Parting pangs

My son, little A, has become a big boy now. At 4 years 8 months, he thinks he is too old for as many hugs and kisses as I want to shower upon him. It has become a regular game at our place for me to call him angrily and say, "I really want to scold you right now", and the scolding consists of hugs and kisses. That's the only way I can satisfy my need to squeeze him!

How quickly they grow up. It seems like yesterday when he was so shy around other people that he used to cling to my skirt or pants or shirt when intriduced to strangers. Now when he goes to the park, on some days he'll actually tell me to stay at home because he wants to go with the maid.

I think the first pang of loss was when he turned into a little boy from being my baby. That was the day we got his hair shaved off. He had really silky black hair, which had become shoulder-length by the time he was a year old. It used to be quite wild and hang all over his face, giving him a manic look, and yet the utter babyness of that silky, downy hair was adorable. After his hair-shave, it grew back like normal hair - you know, nice normal hair, no longer baby hair. Suddenly, he looked and acted like a little boy, not mamma's itty-bitty baby.

I was pretty bad at keeping baby books and so on, so have no idea about his first word. But I do remember his first sentence. It was in the US, where we were on holiday, when he was 2 and a half years old. We were driving back from Napa with my sister's family, and Ali, my husband, was busy pulling little A's chubby cheeks. The little guy bore it for a while and then it got too much. "Ali! What are you doing my face?" he demanded belligerently. Now he speaks not sentences but paragraphs, full of imaginative stories and 'jokes'(at this age, jokes tend to be scatalogical!). I miss his funny uses of language and the words he used to make up.

I remember his toddler walk when I see the Puddi stomping around. The first time he wore shoes, he carefully lifted his feet way up in the air at each step, as if scared that they would not move otherwise. Now he has a wardrobe of different types of shoes and pulls them on and off by himself.

Before he was born, I made several promises to myself and to him, among which one was that I would hold him close but not hold him back. Each time he moves from one stage of growth and maturity to the next, I feel the urge to break that promise and hold him back. I want to keep him as my baby a little longer, before friends and peer groups become his key influences. I want to preserve his innocence and faith in the world around us as long as I can. If I could, I would turn back the clock and relive the last 56 months, and with the hindsight of knowing how quickly they pass, relish each and every moment all the more. I would take hundreds more photos. I would sing more songs, and scold less and laugh more...

Yet everyday when I get home and find that he has scribbled all over my newest tablecloth with his crayon/ permanent marker or thrown yet another tantrum, I hold my head and ask myself, "How long before he grows up?"