Surreal

Late practice has started for the musical Braeden is in.  The other night, I brought him home and he was "starving."

(I must mention that every day I'm grateful that my children don't really know what it means to be starving...they just think they do.)

The sandwich he'd had after school had apparently not made a dent in his hunger.  I told him I had some ravioli in the freezer and I would cook them for him.  While the water was coming to a boil, he inhaled a bowl of cereal.  He ate an entire plate of ravioli without breathing then he looked up at me and asked, "Are there any more?"

"No."

He shrugged and sat at the kitchen table and wrote undecipherable words on flashcards.  (Both because he was writing in French and because his handwriting is atrocious.)

I sat next to him and just watched him.  He's been taller than his dad for a little while, but for the first time, I realized that he was man-sized.   I'm sure this is not a unique experience for a mother to have.  For every man in the world, there's a mother who one day sat next to him at the kitchen table and had the startling discovery that he was man-sized.  I distinctly remember wrapping him in soft flannel blankets.  I remember buckling him in his car seat and tying his chunky little shoes.  I remember swinging him onto my hip and carrying him around.

I watched his wrists flick the cards as he finished writing on them.  How did his wrists get so big?  Just when did that happen?

I know, I know, this happens to everyone.

But, wow.