Happy Birthday Son...And All The Taken Pictures

Today my youngest turns fourteen. It's amazing how fast life passes and seeing the children grow into adults is one of the most effective way of demonstrating that thought. We were all together tonight--a rarity with five adults in a family of six. 

Several months ago I was asked by my kid's grandmother for a picture of my youngest. She had pictures of the rest of her grandchildren on a shelf in her house...

All but the youngest. We remedied that last month. 

Her request got me thinking. I take so many pictures, many of my children. We have literally hundreds of physical photos of the older ones because back in the day, we used film and had the pictures developed. Once digital became the standard, everything's on the computer, or backed up on disk drives. I wondered just how many pictures I've taken of my youngest. And with over 20k pictures backed up, going through them all wasn't really an option.

Thank goodness for a somewhat creepy feature of Macintosh computers. They use facial recognition software to identify people in your photo library. I clicked on that and there they were. I know it's not all the pictures I have of him, but I was so happy to find the collection.

Happy birthday to my youngest! He's an absolute joy!

Happy Birthday Son...Hope it was great!

Our youngest had a birthday today. During the past week more than one asked us how we felt that our "baby" was getting older.

And, to be honest, it makes me a little sad that our youngest is getting older. This year is a big year for our son, big changes for him.

We had a birthday party for him on Thursday. He wanted to go bowling, and hey--who doesn't want to go bowling? Exactly. We had a blast. He got to invite his friends. My son and I were able to get done with work early so we could participate. The bowling was fun (except for a few hurt fingers...) and afterword we took everyone out for dinner. Today we had another birthday celebration, this time at his grandparent's house where we had a great dinner, delicious desserts, and presents.

But the question of how we felt about him getting older keeps coming up. And I thought about that as I watched him on Thursday and again today. Sure, he's getting older--we all are. And yes, we'll miss him being younger like we've missed all our kids as they've grown. But just because we're missing that shouldn't impact him. I remember when I was his age. I was excited about the new things taking place. Of course, I wasn't the youngest child in my family so maybe I didn't catch the "Oh, aren't you sad your son's getting older?" vibe that I know my son's heard. 

So I'm going to not think about how my son's birthday affects me, but rather, will try and focus on how he's doing, what he's feeling. After all, it's his birthday today. Happy birthday son!

Photobooth...It's Been A While

When I'm home I spend a lot of time on my laptop. As a writer/blogger/photographer, it's a given. And, truth be told, I probably should spend more time on it writing (that's the plan....

So, my youngest son would love to jump up on the bed while I was writing and have me open the Photobooth program on my MacBook.

And, I loved it too.

He loved to choose the different filters and see how the pictures turned out, be they distorted or altered, a la Andy Warhol. 

Then, we just sort of stopped. I was looking at the pictures the other day and I noticed it's been years since he asked to have our picture taken. I took the next opportunity to take some pictures of us together. 

I don't know exactly how old he will be when "hey son, do you want to take some pictures with me?" no longer sounds either fun or interesting to him. But even if that day is tomorrow, I've got these pictures of my youngest son and me.

My Son Learns Haiku...He Made Four Of Them Today...One Proud Pop Am I

"Dad, do you know what a haiku is?" my youngest asked me as I relaxed in front of the TV. Of course, I did but I asked him what they were.

"They're short poems. I wrote four of them yesterday."

And so, I had him read to me his poetic gems. Here they are.

Grace jumps on my bed

Rolls around until petted

Purring happily

(Grace is one of our cats...)

The water moves calmly

Then falls off waterfalls quickly

Reaching the bottom

Birds fly through the air

They land on the ground, find food

Then feed their babies

Monkeys swing through trees

Picks apples off apple trees

Munching it all day

Not bad for a ten-year old! The kid's got kind of a nature vibe to his poetry. I like it, but I know I'm biased. I've had some experience in haikus. I used haikus in the talent section of my one and only Space Balrogs Post-Apocalyptic team challenge. I think my haikus were well received.

It's heartwarming when the child of a writer shares his creativity with you. It's going to be interesting to see what he comes up with next!

Father, Son, And A Bike...

There's a feeling a father gets when he helps teach his child how to ride a bike. It's one of those things, like watching a football game, or going fishing with your kids. But something wonderful happens when a child can take all the advise and help a dad offers and see real growth and accomplishment come from it.

This week, our youngest climbed atop his new bike and through trial and error, he's now able to ride. At first I ran aside him, holding on to the seat of the bike to make sure he didn't tip over. That was the first day. By the next day I was running along side, but I didn't even need to hold on to the bike. I thought that was a great improvement.

The next day I didn't even need to run beside him. He was able to pedal down the street, turn at the end of the street and return to us. He still needed help starting and stopping in a controlled manner. We stopped for the day.

Today after I got home I watched my son start the ride all by himself and I watched him ride and ride. It was such a cool thing! Everyday this week after I returned home from work, my son asked me if I wanted to go outside and watch him ride his bike. He's so excited to show me his progress, and I'm just as excited to see it. He's the last of our kids to successfully learn the skill of riding a bike, the last time to experience the feeling only a parent can have. Good job, son. Good job!