Heralding little milestones into the unknown

By Dr. Heather Bozant Witcher
Clarion Herald Young Adults

The soaring pterodactyl … flying through the air …” Fellow Blippi fans and parents will, undoubtedly, know the opening lines to the new “Dinosaurs” album. As I played the playlist for the umpteenth time driving to school, I heard, at first very timidly, my oldest son singing along. By the time we had gotten to the refrain, he was belting it out in his car seat. He knew every word.

I lowered the music a little so I could hear him. His childish sing-songy voice, was almost in tune with Blippi. The halting hesitance at first, followed by greater confidence as the song washed over him. He loves dinosaurs, and he loves music.

After the song was over, I smiled back at him in the rearview mirror. “I was singing it, mama!” he exclaimed.

Those are now my morning car rides. The vocals of two 4-year-olds and sometimes a 2-year-old. I’ll take it any day over the throwing of stuffed animals, the fighting over whose hand is touching another’s with three-in-a-row car seats. It’s a welcome change.

But, I wasn’t expecting it. Like all child-related things, it just suddenly happened. Like the sudden loss of morning snuggles after your child no longer needs you to pull them up out of the crib. Like the sudden loss of too-tight hugs at morning drop off, replaced with a quick hug and missed kiss as they run into the room with their friends.

This sudden development, though, makes me smile. I had been hearing the singing for an entire week – I have drop-off and pick-up duties. So, when my husband heard it over the weekend on our drive to the playground, he looked at me in surprise and grabbed my hand. “We made them,” he said with laugh. Each day, it seems, there are small reminders that they’re growing. Sometimes, it’s in the abstract ways, like the car sing-alongs, and sometimes it’s more physical, like when my sons pull on their jeans and they suddenly look like capris.

And, with each of those reminders, I feel a small sense of panic. Because with each new development, I realize just how quickly they’ll be removed from the safety of the home bubble. How soon they’ll enter a world that grows increasingly unkind, ungenerous and selfish.

That, I think, is one of the hardest parts of parenting: the unknown. The hope that we’ve done enough inside our safe space to prepare them. The hope that the kindness and generosity that we’ve shown and practiced is enough. And, that’s when I reflect again on the small prayer book of Marian devotions that my doctor gave me after I gave birth to the twins. Mary, too, knew the pain and anxiety of letting go. So, I place my trust in her hands, and I turn back to the present: “the soaring pterodactyl … it can see from here to everywhere.”

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