wanted_muffins ovenbird The opposite of unwanted_muffins. These are muffins fourteen years in the making. These are muffins that have been subject to a complex gestation in which I steered a human from infancy to the precipice of adulthood. Superficially they are a basic muffin—flour and egg and sugar, with a strawberry jam filling and a sprinkle of cinnamon. But it’s the HOW of their existence that has me looking back on a decade and a half of parenting. My son woke up this morning and wanted to make muffins for the family for breakfast. He had a recipe from his school cooking class. I helped him assemble the ingredients and he did the rest himself. I sat at the dining room table drinking tea while he measured and stirred and double checked. He didn’t want help and it was hard to refrain from offering it. An hour later he was proudly serving muffins to me and his sister. And they were GOOD. They were truly delicious. And he was so pleased with his efforts. He set two aside to bring to his grandparents and I couldn’t believe it. This moment felt impossible for so long. When he was small I couldn’t see past the trauma of early parenting to a future where my child might bake me strawberry muffins for breakfast. But here we are. There are already so many ways in which he no longer needs me. It’s both a tragedy and a huge relief. Need changes to something else, something more subtle. The simple intensity of need becomes the complex framework of relationship. We are becoming something new to each other. I helped him clean the kitchen. Everything smelled like warm vanilla. I took a picture. I will probably forget this moment because it was so small in the scheme of things. So I give it words. I give it space. I give it a place to live. I want to remember what it was like to begin the slow dance of letting him go. 260411 what's it to you? who go blather from