Good-bye Baby Aiden

 "Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” ~Elizabeth Stone

On Christmas Eve, Aiden opened a gift from his uncle Jay and as he pulled the stuffed animal out of the box with excitement, I looked over and exclaimed, “It’s a doggy!” to which he simply remarked, “No, it’s not. It’s a dog.” And in that very moment, with a bit of sadness in my heart, I realized that he had bridged over from being my little baby into a child.

There’s always such mixed emotions when your child grows up; on one hand, you’re excited and proud of them for making new strides in their lives and taking on new accomplishments but on the other, you are forced to say good-bye to the baby who has outgrown himself. It’s a very bittersweet good-bye because you want nothing more than for them to grow and prosper and be happy but you will never see, cuddle, squeeze, kiss, hug or talk to them, in exactly the way they are, ever again.

As a mother, you willingly accept a newborn into your arms, your life and all of your heart. They enter with such sweetness and quiet abandonment that nothing else in the world matters anymore and without hesitation, you swear to yourself you will do everything to protect them. You watch them as they grow into their own unique personalities, guide and mold them into people you hope them to be and then one day you are forced to love them from the background.

We, as mothers, get to love our children with every aching ounce of our hearts and then we, selflessly, let go and pray to God nothing happens to them. Aiden only turns four in a few short months; therefore, it’s going to be awhile before I will even think about letting him out alone in the cruel, unjust world but every day, every moment he grows up I feel as if I’m letting go of a little piece of him that I just started to know and love. I know that I must love him enough to let him grow into the child he will become and the man he will be. But I still hate that I feel like I’m losing him as well.

So as I welcome my child that now calls dogs simply, "dogs," into my heart aand life, I would, first, like to say a bittersweet good-bye to my sweet, precious baby Aiden that would exclaim with such happy delight, “doggy!” each and every time we saw a dog. I already miss you so much but you will forever live in my heart.