June 14, Fourteen years ago

Dear Guitar Boy,

Fourteen years ago, you completely changed my life. You changed the way I would see the world. You changed the way I would feel about things. You changed the way I viewed my husband. You changed the way I viewed myself. You changed the type of teacher I would become. You created in my heart and soul a tenderness and love that I'd heard about but could only imagine. Fourteen years ago today, you made me a mother for the first time.

Those changes were not always easy. As your Aunt M has very wisely stated, with the birth of a child comes the birth of a mother and the transition from woman to mother is not always seemless. It takes time. But God created you to be a sensitive and patient child. He knew that you were the perfect one to usher me into motherhood.

As a baby, you hated to sleep. You were such a night owl. Today, you still are. As a toddler, you loved books, Blue's Clues, playing outside, and games on the computer. As a teenager, you love playing guitar and saxophone, playing football and riding the rip-stick, fishing, and playing video games. As you've grown older, your likes and dislikes have remained pretty constant.

You've never been a risk-taker. You have always wanted to do the right thing. You've always been a comforter...concerned about the feelings of others. In every setting, you've been drawn to whatever child was the troublemaker. You wanted to befriend him because he was unliked by the other children. Honestly, that trait in you freaked me out a bit because I had visions of juvenile delinquents and drug charges in our future...a tender heart can sometimes get you in trouble!

In 4th grade, you were voted by your classmates to be the recipient of the character trait of the month, "Honesty." You may never know, until you have a child of your own one day, how proud I was that you were chosen by your peers for that honor. It tells me that not only the adults around you recognize your integrity but your friends do as well. That speaks so well of your character.

As we navigate our way through these teenaged years, I know there will be bumps in the road. But just as your likes and dislikes have remained pretty much unchanged over the years, I know that you are the talented, sensitive, honest, comforting, young man of integrity and character that you have always been. Whatever the teenaged years bring, it has been my daily prayer for you from before you were born that God would continue to remind you of who you are as His child and that you will seek His face and allow Him to guide and direct the choices you make. I am so proud that you are my son and friend.

It's often been hard for you to be the eldest of five children. You've had a lot of responsibility. As your father and I both know, it's not easy being the first-born...

First and foremost, you are the guinea pig for our parenting skills. Your daddy has had a tendency at times to have extremely high expectations of you. That can be a lot of pressure to live up to. I have at times (ok most of the time) been overly-protective and overly-indulgent.
I'm sure that's frustrating and confusing for you.

let it be noted...you must give me credit for not listing all of your faults...I'm resisting the urge since this is, after all, your birthday letter, haha. You can thank me later.

At any rate, we are doing our best, so thanks for hanging in there with us and not trying to run away (so far) like Middle Man. Thanks also for not setting a precedent for running away and therefore giving Middle Man the gumption to actually follow through.

When I think of you, in my mind's eye I see the handsome man you are becoming but I also see my little boy. These 14 years have gone so quickly that it's hard for my brain and eyes to make sense of it all. How is it possible that you've gone from this:

to this????

Yes, yes, I know you take great pleasure in knowing that you are taller than me, but is it really fair that you're already taller than your Pop???

At any rate, Happy birthday, son. You may be taller than me, and have way bigger feet than me, but I'm still your Mama no matter how big you get. And you will still always be my little boy.

Aren't you glad your friends

don't read this?

Love, Mama