“Oomph”

That’s the sound I now make as I hoist my youngest to my hip.  The realization that there is an expiry to perching him upon my hip hits hard today. 

The youngest of four, the baby, grows before my eyes.  Each first for him, a last for me.  With each stage I feel both elation and grief – happy for the freedoms it provides but begging time to slow, ever so slightly, allowing me enough time to process and marvel at my baby, now a child. 

I know it’ll be replaced by new, wonderful milestones but tonight I grieve the ease with which I used to pick him up, showing him what I’m cooking or carrying him up to bed, kissing his soft baby cheeks until he tells me to stop.

I will continue, as all mothers before me have done, to bend from the knees, hands tucked under his armpits, “oomph” escaping my mouth, to hoist my baby to my hip until I can no longer.  

Today I feel it all; time ticking, my heart aching, and my hip burning.