Happy Birthday to a not-so-little man

No, this isn’t a repeat of yesterday’s post. Yesterday was my youngest boy’s 5th birthday. Today is my oldest son’s 12th.  Trust me, my wife and I didn’t plan it to happen this way.  In fact, our middle child was born on November 14th. So we have birthdays on the 14th, 15th and 16th.  I can NEVER keep it straight.

I married at 25. My wife and I waited seven years to have kids.  Our first miracle came 12 years ago today.  I was 32 when he was born and was completely stupid about being a parent.  I saw him enter this world, with his black tuft of hair (he looked like the fifth Beatle) and his little round face and kept looking for the attached owner’s manual. It wasn’t there. He was the kid I learned how to be a parent on.  I quickly realized what Craig Ferguson said about parenting was so amazingly true, “I think when you become a parent you go from being a star in the movie of your own life to the supporting player in the movie of someone else’s.”

I’ve made a ton of parenting mistakes but he’s a pretty resilient kid.

My son has grown into a very sensitive, bright young man. He’s a Scout and an excellent mathematician. He plays the baritone with precision and gets straight A’s. He doesn’t draw like me, but has a brilliant imagination when he writes. His mother gave him his looks (his hair is now our dirty blonde, btw), but he is very much like I was as a kid.  At times he struggles and I suffer with him. The stresses of being a budding teenager reminds me of my own struggles so many years ago.

So he’s 12 today. The years have gone so quickly.  It seems like yesterday I was being wheeled into cancer surgery and I saw his little one-year-old face one last time. I vowed to survive so I could see him grow up.  I’m so glad I did.