My Boy Child Turns Twelve Today

Today. My boy is twelve. How can I have been a mom for twelve years? That’s more than a decade, people!

I’m not quite sure how this time has flown by….but it has. In the blink of an eye. And it simultaneously makes me want me to squeeze him tight and tell him he’s not allowed to grow up any more. Because he is this funny soul who LOVES sports. And he LOVES to be creative and draw and write and melt glass to make beads and design athletic shoes and watch cooking shows. And play sports.

In so many ways, he is his Dad. He loves to be on the tennis court, or swing a baseball bat, or catch a football. Or watch sports. Especially football (I don’t get this. At all). And yet, he is me, too. He loves to implement new ideas for drawings, reads non-stop and he sheds tears if he thinks he has physically or emotionally hurt another soul. He asks to watch cooking shows (because he knows that the answer is “No” to anything else electronic on school days) while folding laundry and wants to make his own unique dishes for meals.
I see photographs of him in the first week we brought him home from the hospital and am pulled back to those days. His Dad carried him around on a pillow because that felt like a safety net. Or when he was just barely two and already out of diapers, running around the house half dressed when his sister arrived. That sweet boy has become kinder and more thoughtful over the years. He has a sense of humor that catches me by surprise. Along with the twinkle of mischief in his eyes, which I also recognize from his Dad. And makes me smile.
I wonder who he will become. What he will do with his life. And while wanting to hang onto this sweet boy of mine from years past, I am looking forward to watching him grow.
Happy twelfth birthday, my boy. I hope you meet the challenges that come your way with patience and kindness.