Week 29: Grown Up Teeth

Emily is now officially a big kid. She lost her first tooth this week, after discovering it was loose over the Thanksgiving holiday. It is, however, also an illustration of the inner conflict going on in these little kindergartners. Emily proudly shows anyone, even strangers, her loose toooth, and the now empty space with a suprisingly large grown up tooth already sprouting up. It was such a huge milestone for her! But at the same time, she comes down the stairs yesterday with her eyes filled with tears, on the verge of a major breakdown, about how she misses her tooth. Turns out she's having a little seller's remorse after exchanging the tooth for a really cool fifty cent piece. She even put her fifty cent piece under her pillow last night in the hopes that the Tooth Fairy would return the tooth.

But she seems to have forgotten about the tooth for the moment, which is good. The last thing I want is her dragging around a rejected body part (of course, also, since it's Emily, losing said body part since it is about the size of, well something very very small).

Milestones galore around here, Will is a real crawler now, up on his hands and knees. For some reason he did do this milestone in reverse order from sitting, and he now goes from crawling into a sitting positoin, but never for too long. He is also not satisfied with these achievements, obviously, since he has now set his sights on climbing. It seems weird to see such a small person doing all these things, but he has a big heart, which probably makes up for his size.

While part of me wishes so much that he would just stay small, I know too well how quickly they go from fitting snugly and perfectly in your arms to a leggy monkey that is more than half your height. But the older Will gets, the more I can appreciate his wonderful, sweet personality. I especially enjoy his sense of humor, and how new and exciting everything is for these new people. Watching Emily sled outside with Will in the sling, he flapped his arms and chuckled at the snow, Emily flying down the hill on her sled, and all of it.

These kids, how they throw themselves at life, it's amazing. They give every day their all, without dwelling on the past or future. I only wish I can learn from them and remember these moments instead of the stress of this transitional time in our lives. Just yesterday at the bus stop, one of the kindergarteners getting off the bus said she couldn't wait to be a grown up. My first thought was, enjoy being a kid, being a grown up sucks, believe me. But I guess that isn't true. As a grown up, I get to see Emily, filled with wonder that an actual fairy came into her room while she was sleeping. I just have to remember to be more like a kid and appreciate the small pleasures of life. The weight of Will's tiny self in my arms, even as I type this, Emily's rosy cheeks when she comes in from outside, these memories from the harder years with small children are what I'll think of long after Will is tossing his own kids up in the air, and Emily becomes the genuine and caring woman I know she will be. Someday, I know I'll give anything to be here, right at this moment.