Joyful pain: Watching my baby grow up

This evening Jonah fell asleep in the van on our way home from Grandma’s. He’d had a weekend with his cousins, which I imagine was full of trampoline-jumping, Minecraft-playing, late night giggles and mischief. In other words: the kid was exhausted, and thus he was passed out before the sun made its nightly departure.

Even when the van came to a stop in our driveway, which usually wakes him, he didn’t stir. Jeb carried him into the house: still nothing. Jonah’s arms were wrapped around Jeb’s neck, his head lolled on his daddy’s shoulder, and for the first time in a long time he reminded me of his baby self. I said this out loud, and Jeb was thoughtful enough to ask if I wanted to hold Jonah for awhile.

Jeb handed me our boy, limp with sleep and much, much heavier than when we would pass him between us just a few years ago. Jonah snuggled his head into the crook of my arm, and I remembered how he would drowse there, milk-drunk and content, after nursing. Tonight he didn’t lay as comfortably as he had in those infant days. His solid six-year-old body proved difficult to settle into my arms and lap, his legs so long they overflowed onto the couch beside me. How can my child, my baby, be too big for my lap?

Finally, he settled and his breathing deepened. I dipped my neck so that I could lay my head next to his, close enough to breathe in the smell of him. He smelled like vanilla ice cream and outside air and unwashed clothes. Even though I cradled him like a baby, he smelled of little boy. 

It occurred to me that this time could be the last time I’ll ever get to hold him like this. I held him closer. I noticed how the curve of his dark thick eyelashes across his cheeks is the same as it’s always been, though now one cheek has a scar he will carry for the rest of his life. He’s the same as he ever was, yet he’s different today than he was yesterday or last year or five years ago. And, God willing, he’ll keep growing and learning and smiling and laughing and, day by day, year by year, changing, and I will watch all of this with bittersweet eyes.

But at the end of this day and every day, he’s my Jonah. Always my Jonah.