The Last Firsts

Today on the boat, while I was at home alone (at last) after four days solo with the Short Drunk People at my mom's house, the GFYO made me an official "older mom."

He lost his first tooth out at sea. Blood spilt all over the fiberglass and now his smile is marked and different. Underneath the funny words he still uses and his love of sippy cups and his blanky and kisses all the time from me, a grown up boy pokes through. There's no stopping it: the tooth, like everything with kids really, forces its way up and gone. My grasp on his littleness is flimsy now at best.

Last night, I stayed up with my nephews. They are 17 and 15 and talk and look like men. They are smart and funny and sweet and polite and I changed their diapers and kissed their booboos long before I was a mother myself. They don't remember me snuggling them or tucking them in or lifting them from sweaty sleep, but I do. Last night, I played them my music and they played me theirs and we both took notes to remind us what we liked. We ate warmed-up enchiladas off of one plate with three forks, like pals.

The GFYO stands in my nephews' shadows, awed and desperate. He farts on them for fun, and like troopers and dudes, they high five his every bit of boyness.  I think they see themselves in him sometimes, just as I do: little tiny boys become these big men, these big nearly grown men I love but cannot cuddle, adore but cannot pinch, wish to hold and keep and cradle forever but who now stand so many inches above me. How did we get here so fast?

The GFYO lost his first tooth, and it's the last time this first will happen for me. As my friend Kimba said, this is last of so many other firsts: first day of school, first stitches, first girlfriend. These firsts end with him. 

Soon enough, he too will tower over me. Soon enough, if I'm lucky, he will share one plate with me, late at night, telling secrets. Soon enough, he will be not be my toothless GFYO.