Today is Oliver's fifth birthday. Last night I made the mistake of reading "Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch. Oliver was bored of the repetitive, non-heroic, non-exciting pages, but my eyes filled with tears as I flipped through the book, thinking of the day that followed. The day that my four-year-old would turn five.
I've found myself whispering pleas to Dexter to "please not grow as quickly as Oliver has," with tears in my eyes. His smiling face looking up at me and I see flashes of Oliver's chubby baby-face within the curves of this sweet pudgy babe's cheeks.
I reach out, wanting to cradle Oliver, only to see in front of my outstretched arm a tall, boyish silhouette so unlike the silhouettes I've viewed in years past. His forth birthday was much less of an attack on my heart. There seems to be such a thin line between toddlerdome and childhood. I know he wasn't a toddler a day ago, but five-years-old seems so unbelievably old.
I remember feeling as if I was always going to have tiny littles sitting, crawling, and eventually running through the house, but as the years tick by and my boy grows taller, smarter, and more independent, the looming reality of childhood, the teenage years, and eventually adulthood become ever-present and ever-pressing. My heart feels heavy as I mark off yet another notch on the door frame. Another year, and I see how much he's grown. I run my fingers along the marks from the last few years, downward and downward. He's grown so much. Right in front of me, yet still an enigma. An unreal reality.
I know he's not grown. He's not packing up and moving out, but there's something so breathtakingly beautiful, exciting, yet profoundly sad about watching your babies grow from plump, cheeky infants to stretched, scarred, and boney. I run my hand along his back as he sleeps next to me on the couch and I feel each rib and vertebrae, trying to remember what it felt like as he kicked and punched inside of my body. I study his features, his courser, darker child-like hair and think back to when he was fresh and new. "Surely this child couldn't have grown inside me," I think, silently.
But he did.
And as much as I'd love to cling to him, he's growing outside of the walls of my body. Outside of my complete protection.
And he's beautiful. And strong. And intelligent. And funny. And creative. And I love him.
More now than I did yesterday. More now than I did at birth. My love grows with each passing day, so I suppose in that regard, his growth is lovely...mixed in with sadness.
Happy fifth birthday, Oliver Zachary. You brought me to life the moment your life was realized. You've forever changed me, awoken my heart.
"I love you forever, I'll like you for always. As long as I'm living, my baby you'll be."
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