Growing up.

There are days when I feel like no one else can possibly understand the amount of effort raising two children takes. And I know, in the rational part of my brain, that people do know- because, after all, they likely have raised a child or two or three themselves.

Sometimes it is all consuming though. The negotiations over what the three year old will or will not eat for dinner; the 16 month old who awakens, screaming, in the night for 3 hours for no apparent reason... it's all a bit much at times.

And then there are days like today. When Jack, who will be four years old in January, tells me that he can't go to sleep without Mooey. Initially, this seems like a typical stalling tactic to delay going to bed. But then I realize, Jack is growing up.

Let me offer some context.

I have been trying to get Jack to attach himself to a "cuddle toy" from the day we brought him home from the hospital. I had this image of a little boy sleeping, curled up with a stuffed animal that was indespensible to him. When I was pregnant with Jack, I knit him a stuffed penguin that I brought to the hospital in my labour and delivery bag, with this idea that he would somehow bond with it and cling to it throughout his developing years, knowing, subliminally, that his mom loves him.

Not my kid.

Jack has never, ever, wanted a cuddle toy in his bed. I eventually gave up on the penguin (who, incidentally, I had named "Bob") and offered a puppy, a turtle, a strange luminescent bug puppet, all of which have since been shelved.

Fast-forward to tonight. Both kids in bed, Ben on a bit of a field trip to Home Depot, and Jack calls out from upstairs: "MO-OOOOOOM! Where's Mooey?"

Mooey is a cow. More importantly, Mooey is a cow that Jack made at one of those "Build-A-Bear" workshops that his daycare teacher took him to. Since bringing him into existance, Jack has kept close tabs on Mooey at all times. He brings him to daycare, props him up on the table during breakfast, positions him on the bathroom counter while taking a bath- you get the idea. They're tight.

Jack's close relationship with Mooey has given me pause. Why has he taken to this stuffed animal, who really, isn't anything special to look at, when he has had a plethora of other cuddly toys that have been at his beck and call since time, as far as he's concerned, began?

Because he made him. He decided to choose a cow at that build-a-bear workshop, decided how much fill to put in his little velcro-sealed body, and then named him himself. Mooey is, essentially, created entirely by Jack.

He is an amazing little creature, this fellow Jack. He wants to conquer the world and is frustrated when he can't. He butts heads with me in ways that make me cringe and smile at the same time, because I recognize myself in him and I know that he wants to do it all, and he wants to do it right now.

I can't wait to see who he becomes.