The other day, my darling son, who's always been off the charts for his height, said to me in complete seriousness, "I guess I'll be able to get my driver's license in a couple of years." I was taken sort of aback, but really wanted to hear the logic behind this thought. There's always logic where R is concerned, even if it's sort of twisted around a bit. So I asked, "Why do you say that?" So he gave his very simple, logical answer. "Well, I'm so tall for my age, how are they going to know I'm not old enough? They'll never know the difference." He was disappointed to hear that you actually have to show proof of age (17 here) in order to obtain said driver's license. He really truly believed that he'd be able to get it sooner simply because he's tall. But I guess I understand where it came from. His whole life, people have always assumed R is older than he is, which can at times cause some amount of trouble. I mean, the fact is, you can't expect a child to be able to behave the way an older child would, even though his height makes him appear to be older. But since it seems people have always mistaken him to be older, I guess he wanted to use it to his advantage. Smart kid, he just wasn't counting on the proof of age requirement.
I don't really know who said it was alright for time to go by so quickly, but my darling boy is about to celebrate his tenth birthday. We're taking a long weekend up at the camper to celebrate, he decided to skip the whole big party thing this year and just let us give him the money we would've spent on the party. Again, smart kid, right? But honestly, I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around this whole "ten" thing. I think it's been harder for me to take than any of my own birthdays have been (and I'm now officially waaay past the age I once considered old).
Anyway, I've told you all about my campin man, G, and about Princess K, and since his birthday was coming up, I saved telling you about R till now. He's a great kid. Being his mom has always been a bit of an adventure. I remember once when we went to visit the mausoleum where my grandmother is interred. My sister-in-law, Patty, and my mom's boyfriend, Ed, took R for a walk so my mom and brother and I could have a minute alone there (it was our first visit after the funeral). Anyway, as we'd walked into the building, I noticed that one of the floor level crypts was open, and the chapel had been prepared for a funeral service. Anyway, Patty and Ed came back with R after a few minutes and had these really funny looks on their faces. Used to the way things worked with my boy, even then (he was about sixteen months old at that point) I asked "What happened?" Patty wouldn't tell me. She just said "Kim, you really don't want to know." That was all she needed to say, because I know my boy, and I guessed. "He climbed into that open crypt back there didn't he!" Well, yeah, he did. Like I said, it's always an adventure.
When I was pregnant with Princess K, I had some serious blood pressure issues and was put on bedrest. After a while, my blood pressure had stabilized enough so that the doctor lifted the strict bedrest order and said I could be up and about for short periods as long as I was careful not to overdo it and stress myself out. I was so incredibly bored by then, and also fretting about not having bought anything for the new baby yet, so one day I picked R up from school (he was in Kindergarten) and went to Walmart. I was looking at the baby clothes and he wanted to look at some kid's sunglasses on display on the other side of the aisle. I told him to go ahead, but to stay there or come right back to me. In other words, I told him not to wander off. Well, guess what he did. So I'm looking at the baby stuff and I look up and he's not there, and he's not next to me either and I looked up and down the aisle and he wasn't in either direction. So I started calling him and walking toward customer service. I saw a girl who worked there and asked if she'd seen him and she took me to customer service. I have to say, you can say what you want about Walmart's customer service and all that, but in this instance they were great. She took me strait to the counter (no line waiting) and told the one in charge there what was going on. Within a minute, they had the store in lockdown. If someone had taken my boy they weren't going to get out of the store with him. Additionally, they had every employee who wasn't currently busy on the registers search for him. They found him, within six minutes he was back in my arms. It seems something in the display next to the sunglasses caught his eye, then something in the one next to that and the one next to that and soon, without realizing he was doing it, he'd wandered away. I walked in the opposite direction that he'd gone, which is why I didn't find him myself. Anyway, they found him in the bike department, trying to pull down a bike off the display. He'd realized he was separated from me and thought he'd find me faster riding a bike. (I told you he is a logical thinker!) I asked him why he didn't go straight to one of the people who work there, as I'd coached him to do about a thousand times and he stuck to his point that he found this bike and thought he'd find me faster that way. I personally think he just wanted an excuse to ride the bike. Anyway, thank God it ended well, but so much for staying stress free. After that ordeal, I happily went back to my bedrest till K was born.
That wasn't the first time I lost him, though. When he was two and a half he got out of the house alone (G thought I had him and I thought G had him and he went out the front door unnoticed by either of us). G found him as I was on the phone with the 911 operator describing him and what he was wearing. He "decided to take a little walk around the block" and was jumping in puddles. He observed the rules, he didn't cross the street or anything, he just walked around the block. Of course, we'd never told him not to leave the house by himself, so as far as he knew, he wasn't doing anything wrong. I mean really, who thinks their two year old is going to even have a chance to leave the house alone, and we were always on top of him. That one was as much our fault as it was his, but like I said, it's an adventure.
Since those days when he was little, so much time has past, but he's still the same great kid. When he was little he was a Thomas the Tank Engine fan, now he loves reading, especially Harry Potter, who, coincidentally, he rather resembles. We dressed him up as Harry one year for Halloween, and he just looked so great.
He also loves stories about dragons and knights. We've done both the NY Renaissance Fair and Medieval Times a few times each and he's loved every minute of them. This past summer, he and I read one of my all time favorite books, Stephen King's Eyes of the Dragon" together, and he really loved it. If you haven't read it, you should. It isn't really scary, although some parts of it are a bit on the creepy side. (I believe I read once that Stephen King wrote it for his 13 year old daughter because his other books were too scary for her liking). If you are a Potter fan, I think you'd probably enjoy it a lot. Anyway, reading that together was a real treat for both of us.
He's played on the P.A.L. Baseball league in town every spring since he was five and I have to admit, he's turned me into a baseball fan. Those of you who know me personally know what a feat that was. Oh, and the new song on the blog is dedicated to him. Listen to the words to it once all the way through, it's really something.
Also, as you probably guessed R is quite the campin guy himself. What you might not realize is that he's practically grown up on our mountain. We started camping there before his second birthday and have been there for at least a couple trips every camping season since. He loves fishing. His dad and Papa used to take him when he was little, now his Dad takes him to the lake near the campgrounds, which is always a lot of fun for them.
I don't mean to say he's perfect. He's far from it.... he sometimes has an incredibly fresh mouth, he breaks into a rash if you mention cleaning up his room and last year he was a bit lazy about his school work, although thankfully so far this year, that has greatly improved. He's convinced I love his sister more than I love him. I wish I knew what to say to make him understand that although, yes, I adore his sister, I couldn't love her more than him, because it's impossible to love someone more than I love him. Yes, I love her just as much, but as much as and more than are two different things. Anyway, he's got a heart of gold, he's so incredibly smart and he's got this insane sense of humor (at least when he's not trying very hard to be funny. When he tries hard he over-does it). He loves antagonizing his little sister, but he also loves
her, and I know he'd protect her to his last breath if he had to.
Anyway, forgive me for rambling on about my boy. It's just that as he gets older, he seems to think that because I don't baby him and mush him as much as I used to, it must mean that I don't love him as much as I used to. I needed to show him in a very big way just how much he means to me. He is absolutely, my pride, my joy and my heart.
So happy birthday, Buddy. I can't tell you how much I've loved sharing your first decade on the planet with you, and how much I'm looking forward to the next one and beyond.
