The Last Cradle

A friend gave us this cradle when her last babe was done with it, so it wasn't even one that I used for all of my babies.

First, for Ethan, there was a bassinet; a garage sale find.

Next was a crib; a hand-me-down from folks at church.

By the time Adam was a few months old I'd gotten rid of it because we had taken to co-sleeping, and the crib was just a place to pile blankets.

But when Ellie was on her way I found a little swinging Jenny Lind cradle at a second hand store and brought it home.  After losing the baby before her, it was my way of affirming that it would be okay to plan for the happy arrival of this little one.

It lasted through Tessa, and then was decommissioned.  A little too rickety.

But then Jonah made his way into the world, and this cradle, this last cradle, made it's way into our house, well loved and used by my friend Nicole for her littles turned bigs.

And at our home, the cradle was again well used.  Jumbo Jonah insisted on catching his zzz's in it till he had to bend his knees to fit. And then tiny Natalie, who I tended to place into it more often for the sake of all of our sleep (because of her ability to place her left foot in my spleen while her right occupied Guy's armpit), used it until not so long ago.

A few months ago the big girls got a bunk bed with a twin on top and a full sized mattress on the bottom, and Ellie began stealing Natalie away at bedtime to share her lower bunk, apparently undaunted by Natalie's nighttime calisthenics.

******

I don't know when the last night slipped by that my last baby had her last dream in the little wooden cradle.  It just happened one day.  One morning I simply realized that the cradle hadn't been used in... days? weeks? I wasn't sure.

I sat on the floor by my bed, folding the jumble of baby blankets it held into a tidy, still pile. The kind of pile that is waiting for a cupboard or a box, and not a chubby little person.  I cried a little, and pressed the cloth into my face trying to catch a hint, a whiff, of my babies there.

But I couldn't.

I left the cradle, with it's pile of carefully folded blankets, there for a few weeks, a month, or maybe two, telling myself there was no place in the garage for it.  And then one day Guy suggested we move it out.

"Don't rush me." I said.

I'm not ready to say goodbye to this last little cradle. I thought.

*****

Then one day a few weeks ago I finally moved it out of our room.  Natalie is 3 after all.  But I firmly informed Guy not to get any fancy notions of sending it off to Goodwill, that my grandbabies WOULD be sleeping in it, and that until that time, it would be waiting.

Waiting to hold babies again.

There is something so impossibly hard about saying goodbye to baby days.  I have been rocking babies for nearly 20 years.  It's who I am now.  It's my identity.  I'm a mommy.  Not just a mom, but a mommy.  A nose wiping, back stroking, booty patting, weep comforting, sleep coaxing mommy.

And cradle or not, I always will be.

Natalie on her new toddler bed.

Magic Roads

 Adam has been announcing 

the countdown to his pending teen-hood at regular intervals lately.  He will be 13 in a month, or by his reckoning, one month, three days and 8 hours.  I feel like I am watching his childhood fade away behind him, like a dusty road he'll never travel again.  He is sprouting so fast.  He is certainly not my little boy anymore.

On Friday we took the hour drive to Wheatland where there is a pumpkin patch that thinks it is Disneyland.  We had gone last year and had a real ball, particularly Adam.  He jumped and ran an played, and all the way home he declared, "That was awesome!".  This year we went as part of the homeschool, so we got to do all of the extra fun stuff that I am too cheap to pay for, like train rides and hay rides.  But there was a strange difference this year.  Adam was subdued.  I asked him if he was having fun. 

He shrugged and said, "Kinda."

It turns out that he has rounded that bend in the road.  The one that made mining for marbles on Coyote Mountain something for the little kids to do.  The bend that means the giant slide was too small and the corn maze was, "Kinda lame."  The boy is still losing teeth, and yet there is that other part of him that has left childhood behind.

I remember the heartache I felt when I realized that I really didn't want my stuffed animals anymore.  That maybe this would be my last trick-or-treat.  That I was growing up, like it or lump it.  It felt sad.

I think that a new magic eventually replaced the old, outgrown one.  I now love witnessing the wonder of childhood, knowing what discoveries are waiting for my little ones just around the next bend.  I look so forward to trick-or-treating this year.  Jonah won't remember last year, so this year when that first door opens and that first piece of sugary bliss lands in his sack, I will delight in the baffled look on his face. 

"Is this for me?  Is that lady crazy?"

He will look into his bag, get the candy out, and want to eat it immediately.  Then we will tell him he can go get more candy.  The look will be priceless;

 "So you are telling me if I go up to all these doors here, 

I'm gonna get candy and I don't have to ask you if it's okay???"

Then the light will come on. 

"Nandy!?"  

He will declare, and he will waddle down that driveway into a world 

that has forever been changed in his eyes.

I love this part of being a mom.  I love witnessing them as they discover the world.  I guess being with little ones is so familiar to me after all these years, I will have to learn as they move into their teens how to enjoy a whole new kind of magic.

And there is still magic out there for Adam to discover, too.

It's called

girls.

Hey! I'm walkin' here!

 He has been taking steps

 for about a week.

Three here, four there.

But yesterday and today

he really took off.

Oh, my heart.

With those first steps, he sets off into the world

a little closer to little boy,

a little further from

my baby

boy.

Oh,

my

heart.

Photos by Tessa, age 5