Hello and welcome to a pretty typical middle-of-October Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is October 16th.
This week the Senior 2.0 turned eighteen! Happy Birthday, buddy!
There are plenty of jokes and memes out on the internet about parenting the firstborn baby, the secondborn baby, the thirdborn baby, etc., and how it's all basically a hysterical downhill slide. But are there any memes out there about what happens when the firstborn turns eighteen, then the second, then the third, etc.?
The firstborn turning eighteen was a big deal. Something we'd all been looking forward to. As parents, we gave ourselves a congratulatory pat on the back, believing we must not have been too horrible because we got this kid to adulthood. I wanted it to be a truly special, once-in-a-lifetime day so I made her a Lego-esque cake (her request) and adorned it with Lego Krispie treats and Lego figures who resembled each member of our family.
The firstborn was like, "Ohmigosh, I'm a grown-up." and I was like, "Yes! I know! Isn't it exciting?" I gave her a meaningful look with big, bright Disney eyes to convey all the hope and enthusiasm I felt for her. The perks of being an adult were what I had been promising all through her teen years. ("Sorry, pal, high school pretty much stinks. But you have adulthood to look forward to. Your own choices! Life on your own terms!") She returned a dubious, but mostly optimistic, look.
The secondborn turning eighteen? Well...it was still super exciting. And I wanted it to be special. (I tried my hand at making Korean Beef Bulgogi and Loaded Caramel Krispie Treats per request for the momentous occasion.) The secondborn was dubious like his older sister, with an added dose of skepticism. He rolls his eyes at millenials and all their memes about adulting. "Be a grown-up!" he growls at them. "Ugh. Adults are so annoying," he grumbles. "They're just like kids but worse." I marvel that he's figured this out already.
"Yes," I begin, warily. "Some adults can be a bit of a drag. But not you! You will be an awesome adult. Look how hardworking and responsible you already are!" I reinforced this message with my best Disney eyeballs, round and sweet, like Anna's of Arandelle.
"Really, Ma?" he answers.
I can't tell if he's asking for assurance or asserting his cynicism.
He came out of his room Friday morning dressed like he was ready for a Calvin Klein commercial in a long-sleeve, button-down shirt textured dark blue reminiscent, but not quite, of denim with a crisp white t-shirt underneath, paired with a bronze-type of khaki that I've just learned is called Palamino brown. This was an outfit that declared: Here is a young man ready to take the world. "Very GQ," I gushed. "What's that?" he answered.
Maybe he was nervous because he woke up an hour early and didn't realize it until he announced he was ready to go to school and I shrieked, "What?! It's only 6:30!" To which he answered, "No wonder I didn't hear my alarm."
What I keep coming back to is a photo I have of his sister and him on the wall in the kitchen. She's five years old and he is three. It's a pic that a friend snapped shortly after moving to Wannaskaland. In the photo, the Oldest has a sweet, smile-for-the-camera grin while Senior 2.0 has his lips pooched for the camera in his true-to-his-nature goofball way.
Am I really ready for him to grow up?
Adults are complicated. They get serious. And moody. The black-and-white clarity of calling a spade a spade that happens in childhood blurs to a somber, sometimes despairing, gray; its square shape becoming soft and flabby. Life gets more complex with all the options that are laid out before a person. Truth becomes nuanced; shaded. And life can become surprisingly dull. Not to mention mundane. There are many dirty tricks around growing up that I've discovered over the years, but perhaps the biggest one is that grown-up life can get pretty boring when it becomes largely the day-to-day cycle through work, meals, and bills. What if my son loses that goofball grin? What if his teen scowl and incredulous squint become his new norm? Will my Bambi eyes have enough power to pull him away from that?
Oh, why can't my boy be a boy forever?
This thought shocks me, really. Why would I wish my child an eternal childhood? When I was turning eighteen, I was leaping furiously into my future with a plan in place to be a foreign exchange student. I was going to grip the world like a girl riding bareback on a Palamino, hands twisted and secured in the mane of adventure, come what may. This is the excitement I want my son to feel; not a grief fueled by the inevitability of growing up.
I can only guess that my own straddling of the line between child and adult has to do with the messy mass of emotions that come with being a parent. (Another grown-up surprise.) Parenting is a bizarre paradox: Grow up, but stay small. Be an adult, but be my child. Hurry up, slow down. Be responsible, but stay goofy.
This makes me wonder how it's going to go with the thirdborn, the fourth, and *gulp* the last. Will it be a hysterical downhill slide like in those baby parenting memes? Or something else?
What I hope is that, with each subsequent child, I am able to stuff down my own maternal mush of worry, or woe, or the impending loss of littles, or whatever it is that is going on with me (for all I know it could just be hormones), and instead gift them the jewel of excitement that once sparkled in my dreams. That launching into the world is largely a good thing, come what may. To not be an effervescent cheerleader of embracing their futures, otherwise, just seems wrong.
If what I desire is to slow time down, the good news is I can. When the First Grader asks me to bake Halloween gingerbread cookies, I can say yes. It may not make sense thematically to bake a Christmas-intended cookie for Halloween, but who cares? What matters is my son asked me to do something super fun with him, and this window - these moments when kids ask me to spend time with them - gets smaller by the day.
And there's nothing like an eighteenth birthday to remind me of that.
On This Day
Historic Highlights (credits)
Happy Birthday to You!🎶
Remembering You
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