open book open heart

I am the mom of a ten-year-old.  I have had favorite ages and stages as he has grown.  4 was so, so good: He, all round-cheeked, high-pitched, potty-trained and independent but all mine, unadulterated by the sit still and be quiet of school.  But 10!  10 is perfect.  How I love 10!

10 is, I suspect, the sad end of lap sitting.  10 is we can read the same books.  Read-a-thon EVERY Sunday.  Swoon!  10 is so, so helpful, so wise, so clever, so creative, so aiming to please.  Give me a giant scoopful of it.  10 is “I’ll be happy to play with a friend and leave you to your internet surfing mom.” 10 is I can still be silly and nightmare-comforted with and by my mom.  10 is just about to crest into amazing.

Sometimes we talk, my 10 and me, and I pretend to be stern and say this: “Hey. What’s with this getting bigger business?  Did you ask me if you could get bigger?  In case you were wondering, you do not have my permission to get any bigger or older.  Stop it!”  He giggles because he is still young enough to think I am funny.  Oh blessed 10.  I am so unfunny!  But he is the best audience of one.

The thing about 10 is, it inevitably will turn 11 and it won’t even stop there!  I’ve done 10 whole years. I know by now how they stack up on top of each other, with total disregard to my protests and, seemingly while I blink.

So, I intend to squish every last drop out of this perfect 10 – savor every day of it.  Then I will simply hope that some more stacked up years will equal a different kind of awesome.  And, I’ll always have the perfection of 10.  I can take it off the shelf and dust it off and sip from our shared straw … because at 10, that isn’t gross yet.