Fledgling

My son is two years old. Just that one sentence should tell you that I'm getting quite the refresher course in independence these days. As kids do at this age, he's discovering his own identity as an individual, and as parents do at this stage, I'm feeling the bittersweet twinge of another of my baby birds venturing out of the nest.

Where once I had a sweet and biddable little baby, I now have a whirling dervish who thinks that anything worth doing is worth doing himself. In his mind, he no longer needs help with anything. His mantra is the infamous two-year-old's statement, "No, mama ... ME." Regardless of my years of experience and wisdom, he has no wish of my help when it comes to eating, bathing, dressing and undressing, cleaning his room, or putting on his favorite TV program (I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that it was actually him helping me not too many weeks ago when I couldn't figure out how to fix the sound on the television receiver). A simple thing like not giving him his choice of t-shirts can set in motion a chain reaction that leaves everyone in the family reeling. We're learning quickly that our little guy wants to make his own decisions and that there's a price to be paid if he's denied.

He is my second child and this second time around I am discovering an added element, a different feeling to his passing these milestones. With my first, his older sister, I delighted in every new skill mastered, every feat accomplished, often congratulating myself as much as her. This time, however, I feel a small sense of loss at each step my baby takes into "big kid"-ness, a journey that I know now doesn't end until he's well away from me. At times I find that I'm already missing him while still in the midst of him.

My little fledgling has, in the past few weeks, mastered the skill of walking down our long, winding staircase all by himself. Nowadays he sets off downstairs without the slightest bit of trepidation, but I'm a bit slow catching up to him. I haven't yet been able to get rid of my mother worry and I can't make myself stop hovering. The other night after dinner he said he was going down, but since I had my hands full loading the dishwasher I couldn't go with him. "Okay," I said, "but be careful."

In an exasperated tone that I know I'll be hearing for a long time to come, he told me, "I know, mama, I know," and went on his merry way.