From now on, I have to look up

It is true what they say about children growing overnight.

Nolan has been hovering at my height for months, just shy of it, but not quite there.

Until one morning recently, when I woke him, he got out of bed, and I went to hug him....and noticed he was taller than I was.

Overnight.

The moment he was as tall as I was was simply that, a moment.  I blinked, and it was gone.

I have been giggling as I follow him around since then.  "Are you ever going to get over this, Mom?"  he asks, amusement, tinged occasionally with adolescent irritation, in his voice.

"No," I reply, as I giggle some more and embrace him.

He is the oldest, the experimental child, so to speak.  Everything I learn as a parent, I learn with him; through him, first.  He's in the eighth grade now, and it feels like it was yesterday that we brought him home from the hospital, and I was almost in a state of panic that this little person was ours forever, and this Mommy-thing was FOR REAL.

He's in the eighth grade.  I was about the same age when I met his father.   It's madness, pure madness for me when I consider that.

Sometimes, I have to remind him that I need a minute to catch my breath so I can keep up. To bear with me when I make decisions that seem ridiculous to him, but perfectly reasonable to my overprotective mind. 

I dropped him off recently at the mall, by himself, to meet a group for a birthday party.  I didn't go in with him, meet the Mom, or even stay in the parking lot watching him go inside.  It was probably the hardest thing I have ever done thus far.  I told him, as he left, to call me when he found his group.  I forced myself to let him go, and I was imagining all sorts of horrible scenarios ("That man, he looked a little shifty."  "What if they are gone to the movie already, and he wanders off looking for them, and gets abducted?"  What if, what if, what if, my overactive imagination toyed with me.  What if something happens to him, and I have to admit to his Dad I let him go in all alone?  Why hasn't he called?)  Suddenly, just as my heart was approaching a dangerous beat, my phone rang.  "Mom? I found them, I'm with my group."  The sigh of relief I breathed was probably audible inside the cars speeding past me.  (Ten minutes kid time = one hour worried mama time)

He's growing up.  I'm facing it, bit by bit, giving him some slack in the maternal cord as we both adjust.  I'm finding that it while it is scary, it is also delightful, fulfilling even, to watch him morph from boy to young man. 

A young man who is now officially taller than I am whether we are in our sneaks or in stocking feet.  How is that even possible??

Madness!