You may or may not know that I'm a proud mum of three, but if you were to flick back through some of my old blog posts you'd be forgiven for thinking there were only two special boys in my life. As well Tween and Baby R, I'm also a mum to a camera shy teenager who, in my eyes, is growing up too quickly.
Photo Credit: Mum in a Nutshell.
It only seems like yesterday he was a cheeky, chatty, lively toddler. We'd happily spend our days out and about or snuggled up on the sofa, catching up on Teletubbies. It was just the two of us during the day for four years, and he was the best company a mum could wish for.
My inquisitive boy, my little friend, my best cuddler. We did everything together and nothing apart. He was my first stab at motherhood and ignited something in me that I never knew I had: a love I'd never knew existed. I could be anywhere in the world, just as long as I had my boy.
Now he's morphing into a man, the teenage years like a chrysalis. Cocooning your baby and changing them into something new and beautiful (if you've done the early years thing right.) So much now goes on behind closed doors, inside the cocoon.
The little boy, full of questions and in need of your persistent protection, now questions your word, only reveals what he wants you to know, and buffers your attempts to protect him. Conversations are reduced to instructions: do your homework, tidy your room, get off the computer. His bedroom's become his cocoon and you have to wait patiently for the butterfly to emerge, (will he be a butterfly or maybe a moth? No one really likes moths, do they? I'm crossing everything for a butterfly.)
Yet every now and then I get a reminder of my little boy, the moments of disorganisation where its clear he still needs my guidance or when we chill on the sofa, resting his foot on my knee. Our roles have switched, he's now the one to reach things from high places for ME.
My little boy's helping ME. It's a change I have to accept. He still needs me, I know, but for more practical things -- lifts, money, food. I guess, though, I'm still his protector of sorts.
So, my boy is growing up. Okay, I accept it. He'll be someone else's soon, but to me he'll always be my little caterpillar.
My Teenager. My boy.