YOU CARRY ME.

Since the very first day we brought Harrison home, I have carried him just about any time he wanted me to (which is a lot).  I empathize with his desire to be held and toted around.  Wouldn't  you love to have someone carry you in from a long car ride?  Or when you're shopping and your legs decide that they are done carrying you without complaint?  Definitely when you're walking to your car from the fair or the zoo and you're so tired you could lie right on the pavement, but you still have a good mile to go?

Who wouldn't love to be swooped up and carried?  So, I indulge Harrison's requests to be picked up, even when I would really like to be carried myself.  Isn't that the ideal metaphor for parenting, really?  We do things for our children that no one does for us anymore.  Adulthood comes with the realization that you are on your own.  Even with a good support network and people that you can lean on, there is no longer someone there to just carry you when you want to opt out.

I want Harrison to have that ultimate of comforts for as long as I can make it last.  Sadly, we may be nearing the end.  Besides the fact that he weighs in at quite a wallop, he is getting long and gangley.  He is no longer a pudgy little ball of malleable baby that I can hold in a heap on my chest.

Now when he curls up in my lap, his bowling ball of a head hangs over my shoulder while his little man legs drape the length of my lower half. When I go to pick him up, I feel as if I should be wearing a lifters belt for my back's sake.  When he throws himself at me, he can knock me right over.

My baby boy is definitely growing up.  Just recently I've realized that he is not, in fact, "my baby" at all.  He is my big boy.  Getting bigger all the time.  How many more times will I be able to lift him out of his bunk bed?  How many more piggy backs will we share?  When will he last crawl into my lap for a snuggle?  

I don't know the answer to those questions, but I'm going to make it last as long as I possibly can.  Then when I can't lift him one more time, I'll tease him like I usually do, and say "I think it's your turn to carry me, buddy!", but it will break my heart because I will know it's the last time that I will be his everything.  From then on, he will have to walk.  I'll be there to walk beside him and hold his hand.  I'll be there for him to lean on always, but his days of letting me carry him through will be at an end.

I know that it's my job as Harrison's mom to help him walk alone, but right now I just want  to hold my baby a little longer.