Not a baby anymore

There are times in your life when you know things have changed forever. I had one of those moments this past week with my youngest son Tommy.

Tommy is 5 and a half and is sweet and quiet and about the most well-behaved kid on the planet. He's not easily frustrated, calm and almost always is smiling. I am lucky to have been able to stay home with him his entire life until he started preschool this fall.

About 3 or 4 weeks ago, he came running into the living room as excited as he's ever been. "Mom!! I have a loose tooth!"
I wiggled that top tooth and sure enough it was loose. Every day we felt the tooth, wiggled it, tugged on it, just waiting for the big moment.
A few weeks later, Tommy came out of his bedroom, very calm and quiet and said his tooth was bleeding. Boy was it ever bleeding!!! I tried to get that dang tooth out with no luck....all the while Tommy is just sitting there while I push, pull, twist and literally try and yank that sucker out!
He went to bed that night, still having all his baby teeth.
Next morning....."MOM!!!!! I lost my tooth but I can't find it!!!"
My fear that he would go to bed and swallow the tooth had come true. I told Tommy he may have swallowed it....but it's okay, the tooth fairy will still come.
He did not like that so he and Abby went on a tooth hunt. After a few minutes of searching Abby screamed...."I found the tooth!!!" We were jumping up and down and screaming! It was a great way to start the day.

BUT....as I looked at my little Bubba (our pet name for Tommy) I realized that from the time he went to bed until that morning he had changed. That one little tooth was gone, but it made a huge difference in the way he looked. He didn't look like my little boy anymore, he looked like a big boy. That one missing tooth meant my baby was growing up and boy did that make me sad!
I know that our kids grow up and move on and that is the natural progression of life, but this was the last first tooth we'd ever lose in our house.

It really made me stop and think how I need to make the most of the time I have with my kids. Sometimes I need to turn off the TV, put down the book (although those Twilight books are really hard to put down), get off the phone, leave the dishes and just be with my kids. I know they will remember playing games and cuddling on the couch more than many things in life.
I hope you can take some time to see the beauty of your own family; to look for God in each one of them. We are all special in God's eyes and don't we want our families to think they are special to us?