about your birthday
Hey buddy! Today is your 11th birthday! Every year it gets harder and harder for me to believe how big you’re getting. This past year, especially, you’ve turned on to so many cool things and experiences. You’re playing a bunch of different sports, listening to all kinds of great music, getting good at chess, and developing your artistic interests by doing stuff like joining Shakespeare Club at school, which just makes my English heart go pitter-patter. Eventually, of course, you’ll probably need/want to pare down and focus your time and energy on just a few activities. But for now you have the opportunity to just basically try everything. Might as well, right? There are limitless interests to devote yourself to. You’ve really grabbed life and sucked the marrow out of it. Never, ever, ever stop doing that. (Plus, marrow is really tasty.)
I realized the past few months that I don’t chronicle your life the way I used to, and that made me a little sad because I only need to search through my archives to find the details of most of your first decade. The minutiae that you will never remember were all historic events for me and I can recall them with ease. But your life is just that now…yours. You move through days and nights independently and my role is basically tech support (though the absolute most enthusiastic tech support ever). Seeing you become an aware citizen of the world is just the coolest thing to witness and I want to tell everyone about it all the time because you blow my mind constantly. But my time as author of your tale has mostly ended and you get to pick up at the ellipsis that I left for you.
I don’t think you’ll ever get me to completely stop writing about you, though, since you are the gift to poets and warriors and songwriters and astronauts and anyone else who gets a glimpse of the beyond.
When I first started writing about us, we looked like this:
And now you look like this:
And I look like this:
And “us” is now “You. And me.” And it’s awesome.
The other night, I had had a bad day and told you that I might need some hugs because daddy had to go play a gig. After I declared it boob tube night and we ate our dinner while watching some cartoons, you popped up off of the couch and cleared our dishes way. You then returned with two cups of eggnog and put National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on. You might not remember that night when you get older and I might forget some of it too until I happily stumble upon this old post. But kiddo that was one of the best nights ever and I felt so much better.
Happy Birthday.
December 6th, 2012 at 11:25 am
Ok, the eggnog part totally made me cry at my desk!
Happy Birthday, dude! And happy birth day to you, of course, mama!
December 6th, 2012 at 11:46 am
Beautiful! I cried the entire time I was reading (bet you cried while writing). Happy birthday Kingston!