Mother of Men

I just realized that one day my boys will be men. I know, I know; I should have deduced this when my husband called out, "It's a boy" that first time nearly two years ago.

I did assume the day would come when they would learn to eat, crawl, walk, and talk but I hadn't really thought much beyond that point. My sister, a mother of two teens, warned me that their cute little toes wouldn't always be so kissable but I guess I thought that puberty thing only happens to other people's children. I've also recently concluded that way too soon they won't want to bathe with me anymore and before I know it, I won't even be allowed to mention that we ever bathed together. And then, not long after that, they will both be taller than me.

Alas, my sweet and soft-fleshed little bundles of joy are growing and will continue to grow up. The older one (nearly two) held his own at a four year old's birthday party yesterday and the younger one (five months old) is getting hair - finally! It just makes me a little dizzy to think that one day he'll be a balding middle-aged man! I've pictured them at 3 and 4, 8 and 9, and even maybe 11 and 12, but 45 and 46?

Admittedly, some days I can't wait for my boys to grow, to get to the next developmental phase, you know, the one where they stop whining. As I said to a non-parent contemporary the other evening (I had made it out to two hours of a dinner party before the frantic phone call to come home to a crying baby), "The days go slowly, but the months are flying by."

Tomorrow morning I will be woken before I am ready by a little voice calling to me down the dark hallway and soon I'll be in the swing of another day of diapers and nursery rhymes, cuddles and "snackies". For now, at least, I have my boys.