I think eight-year-old Michael is about to turn into a real “tween,” and I think maybe he knows it, too, or at least intuits how fast he’s moving away from me.

He’s been, well, tweeny. Selectively deaf, contrary, dismissive. Preoccupied with XBox “Rocket League,” senseless screamy YouTube videos, and terrible, terrible music (I’m told it’s by Neffex, and that it is in fact more than one song. I call shenanigans on the latter point). And refusing to bathe or seek out clean laundry. Hard times are coming.

Tonight Dave and I heaved him into the shower and held the door closed until we figured most of the crust had sloughed off. He emerged into his bedroom extremely nekkid and visibly damp and whined, “I don’t know how to dry myself! Please help meee!” I told him he was not a baby and went back to my crossword. He moaned and begged for my expert assistance, dripping into the carpet.

Finally I said, “Okay, but if you’re going to be a baby, you’ll have to do what I say.” I was taken aback when he happily agreed and popped up from the floor to get a towel. For several months, he’s strictly avoided anything I request. I mean, like, anything I say. At all. If I asked the child to inhale, he’d turn blue and keel over to spite me.

So I was suspicious. But Michael let me dry him, rub lotion on his arms (which he’s steadfastly refused to do because I asked him to), comb his overgrown blond mop, and brush his teeth (which I’ve begged him to let me do because he does a crappy job and his teeth are about the consistency of firm-ish latte foam to begin with).

Expecting that this would end the game, I announced that I would select his pajamas for him. I figured that would be a hard pass. For reasons best known to himself, he’s spent the last few months of chilly nights, and most weekend days, in nothing but boxer shorts. He refuses extra blankets. I keep the house cold at night. And in the morning, there he is playing XBox in his skivvies, all bare legs and chest and tweeny nonchalance.

But oh, dear reader, how I miss little-boy pajamas. The friendly frogs, the bears, the dinosaurs, the raccoons! The plastic zippers that must be kept away from tiny penises, the contrasting-color cuffs and collars, the snuggly jersey, the fleece! The motorcycles, the stripes, the monkeys on surfboards… Oh, I could just weep. He’s always been very tall for his age, so he outgrew the cute stuff long before I was ready. Finally I settled for buying monochrome long-underwear sets and t-shirts, but now in his polar-bear phase he’s rejected even those.

Until tonight. I don’t know why. I chose plain white waffle-knit pants and a short-sleeve royal-blue t-shirt. It’s too cold for short sleeves, but considering he’s used to so much less, I tried to meet him halfway. He sat on the end of his bed and I knelt on the floor, working his big ol’ feet through the cuffs as I’d done hundreds of times before, but so long ago I couldn’t remember the last time. And I thought, It may be the last time.

There is something archetypal about the image of a woman tenderly bent over the feet of a beloved young man. It’s Mary Magdalene wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair; it’s Odysseus’ old nurse gasping as she recognizes the old scar on his leg; it’s the mama who loves Paul Simon “like a rock,” who “get down on her knees and hug” him. And it’s me with my tall gorgeous blue-eyed son, his enormous feet emerging like unwieldy miracles from the legs of his thermal bottoms.

As Michael got into bed, I decided to push my luck. “Do you want me to sing to you, too? We always did that when you were a baby.” This is true, but it’s also true that when he was three or four years old, he forcefully requested that I stop singing. Please. Since I’m not good enough for karaoke, this development was deeply disappointing, effectively ending my “career” in “singing.” At the time, I put it down to the emergence of some actual taste in music. But now we have the Neffex situation, so I don’t know about that.

“Yes, sing,” he said now. “No. I don’t know.” So we just read our usual chapter of Perseus Jackson and turned out the light. I lay beside him awhile. I asked him again when he was almost asleep, and he said yes.

I sang “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” very softly. Just the first verse. I used to do the extended dance mix, but I didn’t want to overstay my welcome, so to speak. And then he really surprised me and said drowsily, “Now ‘Rockabye, Baby.'” And that was indeed the next song in our traditional sequence, all those years ago. I sang that, too.

I wanted to finish with “Sweet Baby James” the way we used to, but he was already asleep and I did not presume. I lay awhile in the dark, thinking, “Maybe you can believe it, if it helps you to sleep. / Singing works just fine for me…”

When I thought he was soundly sleeping, I got up to leave. He immediately asked where I was going. This happens sometimes; generally I just make up some nonsense and go, since he’s not really awake anyhow and he’ll be snoring again before I reach the door. “I have to ask about something,” I offered lamely. He said that was okay, but then I said, “But it can wait. I’ll just stay. It can wait.”