When yesterday became today

Just yesterday I was gearing up to send a little 3-year-old boy in a dinosaur T-shirt to his first day of pre-school. He had a little blue backpack on with his name on it. His new little brown dress shoes looked so big, compared to the little infant shoes he had grown out of in the years before. He was just newly potty-trained, ready for the world.

Just yesterday that little boy was busy playing Buzz Lightyear in the living room. His little hand held mine when we'd walk down the sidewalk to the neighborhood park. He'd run around the house in a "BIG BROTHER" cape bringing bottles to his newborn twin sisters. He was growing out of his naps, but tired and ready to cuddle by day's end, begging me to read just one more book before bed.

It seems just yesterday when his daddy sent me an email on that first day of preschool—a message that I still cherish in my saved files on my home computer—that read, "This is exciting. I can't believe he's in school already. It seems like yesterday you told me you were pregnant with him."

Yesterday has turned into today, where that little boy is no more. In his place, this grown man child stands— taller than me, hands bigger than mine and feet bigger than his father's ever were. Today, when I ponder how real it's becoming that in a few short days I will have a high schooler. He will join hundreds of other kids as they begin this milestone journey —all while their mothers stand aside in awe and wonder where our yesterdays went. Some of us moms do it alone, carrying double the pride for our boys when dad can't be here.

Today we wonder how quickly Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, toy cars and all those dinosaurs disappeared. When did that happen? Today we look through the now shaggy hair that falls in his eyes, the huge backpack he hoists on his broad shoulders and the gigantic shoes he wears that we never knew he could ever possibly fit into. As he stares into his phone, barely looking up from Snapchat friends and internet games— we will still see that little boy. No matter how many yesterdays come and go. How much love and loss we've had in the years since he was just 3 feet tall. He will always be our little boy of yesterday.

This post was also published July 27, 2021, here at Today Parents.