By Leslie Watson

Little babies make me a bit nervous these days. I first realized it this past summer, when we welcomed Ned and Helen’s new cousin to the family. As I awkwardly handled that small sleeping bundle, it struck me that it’s been so long since I mindlessly scooped up my own babies that I’m no longer comfortable with the weightless fragility of the newborn. To my relief, Baby Sandy has since packed on enough months and ounces so that she’s all chubby, delectable solidity, and not a bit scary anymore.

Like every parent, I can’t help but marvel at the way that my little scraps of humanity have expanded into the universe. When I first began writing this column, Ned and Helen were just three and five – not babies, certainly, but still really little. Now that they’re six and eight, I’m not sure how much longer I’ll even qualify as a parent of young children.

The story of their transformation can be read in the piles of outgrown clothing that I sort through every few months. It’s as if they’re constantly molting out of their younger shells, replaced by new, stretched-out versions of themselves. Helen’s beautifully rounded, toddler tummy is almost gone now, hollowed by memory as her body elongates into slender grace. Always a solid kid, Ned’s sturdy frame packs so much heft these days that a jump from his bed threatens the kitchen plaster. Until recently, I would make him stand still so that I could rest an elbow on his head. “You’re my favorite armrest,” I’d tell him. Now, with his head nearly at my shoulder, my elbow and his crown no longer align. And Helen refuses to succeed him because it messes up her hair. My armrests are growing up.

Thankfully, Helen does not yet see any loss of dignity in sitting in my lap, and if we arrange things correctly, she still fits. She curls herself into me, tucking in those long legs, and I lace my arms around her just so, so that we lock together, the sweetest puzzle. The same cannot be said for Ned, I’m sorry to say. He still regularly plows into me for a hug, although it grows a little bit briefer every time. And I can still pull him close as he sits beside me on the couch, of course. But there’s just not enough room on my lap anymore for all that bone and muscle and coiled energy.

Until recently I was still able to hoist him up, but only if he helped. “1, 2, 3, jump!” I would count, and together we would time the lift with his leap, the rocket boost necessary for me to render him airborne. But he’s skirting 75 pounds these days and I’m pushing 41 years, so my medical insurer has added a rider to my coverage about lifting him up. It’s something of a turning point when a parent loses the physical capacity to easily carry a child. Before too long, it will probably occur to Ned to start trying to lift up his mom, in that timeless test of emerging manliness and shifting power dynamics.

And one day he’ll manage it, and at that moment our paths will intersect, their opposite trajectories crossing as we move toward our respective fates. My kids will continue to grow in strength and vitality to adulthood. Meanwhile, I will keep slowly shrinking into my aged self, until someday they’re the ones towering over me, helping me into the car and worrying that I might hurt myself if left alone too long. It’s such a natural part of a family’s evolution that it’s hard to get too worked up about it. After all, during the very years that we marvel over how quickly our children growing, don’t we also secretly observe that our own parents are starting to become old? To me, it’s a comfort to imagine that all of the physical care that I gave to my kids when they’re young will return to me in the end, transformed by time into a gentle, steadying hand on the elbow. Decades on, Ned and Helen will still be my very favorite armrests.

Leslie Watson is a freelance writer who’s aging as gracefully as possible in Minneapolis. You can find her online at www.thebusypen.com.

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