Nineteen

As I typed the post title, a voice from the other room said, "how the heck did I get here?" My thoughts, exactly! Nineteen years.

Nineteen years ago, I had no idea what I was doing, really. I was more scared - petrified, actually - than anyone can comprehend. I had only ever experienced labor pains as loss. The fear of losing another baby was nearly paralysing. When he emerged from my body, gray and lifeless, I just knew my worst fears had come true. When I heard that first gurgle, my heart leapt. His first cry was at the same time beautiful and painful. That he was whisked out of the room to Special Care was heartbreaking. I just wanted to hold him, to see him, to know he was going to be ok.

He's nineteen now. Nineteen. Nineteen years ago, they told me the time would go by quickly. In those early, endless, exhausting days of young motherhood, I laughed. Now, I look back and have no idea where the time has gone.

Alexander ... nineteen thank yous on your nineteenth birthday:

1. Thank you for calling me Mama and not Mommy. I love the sound of Mama, even when five children are calling me over and over and over at the same time. I may have had a nervous breakdown at some point had I had the same experience with Mommyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

2. Thank you for being a challenging infant, toddler, and child. The rest of your siblings have seemed like a cakewalk after an entire infancy of not being able to put you down; toddlerhood of you literally bouncing off walls and throwing hysterical fits during which you'd either turn to jello or stiff as a board because of something as seemingly harmless as me suggesting we should leave the house, or go home, or that long pants are required in freezing temperatures; etc.

3. Thank you for helping me have a sense of humor when it comes to all things parenting, as nothing was ever straightforward with you, and you put us in some interesting situations. Like the nine months or so you insisted on wearing your too-big red cowboy boots everywhere or the time you VERY loudly asked if the bottle-feeding mom knew what her breasts were for at the mall.

4. Thank you for being such an awesome, kind, loving teenager.

5. Thank you for having an amazing sense of humor.

6. Thank you for your inability not to at least smile even when you don't want to, just because your mother is doing something she know will break your scowl when you're trying to be upset with her ...er ... me.

7. Thank you for understanding when I speak of myself in the third person.

8. Thank you for not growing up too fast.

9. Thank you for not questioning or protesting too much when I signed you up for Camp Calumet.

10. Thank you for continuing to go to Camp Calumet, even though it's mostly outside and naturey.

11. Thank you for enjoying theater and having so much fun in Changing Morova - that was when we found our third home, Epoch Arts.

12. Thank you for teaching at Epoch Arts Homeschool Co-op when you no longer felt like taking classes. I've heard good things from your students, and it speaks well of your class that you're talking about it and working on in it between sessions.

13. Thank you for setting a good example for your younger siblings ... at least most of the time.

14. Thank you for de-glutening yourself as to not contaminate me or something I might touch.

15. Thank you for going to church, even when you don't want to or when it feels overwhelming...and for doing what you need to do to stay in your comfort zone in a mature way.

16. Thank you for being taller and reaching things for me. 

17. Thank you for not burning down the house while we were at Calumet for two weeks this past Summer.

18. Thank you for consistently cleaning up after yourself.

19. Thank you for being you!