The Boy turned 11 this weekend.
I remember day one. He was born tall for his age; he was the biggest kid in the nursery. He’s still tall for his age, and well on his way to being tall for any age. (He’s five foot five, and growing pretty much every time I turn around. I shudder to think what the adolescent growth spurt will bring.) We still have photos of me holding him in my lap in the hospital, reading him The Runaway Bunny. By the time he was three, we had to hide books under the couch just to get him to do anything else.
He’s a gentle giant. By the standards of an 11 year old, he’s courtly to his sister, and I’m proud that he doesn’t do a lot of the knucklehead crap with girls that his peers do. He plays baseball and basketball and likes to win, but can lose with dignity. He loves Lego League and placed fifth in the town spelling bee. He assembles complicated Lego kits in record time, reads a couple of novels a week, and has announced his intention to attend MIT to become a civil engineer.
I have to admit having been a little scared to try raising a boy. I wasn’t good at most of boy culture as a kid, and I hated the idea of passing my blind spots on to some innocent child. But TB isn’t mini-me; he’s his own person, much more fully realized than I was at that age.
Right now we’re in that glorious bridge phase between labor-intensive young childhood and drama-laden teen years. He’s capable of mowing the lawn, and it hasn’t occurred to him yet to rebel over it. Mom and Dad are still smart and worth listening to. “Having a girlfriend” is still as much an accusation as an aspiration. I know there’s a time limit on that, but I’m trying to enjoy it while it’s here. There’s plenty of time for the other stuff later.
Happy birthday, TB. And enjoy the new Lego kit.
