My boy turns 20? What??

Today is my first-born son’s 20th birthday.

Twentieth.

As in TWO decades!

How can it be? Really? How can it be that two decades have flown by so quickly?

He is the one that transformed us from a couple into a family, making us parents and not just a married couple. We had to grow, expand, make room for another one. A very helpless one.

It was because of him, and what was best for him, that I nursed him, something I never thought I’d do. Past the age that was considered “enough”. And because I wanted what was best and I wanted to know what was IN his food, I made his babyfood. I cooked and ground it up. I certainly didn’t do it because it was easy. But it was what I felt was best and so I did it.

It was because we were looking out for his best interest that we began to homeschool. In preschool. He was at the age when other people were putting their children in preschools but I didn’t have the heart to drop him off, away from me for hours a day,  for someone else to have the privilege of teaching him his colors. And shapes. And numbers. And eventually letters. And to patiently teach him to read when he struggled at it when all his friends his same age were reading. And to read, research, talk to people (my neighbor who had gone down that road!) and seek out testing to find out what was going on. Was it his teacher? Was I hurting him by homeschooling him? Or was it something else? Was he lazy? Or was he really struggling? We persevered and he learned. He eventually wanted to go to school to see what it was like, to experience it himself. Before it was college. And although I did NOT think that was BEST for him, we always said we would homeschool as long as it was good for both of us. And it was no longer good for him. So we enrolled him in a Christian private school (next best thing, we figured) and his world grew, his horizon expanded and he changed.

And now. BAM. He’s in college and he is beginning his second DECADE! He is still growing, still learning, trying new things, new thoughts, new experiences. They are not always things that I would have wanted for him. Not what I consider “best’ but he is released now to be his own person. He gets to make his own decisions, to learn from those decisions, to decide what is best for him and to seek guidance from  other people.

I’m grateful that sometimes those people are my husband and me.

I sure am grateful to have been there these first 20 years. I pray that I’ll be around for the next 20!

Here’s looking at you kid! Happy birthday!

I’m linking up with Deena from Shoes to Shiraz (link here). And although this is not an old post, it sure is nostalgic!