It's the little things...

...in life that matter sometimes.

I just had some tears. Not sadness, exactly, but bittersweet, and to many out there, it will seem extremely silly, and maybe it is. But the feelings are real nonetheless.

So a few days ago, before Xander's birthday, I wrote about my sadness about him growing out of little-kid-dom. I'm cleaning the kitchen and preparing to set up some shelves in there to hold craft supplies and stationary and the like. And to do so, I had to take down his little kitchen. It hasn't been used in a couple of years, and even before that he never really spent much time there. But it still was magical.

In the corner of our very large and horribly designed kitchen there was an eating nook. Basically 2 benches fixed to the wall, probably about 50 years ago or more. For a while we had our table there too, but it was awkward, so we moved the table into the room. The benches, not removable, have been used for storage - we had a whiteboard above one for years

Aside here - another memory that came up when I was cleaning. When the whiteboard was there, Xander, as a 21 month old - very tiny, was obsessed with drawing on it. The pictures he drew then were amazing - faces, complete with eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows, ears, hair, neck - incredibly detailed. NOT what a not yet 2 year old draws. They were at the level of a 6 year old. Seriously. I know kids' art and this was way above his level. Not stick figures, but full fledged heads and bodies. Even at 4, a typical kid's drawing of a body would have the arms and legs coming directly out of the head - its how they see things. Numbers of eyes, mouths and so on is flexible...Anyways, spontaneously and without any prompting he would stand on this bench that was almost his height and draw away. We have photos and video - if I remember to dig them out, I'll post something here. Then, just after his 2nd birthday, he stopped drawing and when he picked up a pencil again, it was quite a while after that - and he drew just like any 2 year old. He's only just begun in the past year to actually like drawing and to spontaneously draw. For several years he did everything he could to avoid drawing and colouring (which he still doesn't enjoy). Maybe its the dyslexia, maybe something else...his brain was busy developing other skills. His art classes have changed that, and I'm thrilled. But somewhere in his mind...collective consciousness? Past life memories/experiences? Somehow, he knew how to draw people, in detail, and we never taught him...

Anyways, I was cleaning tonight and pictured him in his little footed pj's standing (barely - wobbling to and fro) and drawing these amazing pictures...Then I thought about our plans to tear down the house, and all the things that would go - those benches (which I really despise!). The doorjamb with his height marked on it - though that I'm going to try to save somehow...I just got that sad feeling.

Anyways again...the little kitchen was magic, because Santa brought it...I think maybe when Xander was 2 1/2..maybe 31/2...curse my pathetic memory...Santa, aided completely by me. I built a raised wooden counter with a hole cut into it for a sink - I asked his sitter's dad who has the tools and workshop to do that for me. I painted the parts, got shelf paper that looked like a countertop and papered it. Found 2 silver drawer pulls for taps and a long silver drawer handle which I attached at one end to make a faucet. I took another piece of wood, papered the ends and left the center white, cut 4 circles from balck contact paper and made stove burners. Took trim and 4 drawer pulls and made the knobs for the stove. How I imagined it all up is beyond me. How I made it, last minute, right before Christmas, is a blur...I don't think I slept at all.
The wonder on his face - that Santa could do such magic...The memories of him puttering...the tea parties we had with his teeny china tea set...all that is irrevocably in the past, never to be returned to. Little things, small things...but important to me, regardless.

I know that partly its because I'm beginning to give up on the idea of having another child, and I'm really grieving that. And I'm really not ready for him to be so big a kid. Is this going to be the Christmas that the Santa questions come up? How will we deal with them? Can we keep him innocent for another year? I truly hope so...not being in school might help with that, buit will it be harder for him to be older and still beleive when others don't? Will the discovery when he's older be embarrassing if he's the oldest? These aren't questions that have answers...they're the kind of thing I ponder though.

Silly silly me, typing with tears rolling down my face for something so small. But as I said, sometimes its the little things. We forget to seize the moment, to enjoy the little things, to play and have fun and just let them be kids. To experience the world from where they are. I think I'm luckier than most becasue I haven't lost that completely, nor do I think I will. And I get to be with other kids all the time, which is a joy too (mostly!). Parents who are always rushing their kids to be more mature, to stop chattering, to be independent, to not be silly, who don't let their kids dream and imagine and run wild a little bit, who expect them to be adults in miniature - they're not only doing their children a grave diservice, they're missing out on the fundamental point of having kids - to see the world in and through their eyes, to help them explore the world and to enjoy the ride along the way. Every once in a while I catch myself with that 'hurry up' or 'shhh, quit babbling' attitude and I try to stop right away. Other times I find myself hushing Xander when there's other adults who are less understanding of 'kidness', of trying to get him to conform to these mini-adult expectations and I hate myself for doing it. He is one of the most well behaved, relaxed and easy-going kids I've ever met, and we're so lucky. So when he gets little a wound up, he's moving into most kids' normal way of being. His hyper is regular kid everyday behaviour. I don't want to hush or squash that, and I'm going to work on that more this year.

So I went on one of my usual tangents. At least the tears have slowed...not quit, but its a trickle now, not a torrent.

Its after 3:00am. I have a couple of little jobs I still want to accomplish before I roll inot bed, so I'm off. But I needed to write this to help me process it. Its the last of the "little kid" stuff to be packed away. All the other toys are packed up or at the daycare, the clothes are packed, the books in boxes. This was the last remaining vestige of Xander's toddler and preschool days and it needed to be put away. But it was a hard thing to do. Very hard. I'm glad I did it at night when I was alone. I needed that.

Done.