Gimme Five (Up High, Down Low)

I can't function today, and I blame Babies R Us.

It was the same sort of day in the very same month, five years or maybe five days ago. The early autumn breeze had swept away the heavy humid air, and the sun laid a coat of crisp, short-sleeved warmth across the sparsely-leaved ground.

He was bundled up to his eyeballs, goodness knows why. Didn't his mother know how to dress a newborn?

Of course she didn't.

She didn't even know that hiccups were normal, that they'd go away on their own. And she hadn't even the sense to google it. She just swirled around the house with the wits and direction of a dust particle. Aimless panic.

"We MUST go to Babies R Us!" she announced.

"You mean right now?" Her husband didn't know better either.

"YES RIGHT NOW!" And the tears and reasons poured out.
"We don't have a baby thermometer or a single fall outfit that fits! And he can't wear his sleepers all day! And he's too small for the sleepers anyway, and what if he gets a fever? How will we know? Oh, and there's another hiccup. Yes, I'm going. Right NOW."

And so I, er, I mean she went.

And that was five years ago, not exactly to the day. But close enough to make me weep uncontrollably after perusing the newborn sleepers this morning in Babies R Us. Of course now it is for my friend's baby. And I know now how to handle hiccups and nursing strikes and that my friend will never use that baby wipe warmer she registered for. Yes, I'll be the wise and knowing old lady mom at the baby shower on Saturday.

But today I am just a mess. The first day of Kindergarten came and went without a tear from either party. But five? Five YEARS? I can't stop thinking back to when he was five days or five weeks. I can't stop simultaneously grieving and applauding as he walks farther from the womb and further down the path he is making for himself.

I promised myself I wasn't going to do a big gushy birthday post. But I forgot to make myself swear not to fall into an emotional heap next to the exersaucers. Maybe next year I'll be more prepared. I'll write up a contract and make myself sign it, and in no uncertain terms am I to set foot in Babies R Us in September.

So happy, so weepy. Up high, down low. But always (and forever) in love with the boy who turned me into a mama.