Nursery

He may as well be going off to college.

My baby is no longer a baby. He turned 18 months old at the end of August, so this past Sunday, he attended nursery for the first time all by himself.

Nursery is the Sunday School class at our church that is designed for the littlest kids, aged 18 months to 3 years. It includes playtime, snack time, storytime, singing, praying, learning, and coloring. It is fabulous.

Nevertheless, I am still in shock. Nursery, I have realized, is basically the first big step on my son’s path to complete independence and adulthood. How did this happen? When did he get so old?? Why is it that one day, he’s attached to me at the hip, crying and breastfeeding and crying and pooping, and then the next day, he’s getting whisked off to nursery like an actual child-person?

Not that I’m complaining. Now that he’s attending nursery, I’m actually able to get something out of church again, besides a great view of the wall of the mother’s lounge (during the infant months) and of the carpeting in the hallways (during the toddler months). What I’ll be able to get now is something like increased knowledge and spiritual enrichment, which have been very elusive over the past 18 months (not that hallway-roaming isn’t super spiritually intense).

So, on Sunday, with tangible glee, I dropped him off in the nursery room, and instead of staying to “help him make the adjustment” like I have been doing over the past few weeks, I just chatted briefly with Summer, the nursery leader (“Do you remember his peanut allergy?”, “Do you think someone can help him drink out of his little cup?”), and then turned around and left. I was nervous and probably slightly annoying, but as I left I felt invigorated and SO ready for normal church. I went off to Sunday School, yet I fully expected Summer to appear in the doorway minutes later with my bawling, tear-streaked, red-eyed child. However, she NEVER came. Weston stayed in nursery the ENTIRE time. I was surprised and delighted.

Ironically, I was even more surprised that my eagerness to drop him off at the beginning of nursery was matched by my anticipation to see him again at the end. Tim and I arrived at almost the same time from our respective classes, and there was Weston, looking very normal (and very much like a little boy), smiling as he was swept up into Tim’s arms and as I praised the picture that he “colored” (a.k.a. scribbled in two tiny spots). I could not stop hugging him and rubbing his back. I actually missed him, in a much more profound way than I feel when, say, I go to the grocery store by myself. That was a big surprise. We’ve been apart for that amount of time many times before, but not in such a symbolic way. Even though my head was in Sunday School and Relief Society for those two hours, my heart was in nursery.

Anyway, I grilled Summer before we left, asking if Weston had acted up or gotten fussy or hit anyone or had any trouble with his snack or anything, ANYTHING. She said he was basically fine the whole time. Even though she said that, though, I couldn’t help daydreaming about how great it would be to have a secret surveillance videocamera installed in the nursery room so that I could actually see how he behaved when I wasn’t around and he had to get by on his own like a big boy. I think the fact I even considered that indicates that even though he’s capable of being away from me, I still have trouble being away from him, especially when there are lots of other kids and there is a lot going on around him (in other words, when he actually has to act like the big boy that he’s becoming, without my constant reassurance and supervision).

But, I know he’s in great hands in there. Now it’s my turn to let him go. Just think how humiliated he would be if I had to be lead to the nursery room by the Sunday School teacher because I was bawling my eyes out about missing my baby. Hopefully it won’t come to that. But I still can’t believe that I have a nursery-age child. In the meantime, while I’m trying to figure out how that happened, I’ll be opening my scriptures to Isaiah, raising my hand, and participating in a great discussion.

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P.S. Weston had his 18-month appointment on Tuesday, and here are his stats:

Length: 35 inches (97%)
Weight: 26 lbs 14 oz (50-75%)
Head: 50 cm (75-90%)

P.P.S. If you’re a hardcore Disneyland fan like us, then you may realize that Weston is now tall enough to ride the Matterhorn. Hahahaha! That would put some hair on his chest!!