Hello again, Christopher Robin

Childhood is a short season. ~Helen Hayes

I have my last child going through the Christopher Robin phase.

The Christopher Robin phase, to me, is the time when my children lose the baby chunk and when shorts start landing above the knee instead of mid-calf. The little legs look skinny for the first time since the newborn age. The child runs around independently on skinny little legs with knobby knees. Add in a pair of white socks with brown shoes and a pair of blue shorts and all I can think of is Christopher Robin from the Winne-the-Pooh books. Switch it over to yellow rain boots and dark blue shorts, and it makes me want to buy the toddler a vintage floppy rain hat and black umbrella.

The realization that this is my last child going through this stage fills me with more sorrow than the final days of nursing, giving away the diapers or the packing away of the baby clothes. I wonder why that is?

Maybe it is because I see this coming down the pipeline:

Christopher Robin: But what I like most of all is just doing nothing.
Winnie the Pooh: How do you do just nothing?
Christopher Robin: Well, when grown-ups ask, "What are you going to do?" and you say, "Nothing," and then you go and do it.
Winnie the Pooh: I like that. Let's do it all the time.
Christopher Robin: You know something, Pooh? I'm not going to do just nothing anymore.
Winnie the Pooh: You mean, never again?
Christopher Robin: Well, not so much.