.

—

i’m not afraid of our kid growing up, i’m excited. he’ll never be “old” to me because i am thirty three years his senior and i am clearly far too literal for my own good.

but when he was a baby i was fearful of the day that i’d need to shift my schedule to fit his, to integrate his desires and interests into our rhythm. i loved the days of having nothing to do and nowhere to be and i thought that i never wanted them to end. but it turns out that life is much richer with his joys integrated into mine.

i’ve learned more about team sports than i ever wanted to know and i’m no longer agonizing over “lost” nights and weekends filled with his future practices and game days. dan and i will divide and conquer when we need our alone time and to see our friends, but i’m actually excited to watch my son do what he loves in a bigger way and with other kids.

my interests have not shrunken or disappeared since i had a child, they’ve grown. my ambitions and hobbies expand and crystallize alongside my child’s and i let myself be swept up in what he enjoys.

dan has been trying to get me to play golf with him for years and i’ve always refused. i quite like my golf widow days, thank you very much! but i can’t deny my kid. he gave me my very own set of golf clubs for christmas and this summer i’ll be out on the course with both of them and i genuinely cannot wait.

—

getting older is a gift and growing up with my son is a joy. and i do mean growing up, maturing. integrating someone else’s hopes and dreams into mine. finding the time, energy and compassion for all of us.

i am particularly skilled at prioritizing my own needs and desires. we have designed our family around supporting the matriarch who keeps everything running, but i never imagined how beautiful it would be to share that with my family.

i think about how close dan and i are with our own parents today, knowing exactly many hard days and years i had with my parents growing up. there were plenty of times that i threatened never to speak with them again and times when i needed space. and yet here we are, living in brooklyn and weaving the next generation into our family closer than we did the last.

there is so much beauty and understanding that can come with age and i look forward to those days with my now toddler. sure, it will be different than spending hours at the playground learning how to pitch. one day my son will wake up without the childlike wonder that injects so much giddiness into our days, and at some point i will struggle to share my time and energy with multiple children.

but i welcome those days. if my kid ever needs space i will respect it just as my parents did. and with all of the changes that come, i continue to learn from and grow up alongside my firstborn.

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