With Apologies for the Schmaltz:

My baby,

eight pounds, twenty-two inches,

born three weeks late.

Walked early – eleven months.

Talked early, and often,

the way they vote in Chicago.

By two years he was enamored

with dinosaurs.

By three he knew them all;

not just the easy ones,

T-rex and triceratops,

but pachycephalosaurus, deinonychus, compsognathus.

It was a pure, beautiful obsession.

Each day we would read

Where the Wild Things Are,

There’s a Nightmare in My Closet,

Then the Troll Heard the Squeak

and Babar;

Mr. Rogers would visit us;

we would go on walks with Maggie,

our best friend

who happened to be a Black Lab.

He was Super Dupe at two

and Bat Man at four

still lovin’ the dinos.

And when he was

five years, eight months and fifteen days

he lost his first baby tooth.

And with that tooth

a shiny, little piece

of my world

fell away.

And I cried.

He was no longer

my baby.

For Stuart McPherson's "Growing Up" prompt at dVerse with apologies for the schmaltz...but it's about my kid, I can't help it.