I don't know why it's so disconcerting watching your child take the leap from adolescent to teenager. With the Big Guy rapidly approaching 13, I'm watching the physical changes take place and I am both excited and terrified at the same time. He's taller than me. Heck, he's taller than his dad. His voice is deeper and there are signs of a mustache beginning to appear on his top lip. As his chest broadens and his facial features change, I'm seeing the man begin to emerge from the body of the boy. With his newfound atmosphere opening up in front of him, he's taking great delight in reaching items on the top shelf for his now extremely short mother. It tickles him to hold my keys far above his head where I can't reach them. A potshot in the gut usually helps to lower them to my level, but I'm not always going to punch him in the belly to get my keys back. Someone might find that behavior mean. This morning, in his boyish playfulness, he picked me up. Three times. I laughed hysterically as he carried me through the family room and then spun me around. What startled me most, aside from being lifted skyward by this onetime infant child of mine, was the fact that I trusted him not to drop me. He's beginning to manuever through this world, albeit in somewhat baby steps, without me. He no longer hides behind me when I talk to strangers in the auto parts store. Instead, he stands alongside me, often draping an arm around my shoulders. He's quick to ask for directions and adds up groceries in his head before we reach the checkout lane. He's doing what his father does, I think to myself. I know I can't always protect him as I was able to when he was small and held onto my leg in unfamiliar situations, and that scares me. It must be the process of letting go that invites that fear. I know I must, but I don't want to. Just when I think he's he's spreading his wings and I step back to watch the colors of his life explode onto the canvas, he reaches out and grabs my hand and smiles. He doesn't say anything when he does this, he just holds on. Maybe picking me up and parading me through the house is his way of saying that while he's growing up, he doesn't want me to forget that he still needs me. Not the same way that he always has, just a different way. I can live with that. © 2005 Tara Floyd