Always

I confiscated a hatchet from my Sprocket this week. It feels like we've chopped down half a forest in the past few days and he wanted to help chop up the logs. I had visions of missing toes. As I took it away and searched (rather despairingly) for a place he couldn't get it, he scowled at me.
"I'm not your baby-boy any more!"
And I smiled at him and told him "Darling, you will always be my baby-boy."
And he will be. No matter how big he grows, or how far he goes (although let's be honest, if he choses to live at home till he's in his nineties, I'd be very happy) he'll always be my baby.

Yesterday we picked up my Sprocket's enrolment pack for school next year. We peeked into the prep-classroom, said hello to the prep teacher and drank from the big-kids water fountains. It's a familiar school - we've gone there every Friday for playgroup for the last two years, so my Sprocket knows the grounds, some of the teachers, and some of the rooms very well. He'll be going up with a group of kids from his kindy and the playgroup. And I'm repeating all this to myself to assure myself my little tornado will be just fine at school. I may be a blubbering wreck, but he'll be fine.

But he'll always be my baby boy.