Eli's Season

 

There’s a cowbell by my toilet. It’s a free trinket that my son got from his work then gave to his thrilled nephew. It’s how I know when Eli needs my help in the bathroom. He latched onto the new toy and gave it a job. It’s how he calls out for me without having to yell.

There are applesauce cups and chocolate milk syrup in my fridge. Because every day, after I pick him up from preschool, Eli asks for the same lunch. Peanut butter sandwich with extra honey, four maraschino cherries, applesauce, and chocolate milk. His daddy isn’t thrilled about the cherries, but it’s kind of our thing. Once I introduced them to him, he was hooked, like I am. So we compromised. Since he’s four, he gets four. But don’t tell his dad. He thinks he gets one each day.

There are dirty dump trucks by my back door. They have spent their time in the sandbox and have been brought inside to eventually go through the ‘car wash’. About once a week I give him a big bowl of water and all the fun utensils from my silverware drawer, and he plays car wash. He splashes around. And we mop the water off the floor, knowing it will be worth the extra load of towels I’ll wash because of this adventure.

There are always popsicles in my freezer. Because once a day, after the peanut butter sandwich has settled into his belly, Eli will announce, “It’s popsicle time!” And he’ll go pull out my heavy freezer drawer, pick out two cold wrappers, and then offer to let me pick which one I want, before we excitedly open them together to see which colors we got. He doesn’t know I only buy sugar free popsicles. He only knows he loves it when he gets orange.

In my bathroom closet there is a shelf filled with tiny clothes. Size four shirts and pants and cartoon covered underpants. Because on those rare days when he has an accident, or the weather changes, he knows Nana’s got him covered. They’re on a lower shelf for a reason. Because sometimes he decides he needs a change and he likes to choose for himself.

Half of the bookshelves in my living room (and bedroom) do not contain books. They are stacked with boxes of puzzles, and tubs of Hot  Wheels, plastic animals, toy food, construction kits, wooden tools, and assorted loose toys acquired from Happy Meals and the neighborhood kid’s Bingo games. My treasured books, the ones I love so much I’ve hauled them from house to house, through many states, live down in tubs in the basement. Someday they will take back their rightful place on a shelf, but not today. Not when Eli needs a place to gather his toys.

I recently bought a new shelving unit for my small office nook. Not for my office supplies. Because we needed a place to hold all of Eli’s art supplies. With one big order from Temu, we had a dozen little plastic storage boxes to hold his tiny scissors, tapes, string, pipe cleaners, feathers, glue sticks, paints, and beads. Bigger containers hold his markers, paints, slime, and colored paper. And whenever he feels the urge, he knows where to go, to find a way to tame his creative urges. Just this afternoon we made baby turtles out of cut up egg cartons. We got green paint everywhere. We stapled tiny snips of green pipe cleaners on for legs, and drew happy faces on with a sharpie. He marched out my house an hour ago, proudly cuddling his new pets.

There are tubs of treasures under my kitchen table. Because it is more often used as a roof for a four year olds house/tent than it is for family meals these days. When I try to tidy up under there, he protests and tells me the importance of every item in his possession. I always back down, and leave his things where they are. Because they mean something to him.

But in eleven days he finishes preschool. He’ll walk across a stage in a tiny graduation gown and sing the song we’ve been practicing every afternoon. Then, as he describes it, the best part comes. A pizza party with his classmates. And from that moment on, my afternoon buddy will officially be a kindergartener.

Our afternoons together will end, and a new schedule and routine will begin. And I’m not sure I’m ready.

It’s not like I haven’t seen this coming. I’ve been blessed to have him during the day since he was a few months old and mama went back to teaching. I got the precious days of snuggles as he grew and changed and mesmerized us constantly. I have the external hard drive full of pictures to prove it. Then he turned into a toddler, then preschooler. We felt it was finally safe to take down the gate to the stairs. We gave him kid friendly knives and let him help chop vegetables. We saw him growing, but it was so deceiving. We were so tickled with his daily antics that we failed to notice the babyhood had evaporated.

When he started preschool we were so excited for him. He is an only child, who is great with adults, and neighborhood friends, but we knew school friends would be important. He’s thrived. He loves Miss Sarah and playing with his friends on the playground. He has religiously memorized all the letter sounds and their hand motions as they tackled a letter each week. He has hit all the milestones you’d want before big kid school. And suddenly the calendar is betraying me. And stealing away my little buddy.

Because he lives just down the street from me, I will still see him often. He doesn’t hesitate to fly through my front door just to say hi or grab a snack, when he’s outside playing with the neighborhood gang.

But the guaranteed times are over. And he’s still growing so fast. I cant imagine him at five and six, but those days are flying my way. I hope he continues to draw Jeeps on every paper that is put in front of him, for Nana. And I hope he still collects special sticks and rocks for me when he’s playing outside. Because there will always be maraschino cherries in my fridge for him. And there will always be a cow bell right next to my toilet.