In six short months, you will step across the threshold from childhood to young adulthood. I will, no doubt, shed some tears over that crossing.
But I’m not in a hurry. Until then, you are still 12 1/2 years old. Still just 12. Still a remnant of my little boy.
So much of you is pressing, pushing, leaning forward; I can feel you practically bursting at the seams to be mature, more serious, more grown-up, more restrained. The moments in which I can see you as still small and precious, are so fleeting, but they do not go unnoticed by my weary eyes.
When I came home one recent afternoon, you raced to the door and nearly hugged me, happy to spill some news that had you all smiles. In that moment, you were three again, brimming with excitement. You were the toddler whose tiny face always lit up the entire room whenever I returned home. I saw it there, a remnant of my little boy.
Then there was your laughter just last night. I heard you giggling uncontrollably with your little brother—something that happens less and less often these days. I could picture both of you, upstairs, doubled over in your howling. It went on for minutes and minutes, and my mind saw the perfectly preserved image of your four-year-old little cheeks, round and rosy, as you had laughed and laughed just like that over your father’s antics so many times. I could hear it spill out into the house, a remnant of my little boy.
Most days you are self-sufficient in our kitchen, making your own snacks and lunches. When I come home I can tell that you’ve made pasta or tacos with homemade guacamole just like you like them. But you still request a sandwich cut into triangles, and you prefer your eggs the way I make them. Those moments when you sit at the counter and smile in anticipation of your plate, I can still see it there—another remnant of my little boy.
And each evening, to my heart’s delight, you persist in your bedtime routine and expect me to do my part by tucking you in. There are no longer songs or story books. No footed pajamas or cries for one more drink. No, now you straighten your room on your own, set your alarm, and map out your plans for the following day. Our nightly talks are no longer concerned with monsters or fairy tales, but instead with friendships, decision-making, and the meaning of life. But when I fluff your blankets and exchange our ritual three kisses, there you are again: a remnant of my little boy.
I can sense you growing quieter.
I can feel you pulling back, into yourself and toward your friends.
I notice your one-word answers where a conversation once would have been.
I feel your resistance, your challenge, your occasional defiance.
I am also trying to lean into this new chapter from which we are only pages away. I am mindful to give you space where I once might not have. I choose my battles carefully, leaving room for you to struggle and fail when it will benefit you. I marvel at your independence and maturity; what gifts they are to me after so many years of being in the trenches caring for tiny, demanding humans. I remind myself to be excited about your future. After all, that is what all the work is for, right? To eventually launch you into a promising adulthood with opportunities, abilities, and a strong sense of who you are?
I know this next season will have new challenges. I’ve heard the tales. I’ve watched my mama friends who walk in front of me. The teenage years are not for the faint of heart, I know. I’m as ready as anyone can be for something that you can’t really be ready for.
But we aren’t there just yet.
I have six more months.
I intend to remain fully present in this moment.
I will walk with you just as you are right now: one foot firmly planted in our next chapter, and one foot still slowly lifting up and away from boyhood.
I will delight in the flickers of your young adulthood and revel in the fleeting scraps of your childhood.
I will embrace the limbo of this space that is 12 1/2. After all, we’ve been in limbo together before. When you learned to walk and were so excited about your newfound mobility and freedom but were only barely not a baby anymore. When you started school and felt so proud of your long days spent independent of me but still melted down over the exhaustion of it all. When you went away to camp for the first time for a whole week and were so excited about all the uninterrupted time with your friends but still insisted that I send you a letter for each day you would be gone so you could maintain your bedtime routine “with” me.
Limbo. The space in between. Here we are again.
I can see it on the horizon: the end of your childhood. I know it is just a breath away.
But it is not here yet.
In the meantime, I will diligently watch for those moments in which your childhood is still present. I will let it slip away in its own time. I will quietly step back, no longer leading in front of you, but rather assuming a new position beside you as you learn to navigate this next season of your life.
I will simply trust that, no matter your age, no matter where your life takes you, I will always be able to find in you a remnant of my little boy.
