With every bowl of cereal

He's counting down the days and I'm trying not to mourn the 8-years-past-baby, now 9-in-three-days boy who sleeps on Clone Wars sheets two doors down the hall. I look at him in wonder, and yet still try to avert my eyes to the obvious fact he is aging, growing, living days faster and faster.



He is proof of clocks and calendars. He is the second-hand of time. His face changes by the minute, his heart is bigger and wider. His legs are fuzzier than they used to be. His mouth quickly turns from smile to smirk to puckered lips. He knows and spells words that used to be gibberish. He reads faster than we can keep up, and we find ourselves debating and discerning, wanting to keep him naive and fresh indefinitely before his brain discovers and his heart struggles with the mysteries of evil, trouble, and heartache.

Every morning he comes to me with hugs, asks for cereal, smiles with sleep still in his eyes, and I miss him so much my insides sigh. For with every moment, every word, every book and every secret he debates to share (for big boys aren't as quick as small boys with the thoughts they quickly and happily give their mother), he is less and less mine. More and more Yours.

And I give him up to You with every bowl of cereal.