Family Life

That’s Daniel in the photo, taken seven months ago. This evening I was reflecting on how seldom I pick him up anymore, and how I hold him close even less often. It’s all to do with him growing up. “Grown up” sounds kind of strange when applied to a three-year-old, but he’s changed since the beginning of the year.

First of all, he’s taller and heavier. Sprawled on the bed at night, asleep, his toes stop just a couple of inches short of the foot board. It won’t be long before we’ll have to consider moving him from his toddler bed into a single bed. We’ll probably be moving Micah out of our bedroom into the boys’ bedroom at about the same time, so there will be some intricate furniture juggling.

Anyway, you can understand how it’s harder to lift and hold a heavier child. Being taller compounds the difficulty, because he no longer fits properly. That is, with his tailbone firmly seated on my forearm, his head is too high to rest on my shoulder. Right now the most comfortable hugs are where I sit on the kitchen stool (it’s low) and he stands on the floor facing me. The problem is that while Daniel is growing, I’m not (at least, not up). From son’s perspective, Dad is shrinking.

Secondly, as he gets older he becomes more capable, resilient, self-reliant, independent. For some reason there’s less need to go to Dad for a hug. As a further disincentive, it seems like lately most situations where he runs into trouble and could use some paternal support, the trouble is of his own making and he’s reluctant to run toward a telling-off. This could probably be helped if I remembered each situation and brought it up later once things had calmed down. But that’s veering more into a parenting / guiding / training area, rather than just simple closeness.

So the fundamental tone of our relationship has changed in subtle ways in less than a year. It’s no cause for concern: life (and particularly growing up) is all about change. Enjoy each season and adapt as you go. Daniel still holds me close with a fierce intensity each night when I tuck him into bed. No doubt that will change also, one day.

Lest I feel deprived, Joel (2) is the perfect size to be held close. In fact, if he had his way I’d be holding him and carrying him every waking moment. And Micah (~6m) is starting to get big enough and stable enough to carry around comfortably.

Life zips by at its own accelerated pace. We enjoy what we have, reminisce about good times past, look forward to the future, and plan accordingly.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 10:17 pm. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.