Yesterday

As she peeked in her son's bedroom on the morning of his 19th birthday, she was thrown back in time.  It was just yesterday that he slept in the exact same position wearing a little blue onsie.  She remembered when she was  a pregnant gargantuan, and he loved to sleep sideways inside her belly.  It was a never ending battle pushing his bottom back to her center, and he would scoot it right back out to the edge of her right side as far as he could go.

She flashed back to the way it felt to snuggle him as they took a nap at 10:00 every morning.  How angry he would get when he couldn't snuggle her the way he loved to when she got pregnant right away with his sister.  A flash to the time he cut his sister's hair, but made sure she had a towel around her neck as he played barber.  The lego phase, the pokemon phase with cards, shows, sheets, and games for his Nintendo Gameboy.  She remembered being frustrated that he could memorize 350+ Pokemon characters, but hated spending 10 minutes on his homework.  She remembered his 3rd grade teacher trying to dissuade her from letting him read Harry Potter books, because that was beyond his A/R level.  She ignored the teacher, and joined in and read them with him.  She remembers dying his hair black, and drawing a lightening bolt on his forehead with a Sharpie pen the year he turned 8 for Halloween.

She flashed back to all the times he was her protector, and would try to protect her from harms way his whole childhood.  There were Beast Wars, and Transformers everywhere... never ending holes in the knees of his jeans.  The talks they had to have about leaving his bike outside on the weekends, because they would get stolen every time a neighbor had a yard sale.

She remembered his "crooked smile" before he got his expander, and the way his blond hair shone in the sunlight as they picked sugar snaps off the vine and ate them straight from the garden they had grown together.  She thought about the forts he loved to build, and the endless hours he spent playing in his tree fort complete with railing and bridge he had built with his dad.

She thought about his broad shoulders, and the many times she had cried on them.  The many times he was her rock, and would hold her in his arms and tell her to cry it all out as he towered over her, no longer a little boy.  She thought about his laughter, and all the times he'd thrown her over his shoulder as she screamed, and the family Christmas photo wearing Hollister blue with him giving her a piggy back ride.

As the memories of his childhood washed over her, she thought about the man he'd become, and how few precious days she had remaining with him before he left for basic training.  His infectious laugh, his Hollister shirts, and his Cali hair cut were all things she would miss.

On the morning of his 19th birthday, his mom lay in bed with tears streaming down her face as she realized it was time to lock her little 5 year old son away in her heart forever, and embrace the amazing man he'd become...