Sharing

Tonight we were out to dinner and Tate got up on his haunches while we were waiting for our food and said "I want to give you a hug. I want to give you 30 hugs."  He then proceeded to lunge into my arms and lap and wrap his sweet little arms my neck and nuzzle his head in my shoulder for what surely was 30 hugs.  

Pure bliss.

These are the moments I love.  Simply love.

I love mothering this boy.  Love it.  

I love being a single mother to this boy.

I love that right now as I sit here at my dining room table with a list of things on my to-do list (and most HAVE to be done tonight) that I miss him.  

I miss his sweet smile.  His oh so funny little faces.  I miss his love of his trains.  I miss his non-stop chatter.  I miss him.  I want to go wake him up and have him hang out with me some more.

And noone would ever have thought I would consider waking my 3 year old who sleeps the bare minimum up.

I love that it's just the 2 of us against the world.  We are a team.  Neither one of us has to answer to another.  Tate never has to feel pulled in the direction to please or answer to anyone else.  (at home at least)

Selfishly, I love that I get to be his favorite person in the world.  I love that I don't have to check with someone else to see if we can all go ride the train at the zoo for the umpteenth time this month.

Though I'm concerned that he's becoming dependent on us sleeping in the same room more than 50% of the time, it melted my heart when the other morning he trekked down both flights of stairs looking for me and in a tone that exhibited his displeasure told me "I had to come find you."  Later that day, he told me "You don't need to sleep downstairs tonight.  That room is bad."  

My sweet boy.  I slept upstairs with him for the past 3 nights, putting him in bed with me the first two nights when I crawled into bed. 

I know, I know, I know I need to move him into his own room, into his own space.  I have plans to do that this spring.  I'm searching out train paraphernalia, bedding, etc (esp the Polar Express) and have started talking to him with excitement about him sleeping downstairs.  He seems on board with it.

But the good thing...it doesn't matter really if he doesn't like it at first or for a while.  I can sleep down there with him to help with the transition with no guilt about needing to maintain another relationship.  Obviously, I don't want sleeping down there with him to become a habit, but since it's just the 2 of us, we can take it as slowly or quickly as we want.  

There are still days and weeks when I wish I had someone here to bounce ideas off of, someone to see his cute little faces, hear his sweet little voice, watch his antics, share in my joy, in the very moment, of the wonder that Tate sees and finds in the world.  I wish there was someone to take out the trash and clean up the dishes when Tate climbs out of his crib like he did tonight and needed to go to the restroom.  Instead I came back downstairs 30 minutes later and the messes are still waiting.  The clothes still need to be folded.  The trash still taken out.  The lunches need to be prepared.  That's when I wish I had a partner to fill in these gaps.

But the day to day raising of my child.  Nope.  I'll take it all by myself.  

Besides, I've never really liked to share.