the Birthday Boy
My oldest son, Troy, is eight years old today.
I once tried to explain to this amazing boy, when he was having a bad day, how much I loved him. “You made me a mom,” I said. “And that’s huge.” I remember a grueling 36-hour labour ending with a child with the brightest, almost spooky, huge eyes being placed on my stomach. He had a serious expression on his face that said, “What’s going on here, people?” He still has that expression.
He is serious and silly all at the same time. One of his teachers said to me, “I have never seen a child love the scientific process as much as Troy. He is literally excited to the core by it.” He loves doing experiments, and he loves studying bugs and animals. In fact, he and his best friend plan to head to Africa to study animals in a bus that they’ll decorate. Kind of a travelling Kratt brothers deal, if you will. He also loves being silly with his friends. Knock-knock jokes, anything with the word “but(t)” in it, will send him into fits of giggles. Captain Underpants was written for Troy.
He is creative, and has been writing books since he was five. He’s a huge Harry Potter fan. He is intense, and I’m afraid that comes from me. He’s excited and completely animated about something, and in three minutes might be crying about something else. He is mechanical like his dad, and often explains to me how our DVD player works. As a big brother, he is many things. With Derek, he is competitive and loving and emotional and silly sometimes very manipulative. With his little sister, he is affectionate and kind and entertaining and amazes us with his caregiving.
At our house, he is in charge of spider and other bug removal. He’s been doing that for me since he was two, and takes great pride in it. Now that he’s eight, some eye-rolling (“Oh puh-leeeeeze, Mom … it’s just a spider?!?!?!”) has set in ….
As a mom, Troy has taught me so many things. To truly savour the day, as I see this child literally grow before my eyes. To realize that all things pass, as he took forever to potty train, and to gain a confident sense of independence. He cried at pre-school drop-off for half of the year when he was four, and I remember sobbing in my journal that I feared he’d never be able to do things on his own. Literally, I pictured a high school student that wouldn’t answer the phone. Two and a half short years later, this boy was flying to Calgary on his own to stay with friends … and going to overnight camp for two nights …. ?!!? He’s also taught me a lot about faith; he is so much more wired than I am sometimes about inviting God into daily life.
He’s an amazing kid.
Happy Birthday, Troy-Boy. Love you to the moon. And back. Fifty trillion times. Plus one.
(That’s our bedtime routine. It used to be singing the “Skinamarink” theme song. It has to get “cooler”, the older they get. No eight year old can hear his mom say “Skinamarink-a-dink-a-dink without splitting a gut laughing. )
