March 1: Someday

Looking for a good cry?  Pick up this children's book and prepare to weep...openly...like a baby...in front of a large crowd of people.

Alice received this book as a gift from our dear friends, the Haupts.  It looks simple enough, harmless really, a young mother holding her cherub-faced baby up high for all the world to see.  Doting mother, chubby baby, nonthreatening, right?  Wrong!!  I cried my face of when I read this book.  Seriously, I thought my eyes might flow right out of their sockets.  I cried so unexpectedly, so honestly that my own father teared up.  "Someday" is beautiful and ruthless, all at the same time.  And, it is absolutely, hands down, my favorite childrens book. Ever.

I won't go through this page by page, although when I spotted it at our local Target, I did try to hold my friend Laura up so that I could read every heart-wrenching word to her (also a mother of a sweet little one-year-old girl).  She saw the inevitability of public tears and quickly walked away from me, towards more harmless selections...Dora, Elmo and the sort.   The first few pages share the story of a mother, giving birth to a baby, cherishing that baby, protecting that baby...and then, things get dark.  That baby grows up.  This is where the knot builds in my throat:

and now you are my CHILD?!?!  WHAT?!? Nooo!!!!!  No one ever said anything about this part.  Big kid helmet?  No training wheels?  Basket of books, indicating that this child is of reading age?!  READING age?!!  Now, if I had read this when I had Henry, I'd probably be touched, but not brought to tears.  It's having a baby who is turning into a child (or "a children" as he says) that makes this such a bittersweet read.  It says everything that I've been thinking ever since I had kids.  That someday, whether you like it or not, they will grow up, move away and be out in the world on their own...without you always by their side to protect them.

"Someday" suggests that you can try as hard as you want, but you can't protect them from everything, you have to let them go into the world on their own.  You CAN love them unconditionally, share the wisdom you've gained from your own life choices, let them make their mistakes and learn from them, and, eventually, enjoy the person that they have become. 

I'm going to read this book to my kids now, who are ready for bed.  Then I'm going to weep, while eating a huge bowl of ice cream salted with my tears.