Jacob, my oldest,
is on the second floor of his school this year. Fourth grade. 22 steps above
the primary grades. Not on the same floor as the kindergarteners anymore. He’s
on a different level now, both literally and figuratively. Fourth grade is the
beginning of the intermediate grades. Intermediate — in the middle. Jacob and
his classmates are in the middle of childhood. Nine years old, they are halfway
to 18. Halfway through grade school.
And
while I understand the whole point of parenthood is to help your child grow and
develop — this is what God intends — I’m still getting used to being the mom of
a larger-sized kid. Jacob’s clothes aren’t cute and tiny anymore and haven’t
been for some time. I could wear his t-shirts if I wanted. (Yes, if I wanted to
constantly walk around with large numbers on my back and chest.) If his feet
continue to grow at their current rate, I should be able to fit into his shoes
in a few months. Already, I have mistaken his black dress pants for cropped
pants of my own; I hung them in my closet and only realized my error when I
began to put them on and they stopped suddenly at my hips.
Jacob
is still a good ten inches shorter than I am, and I easily have forty pounds on
him, but my days of being the expert at everything are clearly numbered. This
summer, I had to admit that he is better than I in baseball. If I were to be
completely honest, I would acknowledge this might have been true as many as two
years ago, and quite certainly one, but this summer was the first summer I
thought about it.
We
went to a park one afternoon, and I stood on the pitcher’s mound, Jacob’s
sometime-position in little league, and I pitched to him. It looked so easy
when I watched him from the stands, but as I struggled to get the ball over the
plate, I apologized to my son for making him wait so long for a decent pitch.
“That’s
okay, Mom,” he said. “You pitch pretty well, for a writer.”
My
child was giving me qualified encouragement that I was doing okay. I wasn’t
doing as well as him, of course — who would expect that? He wore the numbers.
He was the baseball player. I was the
mom. And the writer.
And
though I knew Jacob’s assessment of the situation was accurate, somehow in my
mind, it wasn’t possible that Jacob could be better at baseball than me — after
all, I was the one who taught him how to hold a bat in the first place. I was
the one who pitched the enormous white whiffle ball directly at his fat red bat
when he was a toddler, willing the ball to stop in mid-air so he could make
contact. I called it a hit, even when it would more accurately be called a
pitch that tapped the bat. And now he is better than me. Much better.
I
told my friend Eric, who has a two-year-old, that the day is coming when his
daughter will be better than him at something.
“It’s
already here,” he said. “She can dance better. She has more rhythm.”
I
look at Jacob and know baseball is just the beginning of a long list of things
he will one day do better than I. If early childhood was for learning basic
skills, middle childhood is for refining those skills. And while one side of my
heart cheers wildly for Jacob as he conquers long division, the strike zone,
and increasingly adult-looking novels, the other side of my heart wants to
freeze time. For the middle of childhood — age nine — is so clearly the
beginning of something big. And I have learned from babyhood on that beginnings
are fleeting. I am afraid that middles may be fleeting, too.
He’s
on the second floor this year. Halfway through grade school. Halfway through
childhood. A tall, skinny kid with a huge appetite, a big smile and talents
neither of us knows about yet.
I’m running to
keep up.
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