A small bit of inspiration

A few weeks ago I received a comical, though heartfelt and sincere, email from a friend about how hard it is for a mom to see her son grow up and have girls start to enter his life. Her comical side pointed out that no girl will ever know her son like she does. She knows what food makes him feel better, she knows his favorite kind of cookie and so on. But she obviously genuinely grieved the loss of that little baby boy who had a heart and stomach for no cookies but her own. She  addressed the email, 'dear your-son-is-still-a-baby-and-all-yours' and so I attempted a comical reply with that as my signature. I did acknowledge that somewhere down the line I know I'll lose that.

Somewhere down the short line I guess.

A few nights ago William was laying in bed and I noticed he had something in his hand. He had pulled it out of his pocket when he got undressed and never put it down. I opened his hand to see what it was and it was an acorn. I asked him why he had an acorn and he said, 'oh, mommy! Emma gave that to me!' 

I couldn't respond because this is where my brain instantly jumped:

Oh. Emma. Well, doesn't Emma know you like leaves and rocks? What does Emma know anyway? 

Austin came in the room so I told him the story and he couldn't even detect the cynicism dripping in my voice as I told it; he was too busy beaming with pride over the fact that a girl had given his son such a priceless treasure.

He looked at me after soaking in the moment and said, 'what's wr- wait? Are you mad?'

No, that's ridiculous. Why would I be mad?

'Oh. No. You're not mad...you're JEALOUS! You're jealous that a girl gave an acorn to your son.'

I instantly walked out and prayed to god that someday Austin be blessed with the curse of having a daughter. Only then can he know what it feels like to have to look at that acorn every morning as I go wake William up.

Who even likes acorns???

Sincerely,

My baby is apparently only a little bit of my baby now