Once when Eli was a few weeks old, I headed to the grocery store with him to get ingredients for supper. I brought home a ten pound bag of potatoes, and it didn't escape my notice when I carried it into the house that it was about the same weight as my child. "My little sack o' potatoes" became yet another goofy term of endearment that I crooned to Little Guy.
As Eli got closer to the toddler stage, "potato style" became the way he preferred going to bed. "Oh, my little ol' sack of taters!" I would sing, draping him across one shoulder the way that Irishmen of old loaded their big burlap sacks of spuds onto a wagon. It always earned an Eli giggle.
By the time Eli was a preschooler, sack o' potatoes was entrenched ritual. There came to be "slippery spots" on the floor (pointed out by Eli as we moved through the house) that would cause us to spin in place for several seconds. Dizzy Eli made big belly laughs in my ear on our way to his bed. My sack wasn't ten pounds anymore, though. More like forty plus. And the older Eli got, the more effort it took to safely balance when we spun around. This spring I felt an achy spot in my shoulder that didn't get better until Eli was away visiting his grandparents for several nights. Hmmm. Brian took over being the potato carrier for a little while and that helped, but as soon as I went back to my old role I was achy again. I needed to give up that sack o' potatoes.
Yeah, I knew the day would come. The pediatrician says my child will one day be a strapping six foot five inch man, the little pup body grown to fit those big wide feet and the hands that are larger than those of most of his tot buddies. But I could't do it. Not for months. Finally, when my shoulder got sore enough that it was hard to pass things to Eli in the back seat of the car, I knew the time had come. Last week I had to tell Eli that Papa would be the potato carrier from now on. Then for one last time, I put my boy over my shoulder, felt that soft and warm tummy against my neck. Eli didn't seem to mind the change, but on the way to his darkened bedroom I tried to memorize the way it felt when his little body laughed as he was draped over me. I said a little prayer of hope, wanting the man Eli will become to remember that silly ritual full of love.
Sack o' potatoes is just one young child habit. Eli is still small enough to love snuggling with Mama every morning, to wiggle into my lap while I'm working at my desk, or to ask Mama sing him to sleep. His face still lights up when he sees me coming to get him at school and is blissfully unworried what the other kids think when I swoop him up for smooches at his classroom door. But I know those days are also numbered. I try to soak up each and every one. I want my son to grow up. Just not so fast.
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