A Stage 5 Clinger

“Hugs can do great amounts of good – especially for children.”

– Princess Diana

I think my youngest can officially be labeled as a Stage 5 Clinger. As I am typing this he is sitting next to me on the couch all the while hugging my left arm like a koala. If I leave the room for more than 15-20 seconds without first telling him where I am going and when I shall return, he will immediately stop what he is doing and come to find me. He yells for me if he doesn’t find me in the first room he enters. When we are out of the house he will play and go off on his own with only an occasional hug or quick snuggle thrown in for good measure. But when we are at home – he is glued to my side.

He has never been a great sleeper, and to this day he still wakes most nights and needs someone to come and crawl into his bed so he has someone to kick for the rest of the night. When we moved from Kansas to Virginia we switched him out of a toddler bed and into a full sized, knowing full well that one of us would be sleeping in his bed for a while. There will be nights when he doesn’t wake up and call out for me, and the next morning we try to figure out what magical combination of night lights, stuffed animals, bath/no bath, long sleeve pajamas or short sleeve we used and if we can recreate it. Our oldest started sleeping through the night by six or seven months old and has always been a rock-star sleeper. It was only fitting that the next kid would be terrible. When the boys spent a week with my parents in Tennessee I was worried no one would get any sleep, but my mom solved the problem by having them both sleep in the same bed. It worked like a charm to get them both to sleep, but as soon as the first rays of light crept into the room the oldest was awake and ready to start the day, waking his younger brother so they could go and play.

During the day my little clinger is hugging my legs, climbing on my lap, or asking for snuggles. I imagine it is similar to having a shadow that is a solid being. If I turn around too quickly I will trip over him and if I stop walking he bounces off my legs with a “Oof! Sorry, mama!” The hour after big brother comes home from school is the golden hour of having some space to myself. Assuming they are playing nicely and I don’t have to go up to the playroom to settle any disagreements or stop squabbling. For that one blissful hour he forgets to follow me around and is happily distracted playing with his favorite person. As soon as the novelty has worn off and I have started to prep for dinner, or we are getting ready to head to karate its back to koala babying. I have cooked many a meal with him on my back in the carrier.

If I momentarily forget and make the mistake of sitting on the floor he is immediately on my lap or climbing on my back. “Mom, I love you,” he whispers in my ear as he hangs from my neck. At night when I’m trying to carve out enough space in his bed to sleep I can feel his feet jammed into the small of my back, his toes moving like he’s trying to knead me like a cat would. I once described sharing a bed with him as trying to sleep with an octopus attached to your back. On nights when he is especially clingy or feeling under the weather he will wrap his arms around my neck and pull his face as close to mine as is humanly possible. My immune system must be supernatural.

Some days I feel I have gotten absolutely nothing done because I can’t seem to pry him away from my side long enough to walk across the room. Then I look down at his sweet chubby toddler face and remember when my oldest was cuddly and always wanted to be near me. These days I have to remind him that I would like a hug before he gets on the bus for school. He will occasionally seek out some extra snuggles, but nothing like when he was younger. I know that in too short a time this phase will be over and I will be longing for those unprompted hugs and sweet requests to come and snuggle. And so I try to take a deep breath and enjoy the Stage 5 Clinger phase instead of screaming “Stop touching me!”.