Mixed Emotions

It's late and I'm tired but I want to get this down while it's still fresh on my mind.

I'm listening to Uncle Tupelo's "Anodyne" - one of the 10 albums I would want with me if I was marooned on an island in the Pacific.  It's a classic, for me, that I've probably listened to 1,000 times.

Tonight is the first night (at our house) since J.P. moved into his own room that he hasn't slept in his baby bed.  Initially, it was a crib, and it seems like only yesterday we converted it to a toddler bed.  He was so excited the Sunday afternoon we took the rails off the crib and lowered the mattress for him.  His "big boy bed," we called it.  In my mind's eye, I can see him getting in and out of the bed, all my himself, smiling in wonderment at his newfound freedom and independence.  Jude and I smiled back at him.

Today, our handyman - Nathan - converted the toddler bed back into a crib and set it up for us in the nook upstairs, which is going to be the nursery for our baby.  J.P.'s real "big boy bed" - a single bed, box springs and mattress I purchased over the weekend - is set to arrive Thursday.  Tonight and for the next couple of nights, he's sleeping on the futon mattress, which we placed on the floor in his bedroom.  Initially, he was excited about it, but it took a little coaxing for him to get comfortable as I laid down next to him and told him a story at bedtime.

Again, it's hard to put into words how I feel.  Nostalgic for certain and a little bit sad.  Proud, too.  I can't help but feel he lost a little innocence tonight, when laid down to sleep on a relatively large mattress with no rails to protect him from the outside world (realizing, of course, I mean figuratively and not literally).  His baby bad, or toddler bed, was so safe - smaller, filled with a couple of small blankets and his "lovies" (stuffed animals), surrounded by rails on 3 sides.  It also was a connection to when he was an infant.  The same baby bed, just configured differently.  The same bed, though.

It's going to be weird, in a minute, when I go upstairs (as I do every night) to check on him.  I'll slip quietly into J.P.'s bedroom, cover him up and quietly say a prayer as I gaze down at him.  My son.  My perfect, innocent and lovely son.

     

The nursery for "the player to be named later."  He's coming soon, very soon, to a theatre near you (and me).