Zoom to 16

The moment I found out I was pregnant with my first child I was very excited to fill my mind full of baby knowledge. I purchased and read all the books. Okay, obviously not ALL of them, but it felt like it. I also kept a detailed calendar notebook that I found at the bookstore and typed an online journal at least weekly. I wanted to remember all the different things that happened while I carried this little human inside. 

Around nineteen weeks pregnant, while sitting upstairs in bed reading a book from the stack, I felt the first flutters of my baby’s movement. It is hard to describe what it feels like and even harder to express the feelings that come with comprehending what is going on when it first happens. It was in THAT moment I realized what a miracle this life inside was to me. The actual feeling he was alive made things REAL really fast!

At Ben’s birth I was catapulted into a new lifestyle I was not truly prepared for. Yes we had all the STUFF we needed. Copious baby showers full of love and baby things happened before his arrival and there was no lack of items to dress him in, wrap him in or cover his bottom with. However, I was not prepared for the emotion, the demands on my time which were no longer up to me. The needs of another human being (especially a baby one) just cannot be expressed in a book. Shit got real-real. The books were mostly cast away.

But today I feel like someone hit the fast forward button and kept it depressed for 16 years. All those squeaky, chipmunk-like voices in the background as the tape plays in fast mode are me, raising him from birth to now. Today he is 16. Pieces of me dream of hitting “Rewind”, wishing I had done some things differently. However, other parts of me are amazed at him and where he is now. I do kind of wish those books would have covered the age we are at now, but I would have forgotten all that information at this point. I do wonder why we parents concentrate SO MUCH on those first years and so little on these later ones. 

Ben just wants cash for his birthday. He spends a lot of time in his room napping (way more than when he was a baby – ha!). He still hugs me, but his long, lanky body is far gone from the squishy baby who stared up at me while I fed him. His hair is epic and he looks just like one of his good friends from school. People think they are twins. In order to celebrate turning 16 during a pandemic, he asked for cookie cake, take-out Thai food and thankfully he smiles through it all. I told him we will celebrate better when we can get out again.

I love the boy who made me a mom in an indescribable way. He tested me (still does) He loved me (still does). He forgave me (still does). Most importantly, he rescued me from my selfishness.

Today we celebrate the man he is becoming (he will have his driver’s license soon enough and probably a job after that) and continue to support him and love him no matter what path he takes. No one is quite sure what that is yet and that’s okay. There are a lot of uncertain things right now.

Happy Birthday, my boy. I love you always. – Mom