William Wednesday

I get it now. I totally get it. I get why my mom still called me her baby when I was graduating from high school.

I was at a girls evening with people from my church Tuesday night and we didn't all know each other so we went around and gave little introductions. One girl said 'I have a baby...' And another girl interrupted and said 'oh no no no she's not a baby, she's totally a toddler'

So when my turn came I said, 'I have a baby, but I guess if your toddler isn't a baby then my 46 month old isn't a baby either huh?'

But he is. He's my William. He's my baby.

When I see other kids running around who seem to be William's size it's so easy to refer to them as kids. They're kids! But not my William. He's my baby!

I see why moms Sometimes fall into a terrible trap of coddling. No one thinks to themselves, 'I'm going to just sit here and nurse the scrape on my teenager's knee'. No one thinks that (or at least I hope not). we think, 'I'm just going to nurture my baby a little bit'

If I step back and look at William objectively he's all-kid. He doesn't have baby mannerisms. He doesn't have baby facial features. He hardly has a single word he can't pronounce. He speaks in complex sentences and he runs and jumps and climbs like all the big boys on the playground. He's a kid.

But when he's screaming at 7:30 at night because he's so exhausted, and he's upset that he only gets 2 bedtime books since he lost 2 for poor behavior, all I can do is sit down, let him crawl in my lap, and rock back and forth while he cries for awhile.

Maybe I'm coddling. Maybe I'm nurturing. I don't know and today I don't care. He's my baby. He may have been a big kid all day at school, but tonight he was just a baby who needed his mommy.

And I loved it.