Letting It All Fall Away

Another post about a movie, but this one is not a paid post, guys! Just all me.

I just finished watching this movie on Netflix: Following Sean. Did you ever hear about a film from the '60s about a 4-year-old boy living with hippies on Haight Street, who claimed that he "smoked grass"? This second movie shows what happened to that little boy when he grows up.

I won't spoil the movie by telling you whether people's predictions that he would grow up to be a drug-crazed criminal are true. Watch the movie, it's pretty good. But I will say that I found it comforting to watch the 30-year-old Sean talk and see how much of the 4-year-old survived in the man. There is enough footage of 4-year-old Sean in the second movie that you know his little mannerisms and his face, and to see those same things come out in the adult is thrilling.

This weekend I let go of some of the kids' baby things. The Parenthesis Sale happened, and since we are moving at the end of the school year, I took this opportunity to sell our old Dutailier glider -- for $5, I'll get $2.50. I miss it already. I spent so much time in that chair over the past 8 years.

Last night I was washing dishes when I heard a loud clunk over my head. I ran upstairs, shedding my rubber gloves on the stairs, and found poor little Toth sitting on the floor and rubbing the back of his head. Normally, I would have scooped him up and sat down in the rocking chair to soothe him.

So, I climbed into his bed with him. Within seconds he was breathing deeply, his cheek against my chest.

It was the best moment of my day. I stared at the bedroom and hallway walls that we've had painted to prepare the house for new occupants. As the rhythm of Toth's breathing calmed me, the constant worries about all the things I am supposed to do to move our family across the country began to fade.

I thought, I can do this without my rocking chair. I can do this without our house. I can do this even as the children stop being babies, because the kernal of who they are will endure, and I will never stop being their mommy.