. On Baby Steps .

"And she loved a boy very much - even more than she loved herself." - Shel Silverstein

He called it unfettered. 

I sarcastically asked if he meant untethered. 

And then we laughed. 

We were talking about The Perfect Day and about how The General really seemed to open up. He's super shy normally, so it was interesting to see him grab an (almost) stranger's hand and walk around without me. 

(Without ME.)

Can we talk about something for a second? 

This mom thing is hard for a myriad of reasons. But the thing I carry with me the most - the thing I struggle with the most - is The Worry. 

No one ever mentioned anything about The Worry (capitalization is mandatory here, people) pre-Baby T. I'm sure, had I actually read the baby books, I might have had a head's up. Or, had I just recalled a few times in my own childhood, I may have remembered the crazy. 

But for some reason, walking into this motherhood-ness, I had no idea about the lay-awake-at-night worry. Do other moms feel this way? And? If so? Why aren't we talking about it as much as we're talking about how Amy Schumer is definitely NOT the size six she claims to be? 

I worry about whether or not he eats well enough at daycare.
If he's got his hat on outside at his dad's.
If he's going to fall down the slide and nearly die like I did when I was little (true story and I am definitely not exaggerating one single bit). 
If he's going to go to college.
If he's going to make one of those dumb boy decisions and race down the highway with another car and crash.
If he's going to nail his face on the table because he's running down the hall to the kitchen on the wood floor. Again.
If he's going to be ready for kindergarten at five or if we should wait until six. 
If his Lionguard shirt is clean for tomorrow. Because he wants to wear it. Every. Single. Day.

You guys.

It's never. ending.

And I am here to tell you that it's probably never going to stop. 

Why? 

Because of the way my mom still frets over me, and the way that my dad still checks in to make sure everything is going okay. 

And I'm 33. 

The rest never comes. I'm fairly certain.

Currently, The General is in bed and his sound machine is humming (which is about to put me to sleep, too), and I know that when I walk in there in the morning, I'm probably going to step on 2.4 cars before I make it to him. He's wearing dinosaur pajamas that he proudly (and correctly) proclaimed as orange, and I'm pretty sure that he's snuggling with a bath toy. He's also fighting a cold ... I can hear him snoring. 

I can see directly into his room from my own room, and most of the time, it takes all the willpower I have left after a long day to not walk in to his room while he's still asleep. Push his hair back from his eyes. Kiss his forehead. Stroke his sweet little hands. Embed each night that I have with him somewhere in my mind. 

I'm pretty sure I keep my little boy on a very tight leash. 

I'll keep that leash as tight as I can for as long as I can though. 

Tethered. 

Fettered. 

​Because he is my biggest worry.

But he is also my greatest song. 

xoxo, B.