I’m here tonight to accept my award for Best Slacker in a Blogging Role. I’d like to start by thanking space and time for conspiring against me to write at even minimal intervals at this point. It really takes special forces to make me stop doing one of the few things I’m okay-ish at. I’d also like to give a shout out to laziness, daily chaos and the black hole of laundry for allowing me to achieve this distinction. Really, I couldn’t have done it without you. Also, huge thanks to my short-term memory for briefly forgetting my own blog’s password; without you and your sidekicks, anxiety and panic, this truly wouldn’t be possible.
Who am I wearing? Oh, my leggings are by Gap, circa 2015.
Now that we’ve dispensed of the formalities, let’s discuss what finally brought me back here. My oldest child went ahead and turned eleven on me today. Eleven.
It’s only appropriate that, as I spend the day reflecting back on his birth, I am bombarded with media images of Duchess Kate presenting her newest addition to the world. The similarities between us, after all, are striking — the class, confidence, fashion, fresh hair and make up upon exiting the hospital. If. Only. I’ll refrain from adding yet another meme on this subject to the Internet, but I’ll just say that my seven-hours-post-partum style could be best described as Don’t Tell Me How Many Stitches I Have meets I Plan to Shower Sometime Before This Child’s First Birthday.
But somehow I pulled it all together, eventually, and raised a small human. The first time I wrote a birthday entry here for him was when he turned four, in my early blogging days. I made him a stegosaurus cake that resembled an armadillo doubling as a cautionary tale for diabetes. He schooled me on its anatomical inaccuracies, rocked his pre-school party and handed out Thomas-themed favors. It was the best I could do — I hadn’t yet been ruined by the domestic pressure cooker and fault-identifier known as Pinterest. Those were simpler baking and party planning times.
Fast forward seven years. This weekend, I’m taking a group of boys to see the new Avengers movie and then to grab some food, which I expect they’ll consume in metric tons while telling fart jokes and comparing YouTubers. Happily, Pinterest has no place in the life of an eleven year-old boy’s party.
And these boys — his closest friends over the last few years — will finish elementary school with him in June.
I was in pretty firm denial about this, until I sat through parent orientation for middle school one night last week. It was all very informative and well-presented, even in the mystifying absence of paper bags for hyperventilation. I mean, middle school? What fresh hell is this going to bring? (Working on my optimism).
It’s hard to believe that this child will leave behind the place where he has attended school since 2013. Hard for me, anyway. I can admit that familiarity is my jam, and that I’m not remotely great when it comes to accepting major changes. Instead, I totally excel at worrying disproportionately about things over which I have no control, so fearing this whole upcoming transition is firmly in my wheelhouse. I’ve been training for years to do this.
It will be fiiiiiiiiiine. This is my mantra.
(It’s the only one I’ve got and so I’m sticking with it.)
I should note here that my son is completely and authentically non-mantra fine with all of it. Mostly because he knows there will be an actual cafeteria in middle school (see ya, packed lunches). And because he has grown tired of the non-fiction section of his current school library.
Yes, my Historian in Residence is still at it. While WWII remains his favorite period, there has been some broad diversification lately. What would breakfast be without a tutorial on the Roman Empire’s testudo battle formation? And a simple Spring Break meal in EPCOT’s Mexico pavilion wouldn’t be complete without shaming one’s parents for not knowing the difference between and Aztec and Mayan temple.
{Mr. Ruyzam, I know you never thought I’d say this, but I’m so deeply sorry for not paying attention in AP History in 1988. I can see now that I was wrong and that maybe truancy should not have, in fact, served as my greatest achievement of junior year. Had I known I would raise a budding historian and spend time researching which battle re-enactments we can attend this summer, I would have worked harder. A little. Ok, I probably would’ve at least attended class.}
Where books and facts are my son’s everything, he is navigating a world in which sports reign supreme as the social currency of boys his age. While his peers play in about 3,384 travel leagues, he’s happy wielding a sabre at fencing lessons or playing his tuba (although it nearly outweighs him — perhaps a more athletic pursuit than we all realized). He wants to talk about the news and understand the world around him. His imagination is vast, and his curiosity deep. What opportunities all of these traits will present to him remains to be seen, but he has confidence in what he knows and what holds his interest — which is more than I could say about myself at his age.
As with everything, he will be the first of my kids to show me what this next stage of parenting entails. We’ll cut our teeth on it together and he will both benefit and suffer from my inevitable mistakes, some of which I’m sure will be the butt of ongoing jokes for years of family dinners to come. It will be his journey and his experiences that shape what comes next. Even though he is becoming more independent in so many ways, he is still young enough to need us in a million more.
When he was born, I set up an email address for him in his name (I did the same for all three kids — and none of them know about it yet). A few times a year, I forward family photos with notes from me. And I always send an electronic copy of the newspaper on his birthday. It felt like this curated time capsule for the last decade, and soon I have to think about handing it over to him. It always seemed so far away to think it would be his to open, use and shape with his own notes and interests and contacts and identity, but like everything when it comes to our kids — it snuck right up on me.
And so, eleven is here. For him, eleven is more sneakers than fashion. More indoors than outdoors. More funny than exasperated. More evening than morning. More questions than answers.
And equal amounts of push and pull. As it should be.
This child is unique and compassionate. Strong willed and confident. A puzzle and a delight. And a distinct privilege to call mine and to show me the way. As always, he teaches me more than he can possibly imagine.
Happy birthday to my sweet, sweet boy.
Love that boy and great to see you writing again. I’ve missed it and I’m sure I’m not alone.