This weekend, we celebrated the boy-o turning 9. He was my first baby. He was the one who made our family of two a family of three, and for a couple of years, he was my closest companion. It was him and I against the world (at least between the hours of 8 am and 4 pm). And now, he’s 9.
I couldn’t be prouder of the young man he has become. He loves to travel and learn about the place he is visiting, he loves history, and writing, and telling jokes. He always can spot a great pun and his laugh is one of the things I love most about him. There’s a gleam in his dark brown eyes when he does it that makes me feel so happy.
He was excited for his birthday which turned into a birthday weekend. We typically make a pretty big deal about birthdays. There doesn’t need to be a correlation between spending a lot and having a fantastic birthday. With Christmas just around the corner, we try to keep birthday gifts less extravagant and as with other years, he opted to have a simple get together with a couple friends at the house. Our family got together on his actual birthday to celebrate with bowling, pizza and cake.
https://instagram.com/p/-HkHphOhOC/?taken-by=bitofmomsense
No matter what we have planned, he is still filled with excitement. We always decorate their bedroom doors while they sleep so that there’s some fanfare when they wake in the morning. And they are able to open gifts from us and their sibling first thing. The entire day is meant to celebrate who they are, and the year that just passed, as well as the year ahead.
He loves it so much, that he hardly ever sleeps the night before. It’s the same thing at Christmas. He was so excited all weekend that his sleep was interrupted. At one point on Saturday night, just before 10 pm, he woke and was thinking it was morning. It took him a long time to settle again.
But we can’t help but smile at the thought. Do you remember being that excited? I’m not sure if I’ve ever been that excited about anything. And certainly, it’s much harder as an adult to feel excitement like that. He may have turned 9, but I hope that joyful exuberance carries with him for many more years.
It was a fun weekend. My baby turned 9.
