Five Years

I can't believe my little man is turning five tomorrow. Five years of parenthood...sometimes it feels like I've been a parent forever, and sometimes I feel like he was born just yesterday.

We've been so busy lately, but it's mostly been a good kind of busy. I am occupied with child care or my job or housework or paperwork pretty much all day, until I fall into bed, but most of it feels fulfilling. I could do without the search for health insurance -- a long story there, which many of you know about from my e-mails on the subject, and which I hope to say more about on this blog in the future -- but everything else seems worthwhile.

It is different parenting an infant this time around. With Henry, I always felt tugged between devoting myself entirely to him, and trying to hold on to that independent part of myself, the part that wanted to drink more, listen to the music a little louder, sleep in a little later. I didn't know when life would return to "normal" - and of course, I now know that it never does, not really. But it does get a lot closer. Once Henry was a year old, I could contemplate spending a night or two away from him. Once I weaned him (also around a year), I could drink a bit more liberally, and sleep a little later. Eventually, he learned to dance to the music, too, and is usually the one asking for me to turn it up.

So I know how quickly infancy passes, and for that reason I am trying even harder to hold on to it, enjoy it, not feel that tug. Dean will only suck on my cheeks and giggle while I kiss his toes for long, and for only so long will I occupy his entire field of emotional vision. If that means rocking him to sleep in a back room while every one else listens the band on Mom's front porch, so be it.

That was how we spent yesterday afternoon/evening. Algiers Point hosts Wednesday afternoon concerts during the summer, at different venues in the neighborhood. Yesterday's was at the Crown & Anchor Pub, right across the street from Mom's. She set up a fan on the porch and pulled out some chairs, and MawMaw and PawPaw came over and Matthew's Uncle Wil and Aunt Cindy and cousin John and Mom and Matthew and I sat there, taking in the band set up a few houses down. They shut off the street and a few hundred of our friends and neighbors enjoyed the slight breeze, drank cold beer, got food from the local restaurants that set up tables, and just gabbed and had a good time. Henry's pal Chloe was there so they had a good time running around and working on drawings. Dean enjoyed it less -- he handled it better than the one we took him to last week, which was twice as loud and hot, but he still was not a fan of the experience. Eventually I had to take him inside to see if he would go down to sleep, hence the rocking in the back room. Between taking care of him and checking on Henry, I missed most of the music, but that's okay. I now know how soon I'll be sitting on some porch, enjoying a beer while it's still cold, and wishing more than anything that I had a little downy-haired baby on my lap to spill it.