Where Is the Green Sheep?

“Mama,” a tiny, hoarse voice calls through the monitor. In less than a minute, Loren is sitting up in bed, opening his door, and standing at the top of the stairs. I throw off my comforter, climb the stairs, and hold out my hand just as Loren reaches for it. This is a wordless exchange, one that we both know well. I slip into bed with my 4-year-old, throw my arm around his waist, and draw him closer. I stay there, comforting him until the rise and fall of his soft belly is slower, calmer, steady. Some nights I wait until he is fast asleep before leaving and returning to my own bed, but not tonight. Tonight, like many other nights, I stay with him.

I’m always more sentimental and reflective around the new year, always looking forward to beginning anew, obtaining a clean slate, an excuse to forget my f*ck ups and start fresh. As the new year approaches, I’m also prone to drastic simplification and deep cleaning. Last week, I cleaned the grout in the entryway with a toothbrush and a homemade DIY paste of baking soda and peroxide. Today I tackled Kai’s closet, moving out his 3T clothes and swapping them for 4’s, and gathering the crib sheets and changing table covers in a brown paper bag, all with the intention of giving them away. Last week, I rampaged the board books.

I pulled out a few favorites that we haven’t touched in a while, “Where Is the Green Sheep?” by Mem Fox and Judy Horacek and “Little Truck” by Taro Gomi.

“Kai, do you want to read this book with me one more time?” The words “one more time” feel like a gut punch as soon as they leave my mouth. I’m up here rummaging through the books with the intention of simplifying them. Kai is almost three, Loren halfway to 5. I know I can’t hold on to these books forever, and yet, I’m not quite ready to part with them or any of the stuff I’ve been packing up to give away.

Kai says yes, and instinctively backs his way on to my lap—one of my favorite things he does. We read together in the reading nook upstairs, snuggled into the plush ivory carpet, and when we finish, he asks to read the pair of books over and over, just like he did when he was younger.

“Here is the near sheep, and here is the far sheep,” I read. “Here is the moon sheep, and here is the star sheep.” Kai cuddles in closer. “But where,” I say, “is the green sheep?”

My husband’s recent vasectomy has undoubtedly incited the latest purge—a definitive declaration that we are officially done having kids, a grieving for the stages I’ll never get back, one final surge of baby fever. The end of an era.

Tonight, as I lay beside my son in his big boy bed, I allow myself to feel sadness and, simultaneously, gratitude. I am exceptionally cognizant that life—parenting—is nothing more than a series of moments we have and then don’t have. I know there will come a day when my sons no longer want me to sleep beside them, and that one of these precious nights will be our last night.

I think of the green sheep, eventually appearing on the final page of the book, laying peacefully beneath a green tree, fast asleep on the green grass—an object that would undoubtedly be easy to miss if we hadn’t been searching for it the entire time. I think of Little Truck, fast asleep in the back of Big Truck’s bed, tuckered out from the day’s adventures. I think of the moments I’ve had with my boys, and the moments I no longer have. Tonight, I am holding my “green sheep,” my fast asleep sweetheart. Tonight, I am Big Truck, ensuring Little Truck journeys through another peaceful night. Tonight, I am here, in this one single moment, savoring it like it could be my last.