Big boy/little boy

Well, we thought the day, or night I guess, would never come, but Jamie has spent the last two nights in a big twin bed. No more sleeping on a mat on the floor, after almost two years. He has been saying for a while that our bed is cozier than his, but we mainly thought that this was a ploy for us to let him sleep with us, but he persisted and claimed to be ready for a big boy bed. We had heard such talk before only to discover that he would shy away at the last minute in favor of the little bed. This time, however, he was serious and saw it through with very little hesitation. Predictably, he woke up the first night having fallen in between the bed and the wall, but last night he stayed up the whole time.

He has been feeling his big boyness in lots of ways lately. When he first got back to school he was talking about having helped another child with something because he was a big boy. He also imagined that Connor wouldn't recognize him at school because he would be with the older kids. At the same time, however, there is clearly some ambivalence. Sarah was telling him the other day to eat so he would get big and strong and he answered that he didn't want to get big, he just wanted to stay a little boy. He likes to pretend that we are airplanes and we all fly around and we have to call him "Baby plane".

As happy as we are to see him cozily settled in a bed, which must be so much more comfortable than the floor, it is a little bittersweet for us too. This seems like one more tie to baby Jamie that has been lost. On the other hand he looks so small in that twin bed it helps us remember that he really is still a little boy.