29 Gifts: Day 8 - Happy Birthday Oldest!

I'll recap my gifts of these past few days. Right now, something important has come up in the middle of my journey. Not a surprise, it happens every year, but important is important, and this is Important.

Ladies and Gentlemen: I give you my Oldest - Maestro - as an emerging TEEN. This child is my first gift to the world as a "Mom." He is special. Don't break him. He is wonderful. Help him stay that way. He is unique. And I am in awe of him as he grows into a young man who is now big enough to almost fill Pop's shoes (he is in a bigger shoe size than dear Mom now, poor soul!)

2012 - playing around in the garage in VA. Love that we can still laugh this way.

When he was born, we had to find "preemie" clothes for him to wear for a week or two, he was "on time" but just so tiny. Now, he can wear some of his pop's old pants (glad I saved them!) and shirts. He can help keep the house going when I am not at hand. And yet... he can laugh with his friends and play tag with his brothers and sister, and handle her sometimes-screaming fits with aplomb.

I am not an easily moved, emotional sort, but thinking about all that my boy is, watching him grow and change and live and learn and leave me behind, step by step and day by day, as a boy-turning-man should leave his Mama... I am moved. I am awed. I am, above all, grateful that he still includes me in his life; that his Pop is still one of the primary people he turns to when troubled. That he still considers our counsel wise.

He plays piano, sings, plays guitar and most things musical; he works on magic; builds businesses; discusses the meaning of life and song lyrics. He is discerning, he is a "good egg." He is an inspiration. He is a mentor (so the other moms at the playground and in the neighborhood have told me that their children look up to him and the moms are glad their children have a "good boy" to look up to - and I agree!)

I am proud of him. Can you tell? And since I've already written so much about it on HIS blog (I hijacked it for tonight), I will stop here and send you there to read my note to him, if you'd like. Take care of him, World. He is going to do great things, help him to grow and he will pay that back in many unseen ways. He's worth it.

(Isn't that what all moms say? Or should say, at least? And isn't it always the truth? Take care of my child. Love him. Nurture her. Don't break them. They are special.) 

Fly, my child. 

Soar like the jets we watch every day, like the birds we see playing on the updrafts out in the woods. 

Show us your wings! 

(and then remember where "home" is - it is not time to leave the nest entirely yet.)