It’s 8:00 at night and my seven-year-old son wanders into the room.
“Hi Mommy, what are you doing?” he asks. He’s wearing pajama shorts and no shirt, but he does have a fuzzy blue blanket wrapped around his narrow shoulders. I think it was last summer when he began to eschew sleep shirts, opting only for sleep bottoms like my husband. I usually sneak into his bedroom to check on him before I go to sleep and cover him up again with the blankets he’s tossed off.
“Oh,” Caden continued, not waiting for my reply, “You’re ordering something. It’s a book! Can I get a book? Let’s see: first name, last name, address, email, payment information…”
Because he can read now, of course. There’s no more hiding things in words from him or his twin sister, no more assuming that a combination of letters is coded in and of itself. I can no longer spell out I-C-E C-R-E-A-M over their heads to my husband. (Really, they’d pick that one up right away.)
The blanket around his bare shoulders. The 8:00 pm still-awake wandering. The reading.
We’re entering the middle years.
The middle years are interesting, at least where we are, on the cusp of them with two seven-year-olds and a five-year-old. They’ve gained a piece of independence. They can be trusted to knock on friends’ doors in the neighborhood without supervision. The older two can be left home alone for short periods of time while I’m still somewhat nearby, like down the street at the park with their younger brother. They can make toast and pour their own bowls of cereal and grab their own snacks from the pantry.
Read more about entering these middle-aged years over on Twin Cities Mom Collective.