Nine

A week or so ago, my firstborn child turned nine years old.

At my college reunion, there were many, many babies, many, many toddlers, and more than a few tummies swollen with the promise of those to come. But nine year olds were far fewer in attendance. I walked past the former lacrosse players toting baby strollers and wondered how I had managed to reach this place where I had no stroller at all -- just three sure-footed, mostly (sigh) potty-trained little boys who are gaining on me in height.

Nine years ago, I was struggling. I was sleeping in a La-Z-Boy with a colicky baby who refused to sleep by himself no matter what Harvey Karp-Dr. Sears-Marc Weissbluth method I tried. I was nursing around the clock and showing off my new party trick: a milk supply that turned my breasts into Rocket Boobs, capable of hitting distant targets like the opposite wall of a restaurant or passersby.

Nine years ago, I looked at this beautiful baby boy with expressive eyebrows and huge blue eyes, and I worried. I worried about the responsibility of raising a little person whom, someday, somebody would love. I worried about being a good enough mother, about doing right by this little being who was obviously so cranky to have been born. I wondered what I had gotten myself into. I cried myself -- not to sleep, because I wasn't sleeping. But I cried along with this little baby that I loved so completely.

Nine years later, I have four feet, nine inches of boy by my side. He still has sandy, light brown hair, still has the same huge, light eyes and the same laughing eyebrows. But all traces of pudgy baby thighs are long gone, replaced by knobby knees and impossibly long shins. He comes up from behind and takes my hand when we walk out of restaurants. He squeezes my hand hard when he has to get a vaccination. He no longer demands to sleep in my armpit as he did as a baby, but he still thrills at the every once in a while opportunity to sleep in our bed.

Nine years later, he's brave beyond my belief, confident beyond my expectations, and surprisingly reasonable given his toddler years. He is still my most challenging child emotionally, but he surprises me with growing maturity every day. He's competitive but not without generosity. He loves his friends.

It has been a long, long journey, mothering this little boy. He made me a mother, and then he taught me what that meant. It was nothing like what I expected. At. All. But instead, it has been an adventure -- sometimes complex, sometimes beautiful, sometimes devastating. I have not always been certain I was cut out for this, that I was made of the stuff he needed. But nine years later, I think I can say that I am.

Nine years later, he loves baseball so passionately that he happily goes to baseball camp for five hours a day in the relentless 90-degree heat. He's excited to receive the latest Rick Riordan tome in the mail for his birthday. He makes homemade trading cards for the Greek gods. He's waiting breathlessly for the final installment of Harry Potter on film. He sleeps in a little gabled room with a window looking out into the trees, his treasures tucked into his bedside table, his shelves littered with trophies and game balls and Lego figures. He talks smack to my classmates from college when challenging them in chess. Then he beats them (sometimes).

I am insanely proud of, a little apprehensive about, and always challenged by this boy. The next nine years are going to be crazy. I can't wait.