the fifth grader

This is Carson...yesterday...In a plastic bag having all of the air vacuumed out of it.

Carson is a fifth grader. Fifth grade was too long ago for me to remember exactly what it was like, but I do remember a few things: Mrs. Burch, sex ed and dissecting things like pig's eyeballs and hearts, and Chad Melvin puking every.single.time.

But, this is about Carson.  You see, somehow I have lost my baby.  He has grown up.  He has started doing things like wiping off my kisses, and sometimes turning his head away at the last second and not allowing me to kiss him.  He stopped letting me kiss him on the lips at the end of the school year last year.  I was hoping it was "just a phase."  It wasn't. 

Fifth grade in our town is the boss of the elementary school.  You are the big kids in fifth grade.  Maybe that is why these subtle changes are happening.  Carson seems to be more rude...more middle school-ish lately.  He sometimes talks with that subtle undertone of "you kind of annoy me..." He and Molly get on each other's nerves much more lately.  They fight a lot.  I separate a lot.  He and his friends "talk" back and forth on the computer thru their fantasy football website.  They type things that are funny and silly, and that I know will turn into bad words and slang all too soon. 

When did this happen?  When did all of this start?  I think back and wonder.  I feel like we eased into some of these changes, but others, I think must have happened overnight one night while I was dreaming of beaches, carrot cake and a sabbatical.  There are glimmers of hope, though.  Last night, I went to give Carson a kiss goodnight, and he grunted at me, turned his head, and gave me a lips kiss.  The first one in a very long time (that I didn't have to steal while he was sleeping.)  I got a tear and smiled in all my dreams last night. 

Here's to being hopeful, thankful and determined.  Here's to being able to continue to be open and honest when Carson and I talk to each other.  Here's to a whole new world spreading out before him...

This is Carson in 2005...the first day of kindergarten.