My poor baby

The big one, not the little. He’s eight, which places him rather firmly out of “baby” territory, of course, but I think somebody forgot to give him the memo – or maybe they didn’t, but he took one look at it, shredded it, and is choosing to pretend that age and time are constructs that don’t really apply to him.

He gets irate at the notion that he’d be “too old” for anything, such as the foam play areas in shopping centers. Of course, the fact remains that he is too old for them, especially considering that he tends to play in them with the same goofy carefree style that he’s had since toddlerhood; it (rightfully so) freaks out the parents of small children toddling around the soft structures to see a much larger child cackling and dashing past on his way to jump on and off the nearest elevated spot. He’s not being deliberately obnoxious, but he can do a lot more injury to the wee ones around him than they might to do to each other, and so we try to enforce the posted height restrictions at such places, which usually means that he has to come to terms with the fact that while Gabe can play, he cannot. That’s a difficult pill to swallow, especially considering that he doesn’t consider himself to be a “big kid.” Not yet, and possibly (if he has anything to say) not ever.

Yesterday, while we were out, I noticed that he had officially “aged out” of the little kids’ clothing section. For one horrible moment, I thought that he’d aged out of the kids’ clothes altogether, but then I spied the “tween” section, for which he apparently qualifies. It’s the boys’ version of “Juniors” in girls, I guess, which gave me an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach; how can my baby be big enough to shop in a section for which the analogous female section includes training bras?! Eric made matters worse by needling me and saying that in only ten years, we’d be shopping in the “Fill Your Dorm Room!” area.

Leaving the store, I put on a cheerful face and pointed out the “cool” clothes in the tween section to Sam. (Truthfully, it would be worse to have a girl, and I know that; the older boys’ section is full of Tony Hawk teeshirts and polos, while the girls’ is all miniskirts and sequins…) His reaction was one of horror. “I don’t want to wear those clothes! Why can’t I wear the other ones? They’re funny and cute! I don’t want to be handsome!” I relieved him a little by pointing out that there were still comical teeshirts in the new section, but he still sighed and wilted a bit. Then he asked me to carry him.

This is the boy who professes to crush on various girls in his class and who will wear very adult-styled clothing to garner attention from them. He talks about what he wants to do when he’s grown, and he eagerly looks forward to each new loose tooth and inch of height. But, as I said to Eric, it’s almost like the stage kids experience as toddlers, where they see-saw between sprinting away from their parents and then completely freaking out about being separated from Mom and Dad. He’s hurtling toward puberty (I can almost say that without wincing) in the next couple of years; I can see a few of the boys in his grade already appearing and acting much different from the big-footed Labrador puppies that most of them were last year. Nobody can put the brakes on that process, as much as Sam might try for himself. No wonder he’s so often so grumpy these days.

So, yes, that’s why I might have been seen carrying my big boy in my arms out of the department store yesterday afternoon. Too big for it? Maybe. But I still can, for now, and he still needs it. So long as those two facts line up, I don’t care about stares.