My back has ached from holding him through colic, through the aftermaths of nightmares, through seasonal colds and bouts of rotavirus. All the while, I have longed for seclusion, quiet, and late-morning sleep. But mostly I have craved the re-mapping of my own physical boundaries—a clear division between him and me.

"He falls into the world with an enormous splash, and I am free."

I’ve dreamed of him breaking from me like an ice shelf shearing from its glacial host. While he falls into the world with an enormous splash, I, the huge mother glacier, though jagged and wrecked, am suddenly lighter, autonomous—free.

Through the years, I have prayed to get there—to some other time and place where I imagine everyone sits around drinking mimosas while their kids are off to college.

But now William is six, and the clock is finally picking up. I can feel him leaving us in small ways—when he’s alone in his room, when he bolts out the front door. I want that, of course. Every mother worth her salt wants that. And yet, when it starts to happen, we wonder why in the world we wanted it so fast.

This morning William was sitting on the playroom floor, staring at ESPN and eating his waffles. I was a few feet away, begging shamelessly for a kiss.

“Please,” I whined, like a jilted girlfriend who doesn’t get that the guy is just not that into her.

"I can feel
him leaving
us in small
ways."

Finally, as if in pity, he scooted close and rested his hand on my knee. I froze, as if any slight movement might cause him to lurch away.

“I’m glad you were born,” I said.

But he didn’t say a word.

Katherine Ozment is a Glam Family contributing editor and a freelance writer working on her first book. Her essays about motherhood have been widely published and can be found at www.katherineozment.com. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and two kids.