My Boy is Ten

Wow. Ten years ago this past Wednesday, Brahm Briggs made his foray into my life. I grabbed some photos from the first few years and posted them here - there's no way to do a compilation of the last decade. There's also probably no way to sum up the ways in which this little human has changed my life.

Does anyone even remember our kitchen looking like that?

An early sign of his persistent interest in space

Loading snowballs into his beloved dump truck Brooks found at DI

Fall leaves at the park across the street

Few people are prepared for parenthood. I thought I was - I mean my pregnancy with Brahm was a decision (yeah, even though by the time I decided we should start "trying" I was already pregnant and didn't even know it!). The first year was hard - I'm not going to lie. Making the transition from a self-centered life doing things I was good at to a life revolving around a creature that challenged every insecurity was tough. People told me not to blink or I would miss his childhood. My waking hours were much longer now - how could that be true? Well, I won't say it all happened in the blink of an eye - I have so many memories of first steps, first day of school, transition from trike to bike, first loose tooth to now braces - and yet here we are at the end of his fourth grade year. It strikes me that he is more than halfway to graduation from Brinkel University.

Like most parents, I sometimes I go into his room at night and watch him sleep. It's funny how his face has changed so much since he was a child and yet when he is asleep he has the same aspect of the nine-month-old I used to lay down for a nap: his cheeks go rosy, his eyelids have a pale lavender cast and his lips are full and smooth. Even his face is the round shape it used to be. When I look at him I marvel at the patience in his growing body, at the supply of second-chances for a woman who could use them. I see how he has opened me up to the wisdom of yin, to remembering what a less linear view of the universe is like. I get chances to admit that I don't know the answers but that I am willing to help him find them. Knowing him is learning and respecting the power of sovereignty, it's enjoying the journey more and worrying about the destination less.

I thank God for the classroom that being Brahm's mom has been.