Parenting | BulgingButtons

April 1, 2017
by BulgingButtons 2 Comments

Happy Birthday to my Boy

Today was the first time in years that I didn’t serve birthday cake for breakfast on this date. You see, that’s our family tradition, or at least it was. Today, however, my son woke up on his birthday away from home.

Now he wasn’t far from home, just a few miles away in the dorm, but still, he wasn’t here. He turned nineteen today, and it was strange not starting the day with a little birthday party.

He’s growing up, and changing, and so our traditions are changing too. We went to lunch with his grandmother today, and that was a wonderful way to celebrate. Not the same, of course, but still we spent time together.

Frankly, I was pleased that he made the time to do it. After all, when you’re a college student so many things compete for your time and attention, and typically your mother and grandmother don’t top the list. He did it for me. I know that. I appreciate it.

My son has matured so much in the past year. The change from a senior in high school to an almost finished freshman in college has been remarkable. He’s accepted the change with grace. I can learn from him.

Happy birthday, son. I love you.

December 19, 2016
by BulgingButtons 2 Comments

Thank You Lego

This morning my eighteen year old and I were doing some holiday preparations. I asked him to set up his model train around the Christmas tree, as a nod to Christmas past. He agreed and pulled it out of his closet.

While he was in there, he stumbled across a bin of old legos. He brought it out to the living room, and sat down on the floor with me. One by one he removed partially built (or, more accurately, partially destroyed) models he’s created over the years. There were so many of them.

4da2dc554379966dbb8cd16d4be335a9 I recognized the pirate ship from Pirates of the Caribbean, and some of the Star Wars vehicles, but there were quite a few that didn’t look as familiar. “Oh, that one’s from the Mars Mission series,” he would say, or “that belongs to the police set.”

We sat together for a while and looked for specific parts to rebuild a wing, or replace a cannon. It was nice. Really nice.

Someday I hope he has a child in his life who enjoys these legos as much as he has over the years. Someday I hope he gets to experience the simple, yet profound, joy of watching and helping a young person build something special.

December 13, 2016
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Why I Am Still Up

It’s nearly midnight and I have to be up early for work tomorrow morning. I teach kids, so walking around in a fog isn’t an option for me. I have to be “on” from the moment I walk in the door to the moment the last kid is gone for the day.

By the time I’m done, I’m tired, not to mention the fact that I resist going to bed just on principle, so I regularly stay up well past a reasonable bedtime. I’ve been a night owl for a long time, and the idea of an early-to-bed routine just doesn’t make sense to me. Honestly, though, I should embrace an early bedtime. By the time Friday rolls around I’ve accumulated so much sleep debt from the week that I can barely function.

Tonight I can still function, but I’m tired and ready for bed. Why, then, am I writing instead? Because the boy isn’t here.

Not in the same sense that he hasn’t been here since August. That’s different. He was in the dorm, and I could tell myself he was safe at his home away from home. Tonight is a completely different situation, at least from my point of view. Tonight he’s at a friend’s house and he’s taken my car, at night, for the first time.

Yes, he has his license. Yes, he’s responsible (3.83 GPA folks, woot, woot!). But he’s out. This is new territory. I know, it’s a little silly. By the time I was his age I had been out late in my parents’ car many many times. Not him.

My son has always gone at his own pace, which he rarely alters for anyone. His physical development left us wondering at times during his babyhood. Would he ever learn to crawl, then walk? How about talking? Would he master that? And shouldn’t he have learned how to ride a two-wheeler by age nine? Would he ever get the hang of it? Yes. To all of it.

It’s no wonder that he’s doing different things now than he did in high school. We all go through changes as we grow up and move from one stage of our lives to another. It’s normal. It’s important. And it’s something that I, as his mom, need to stop fighting and learn to live with. As I do, though, I think I’ll stay up for a while, at least this first time.