My Son is Growing up, and My Husband is Growing Down

Chapter 4
Growth Spurt and Shrink Spurts

It has been three years since that day, and I have to say, I rather enjoying this. Sure, I was worried for about the first year, but as we rounded into the second year, I felt more relaxing more and more. I don’t know why, but watching as my husband, slowly grow younger is amusing.

“Mommy, what are you doing?” I heard my ten-year-old son asked in curiosity.

I looked away from my work and at my growing boy. Jimmy was still quite small for a ten-year-old, but I knew he was due for a growth spurt any time now. I giggled to myself as a thought popped into my head.

While Jimmy was undergoing growing pain, my other boy was experiencing shrinking pains. You see in these past three years, my husband had lost eight years, taking him from thirty-four to nearly twenty six. We figure that he looses about half of a year maybe ever six mouths. Then there’s another problem that added to all of this.

You see, while most boy deals with growth spurs, James has to deal with something completely different. You see, my husband had to deal with, what I called, “shrink spurts.” When one of the spurts happens, James could loose anywhere between an extra half of a year, to a year and half. He had maybe six of these spurts in the past three years, causing him to loose all of these years.

“What are you doing, mommy?” Johnny asked me again.

I just gave my son a hearty smile as I reached out and patted him on the head, causing him to blush slightly. I could only chuckled at this. My son is getting to that point where he embarrass easily, especially when he’s around a parent.

“Well dear, this is just a little project I working on,” I told him sweetly.

“Then you wouldn’t mind if I take a early peek,” a voice said lightly.

Slightly startled, I looked up to see my twenty four year old husband, staring suspicious at me. Though he slowly getting younger, my husband doesn’t look all that different. Like I said before, my husband looked young for a thirty six year old man, with just a few, almost invisible sigh of old age, creeping up on him. The only really visible difference is his muscles they’re quickly dissolving away. This is making some of his clothing look slightly baggy on him, but again this is something only someone like me would ever notice.

“So, what is this little project of your?” James asked, suspicion, mixed with curiosity.

I put on a smile that turned out more nervous then I intended to, and use my body to block my project from my husband. James got a mischievous look to his eyes and he bent forward, gently grasping me by the shoulders. He easily moved me from the project I was trying to block. When he saw the project I was doing, a look appeared in his eyes. But it wasn’t angry, like I was expecting.

“You’re really getting a kick out of this,” he said to me in a melody voice.

He then shoved his hands into his sweat pant’s pocket and just walked off. Letting out a sigh, I looked at the chart I have been creating. No, it wasn’t a chart to keep track of how much my son grows in the next few years. It was quite the opposite, really. It was a chart to keep track of how much my husband is going to shrink over the next few years.

I let out another sigh as I studied my handiwork. On top of the chart were the words in red, James’s shrink chart. Instead of years, like the growth chart I was planning on making for Johnny, this one had mouths. I really made this thing out of impulse and just for kicks. I really didn’t mean to upset him that much.

I look away from the chart and in the direction of where my husband went. I really starting to think the gravity of this haven’t really hit him yet. He wasn’t reaction like I expect him too. When something related to his situation comes up, this depressed look come across his eyes and then he would head into the basement for reason unknown. And I didn’t really help matter much with all of the things I have been doing. So I decided right then and there, that I would do something nice for my husband.

When the evening come and dinner was done, I asked my husband if he wanted to go on a little stroll. James agreed after some hesitation, and we soon find ourselves in the park, close to our house, looking at a lake, that in the daytime has duck floating in it. We use to come here, but when Johnny was born, we came less often. I felt like this was the place just to relax and forget about this mass for a while. And for a short period, it worked.

We became aware of this most disgusting odor behind us. We tried to ignore it to the best of our power, but when we heard a noise, we couldn’t ignore it anymore. So, we turned around slowly and want we both saw, disgusted us more.

A boy, no older then 18, was stumbling left and right. He held a bottle of beer, nearly empty, in his right hand. And from the look in his eyes, one could tell he was drunk, very drunk.

It greatly disturbs me when I saw an underage drinker. It makes me often wonder if one day, in the next to distant future if I would have to go through heartache, learning that my only son has became an underage drinker.

The boy spotted us, or me more specially, and I notice a lustful look appeared in his drunken glaze. He began advancing towards us and I suddenly become very afraid. James must have sense my fear before he moved in front of me, just as the drunk reached for me. He then grabbed the youth by the extended wrist and gave him a solid punch to face. The blow wasn’t strong enough to cause any major harm, but it was good enough to knock the boy out. The bottle shatter when it came in contact with the ground.

As I looked into James’s eyes, I notice a fury, burning in his onyx eyes. It had picked up on the look in the boy’s eyes just as I have, and like any good husband, he had protected me. But as I stayed into his eyes more, the fury was quickly replaced with shock, for some unknown reason. He started to shiver uncontrollable as he wrapped his arms around him and fell to his knees.

I could only gasp as I watched my husband’s cloths become slightly looser on him as his muscles dissolved more. His face also became slightly fresher, but that was something that only I would notice. After a few seconds, the shrink spurt was over and my husband had lost another year and a half. Still, he didn’t rise after it was over. So, being the loving wife I was, kneeled down and wrapped my arms around him.

Though I didn’t say it out loud, this whole experience had made me realized how much I’m going to mass having my husband around to protect me. So, we just stand like that for a little while, both just enjoying the moment, while it last.