Tomorrow is the boys’ birthday party. For the first time we aren’t have a big event. From the 1st to the 10th we had big parties with tons of family and friends at my parents’ house.
This year they didn’t even want a party at first. The request was for Gigi and Pop (my parents) and Grandma (Nathan’s mom). I was pretty sure if we got close to the actually birthday and didn’t have some kind of party there would be major regret and sadness. Then they suddenly wanted a big party and I wasn’t feeling it. So I suggested going to their favorite arcade for a couple of hours with some cousins and a few long-time friends.
Winner!
Tomorrow at 1pm we will have our first birthday party at a place. It will be new and different and so much easier than what we usually do. Afterwards, our immediate family is going back to my parents for causal food and family time. The boys are planning for us to play BINGO. Big times.
Their birthday isn’t until this coming Wednesday. But with the party and making plans for our annual birthday field trip, it is a pretty dominant topic around here. And their birthday always makes me feel wistful and nostalgic. Like all moms it feels like time is going too fast. My tiny babies are about to be 11. They have been growing like mad lately and it won’t be long until they are looking me straight in the eye.
One of them (who I won’t name) is starting to get longer, darker hair on his legs! WHAT?!?! Puberty is coming. Their voices will change. They will change!
But of course they will. And really, it is okay. At least today it is okay. They still reach for my hand in parking lots most of the time. They still want to snuggle into my side to watch tv. They are still my little boys…today.
I am curious about the men they will grow to be over the next years. I wonder what their voices will sound like when they drop. They are firmly against the idea of any and all body hair currently. That will change. Will they want facial hair? The changes coming excite and terrify me all in the same breath.
I struggle to imagine them in 4 years, about to turn 15 and get driver’s permits.
I am determined to not wish away today in all of its struggles and frustrations. I can endure another giggle over the words fart and poop. I can suffer another body function joke. I can secretly smile as they giggle when we walk past women’s undergarments that hang in the stores. I remember my mom saying how my own grandmother would purposefully walk the long way through the department stores to hear my brother giggle at the women’s undergarments when he was their age. To hear their giggles makes me remember her and smile for a completely different reason.
I think I will end with this. This video sums up their personalities completely even now, 10 years later.
More Than Expected 