Happy Sad?

Am I happy sad, I am not sure?  I think I am more sad, sad… but that is "not right."  You should be really happy when your son who is awesome and handsome and smart and perfect is growing older, and better and happier by the minute.  He is getting to be a little man, and he is sensitive and sweet and perceptive.  He now puts the toothpaste on the toothbrush all by himself, and picks out his own clothes.   With each new accomplishment I feel my heart breaking and growing at the same time.  I miss my little guy, my buddy, and I am really scared for just how much I am going to miss him really soon.

Because on Friday he graduates from Pre-K.  Really, daycare.  It will be the end of daycare bills for us, packing lunch for me and picking him up supremely dirty.  I have been worked up about this for a while now, and I am a mess this week.  Didn't help that I went through and "donated" clothes today as well.  Everything coming to a convergence of sad for me.  My baby is going to Kindergarten.

I know, this is ridiculous.  He will turn five, just 5 (not 18), in a few weeks.  He will go to Kindergarten, not college.  But something inside me knows everything is going to change.  We are going to be in a whole new realm.  I may even like this realm of schedule and learning and meeting new parents and community and growing - but all I can focus on right now is what will (or hopefully won't) be left behind.

I am so worried he will no longer want to wear "handsome shirts." Or ties, or awesome hats.  I am sad that even though he loves dance and riding horses, his peers may make him go into the obligatory soccer.  I am worried he will all the sudden become "cooler" than his little brother who will be left in the dust back at daycare.  He may start to give me less hugs, may not want to wake me up with a kiss anymore and might stop saying: "Thank you for a good dinner Mommy."

Donating the "french fry" shirt - (says small fry on it) pushed me over the edge this morning.  Really, just a shirt, but I am going to miss it.  Is that weird?  Yes.  And no.  I have always had an unnatural attachment to objects in general.  But this one really threw me.  He loved that shirt, wore it all the time and asked for it.  Not a "handsome shirt" per say, he wore this to school all the time and it has stains everywhere.  For some reason James never accepted it, and now it has outgrown them both.  And today it gets tossed in a garbage bag and will be put in a donation dumpster for who knows where.  I'm totally next.  (can you tell I should NOT watch Toy Story 3 for a while now?).

I know that I should calm down and relax.  Joel Andrew is certainly not your average kiddo - and he is super caring and smart and kind.  I made him make me a promise, written on paper: "I promise I will hug and kiss you everyday" for Mother's Day, and I hung it in our dining room.  Every day I remind him and everyday he says he will. "I promise Mommy."  He still calls me Mommy.  I wonder if he will do that once he is in Kindergarten.  I wonder what I will do the day he responds with "Ma, come on.  Leave me alone."  I am not really strong and I will break at this.

So, it has been 5 years.  Joel Husband says I can't have anymore kids.  The blinking thing totally happened.  I still have a 3 year old - but with each work event that takes away another weekend, another night.  With each time I freak out at them because I am focused on stupid email and not them, my heart is breaking even more.  What are things going to be like with me in the next year?  When am I really going to slow down and savor these last moments?  The moment now when they really care and want to be with me.  I'm not sure.  Constant battle.  I'm worried I will finally have had enough, and make the time, when they are gone.  Off to other fun non-Ma things.  I will have made time too late and each thing that takes me away from them now presses harder on me and reminds me of this.  Every. Little. Thing.  

There is my vent for today.  Now I must go and donate some clothes, try to sell a few things on my used baby stuff website and make a new pile for Aunt Jennie.  Time to out with the baby things officially and in with the sports things and all things with languages I do not speak.  I can't believe all of my former yearning for older babies so that I could…  Now I just want to keep them this way forever.  My two sweet, busy and inquisitive little guys.  I want to quit all responsibilities and all of the sudden no longer care about cleanliness and just hang out with them all the time.  I am missing them already, and yet they are still here.

So, here are some shots of my guy, who is now a big guy.  Who will soon be a former daycare kid.  Who has a few more weeks with me before he goes to kindergarten, and his whole world - and mine too, forever changes.