Eleven

Eleven years ago today, everything changed.

I bit the apple. I saw behind the curtain. After that day, I spoke in terms of Before and After.

I became a mother.

If five is the apex of the rollercoaster of parenting a child, eleven is when you get on a whole new ride, fear and anticipation and a bit of adrenaline — or is it a thrill? — churning in your stomach. It’s darker. It goes higher and faster. I think it might go upside down — but I can’t see that far ahead.

Eleven is a fully formed sense of humor, a burgeoning understanding of irony, and well-honed sarcasm. It has hair under his arms and I don’t even want to know if there is more elsewhere. Luckily, I don’t have to know. Eleven grows overnight, stretching out the body of the pudgy toddler that I swear I held on my hip yesterday. Eleven not only has a favorite book, but also has the confidence and poise to recommend it to his teacher, who buys it for her sister — because teachers actually take book recs from 11 year olds.

Eleven still fights with his brothers over childish things, but can keep his baby sister safe from falls and small objects for small, precious periods of time. He no longer orders off the children’s menu at restaurants, but he still prefers lids and straws on his drinks.  He likes salad and has strong, if somewhat unsubstantiated, opinions on the ethics of eating seafood.  His biggest coup is the rare permission to drink a Coke, because it is both soda and caffeinated. His feet are bigger than mine.

Eleven understands far too much. He is perceptive enough to scare me, because my behavior, my words, my attitudes, my language all seem to weigh so heavy now. Everything counts; everything is noticed. In just another seven short years, he’ll be off on his own adventure. Eleven makes me wonder if I am doing it right and if there is still time to right my wrongs. It makes me want to apologize to him for being the bumbling first-time mother I was over a decade ago. I spent so much time dwelling on things that didn’t matter and not enjoying his babyhood. I wish I could go back and do it again with the confidence I have now so I could just honor every moment when he was little and all mine. Now that he belongs to school more than he belongs to me, I miss the nights sleeping fitfully with him in my armpit and our drives with Sesame Street Platinum and the Wiggles blasting in the car. I miss singing “I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon” at bedtime over and over again. I didn’t know then that his time as an only child would be so short, and I wish I remembered more of it, but sleep deprivation is a cruel thief of memory.

Eleven brings with it a little relief, a calm before what I fear might be a storm. Those first five years of my firstborn were hard. I worried a lot. I second guessed and doubted every decision. I had no guiding star. Now, he is my guiding star. Because as much as I messed up — and whoa boy, did I mess up — he is turning out okay so far. I look at eleven and I think, we’re doing all right. And then I cross myself, knock on wood, and tighten my seatbelt.

The boy who made me a mother is quickly becoming a young man. He’s goofy and dear and exasperating and stubborn. He can be maddeningly selfish and he can be heartbreakingly thoughtful and insightful. He still likes to sleep in my room when his dad is away, but he’s as independent as he could possibly be and is dying in anticipation of his two weeks of sleepaway camp later this summer. He’s still my baby, even as I feel him slipping ever so slightly away, turning his head toward his own future, dreaming dreams of his own that I cannot and do not want to dream for him. I’m chest-burstingly proud of him, all the while trying not to go into the ugly cry over I don’t even know what. Just because? Because middle school and armpit hair and girls and that just sometime between Gymboree Play and Music class and kindergarten and baseball games and robotics team he grew up. He grew up.

Eleven, don’t break my heart. I need this kid to be a kid for just a bit longer. I’m almost ready for the next ride, but just not quite yet. As he says to me almost every day, just give me one more minute “so I can hit save,”  “so I can mark my chapter” — I need to save this moment like he saves his video games and his place in his many books. I don’t want to miss any part of what has been our story  but is becoming his story. The plot is getting good.