For as much as I have really looked forward to the end of first grade for Logan, I find myself with just a little bit of heavy-heartedness this week over the simple fact that my guy is yet entering another, higher grade. How did I get here? I will have a second-grader one week from today. So, with my heart weighing a little more, just a little, these days, so has my level of emotion and nostalgia gone up a notch or seven.

When I was at the playground with Eli before picking Logan up from school yesterday, I caught this photo of my littlest guy. And, while admiring the sweetness of his young self, I was also reminded of my big guy very much because when he was around the age that Eli is now (3), Logan and I used to come to this very same playground and play Sleeping Beauty. Not that he knew the story at all, but in his preschool, he always played  the game of prince and princess with the other little girls, so, as it was just he and his mom, I was the princess and he the prince, by default.

So, this tower here, where Eli stands, was the tower where Logan and I once played. I would lay up on top there, pretending I was asleep, and Logan would come up and bravely plant a kiss on my cheek to “wake” me up! It was so sweet.

These days, when Eli and I play, it is equally as enjoyable, but the sweet factor is just a little different. Because Eli is the younger sibling of a big brother who is already into fighting off aliens and bad robots, Eli sort of missed the tender stage of calm, rescuing the princess, kind of scenarios. This is ok. I can roll with the punches. Instead of me laying up in the tower to be gently awakened by Prince Eli, I am armed with an (imaginary) turbo blaster and I run fearlessly from play structure to play structure either helping Eli defeat the bad guy, or, avoiding blasts directed at me because, evidently, I have been dubbed the bad guy.

Alas, this is the life of a mom of boys. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. So during our play time yesterday, if at all I began to drift of into the recesses of my fond memories…I was forced right back to the present by an energetic 3-year-old telling me to “Run!Run! Blast!” or (my personal favorite if we are using light sabers), “Chang Chang!“