My "baby"...

He is my baby. My first baby. The one who still likes to cuddle and have a story read to him at night. The one who lays his head on my shoulder and says, “I love to be near you, Mom.”

Even though he is a big 10 year-old kid.

And he’s this great, interesting, thoughtful kid, who takes his school work seriously, has taken up fencing with the same seriousness, who feels the sting of injustices no matter who is on the receiving end, who is kind and thoughtful toward everyone (even his brother and sister—most of the time), who is starting to get adult humor.

And now…

I think we’re starting to have mood swings here, and they’re not mine (at least, not usually).

Yikes!

You can see it come over him, and I think he can feel it too, and yet he can’t control it. So he’s alternatingly snappy or overly sensitive.

But being Ben, he’s so completely verbal that he’s talking about it in the middle of the mood swing. After snapping at his sister, he’s saying in the next breath, “Why am I feeling so angry about this? It’s not that big of a deal. But I’m SO angry with her!”

Then we have a prolonged (to my mind) conversation about adolescence and the changes that happen.

But for the most part, he’s happy to be growing up.

Except for last night, when he asked if I could come up and read to him a bit. I was sitting on his bed with him, in the dim light of the bedside lamp, with the ceiling fan making its click-click-click sound, when he looked up and said, “Sometimes I wish I could be little again. It just seems easier.”

And then he asked for the song from when he was a baby.

And I was happy to have my baby back for a few minutes.