Tales of a twin bed or New Ways to Break your Heart

We set up the Big Boy bed last weekend.

Yes.  Finally.  My nearly 3 and a half year old child is now sleeping in a twin bed.  He picked out his own sheets (yellow!  and I mean lemon pudding yellow), and he's happily installed in there with his bright yellow sheets, his animal friends and his Thomas stickers.

(Dear Susie,  the Boy LOVES the Thomas stickers--good call on that one!  He goes in there just to sit on his bed and talk to his Thomas stickers.  It's adorable!)

We spent all weekend in there, cuddling on the bed, reading, playing and just generally being together.  What I had suspected but not really embraced was that the rocking chair cuddles (an integral part of our bedtime routine for the past, oh, 3 and a half years) have now passed away.  He wants a book and a cuddle IN the big boy bed.

And inevitably, the evening concludes with him hugging me and saying, "Mama.  You don't want to LEAVE me!"  And I sit there torn between laughter and tears, because of course, I don't want to leave him.  But I also know that someday, he'll retreat to his room, to this same big boy bed having just said something along the lines of "LEAVE me ALONE." 

Can someone wiser than me please explain why this is so hard?  Why these children break our hearts so repeatedly and like FOOLS we keep going back for more?  I know he's going to grow up and fall in love and leave me, and the worst part is, I WANT him to.  I gave him life so that he could LIVE it...but why oh why it has to break my heart so repeatedly in the process, I know not.


Maybe I'm just really pregnant right now.