Fourteen

 This kid.  

He's fourteen and an official high school freshman.

He's impossibly tall and shyly handsome and funny and charming and sweet- when he wants to be.

He'd rather stay home and play Halo or Minecraft or Clash Royale or some other video game of the moment with his friends online-- but he's a good sport about family outings once we get out the door.  Like always, just add outdoors or water and he can't help but have fun. 

He's a heck of a swimmer and starts fall conditioning for the Heights High vasity team next week.  It's hard for me to wrap my mind around this athletic child of mine sometimes.

He's also  moody and mercurial and he mumbles and sometimes sneaks onto his screens in the middle of the night and more than sometimes drives us crazy. Because he's fourteen.  And sometimes a mom needs to breathe and remember that this is all completely developmentally normal, and that's a good thing!

I look (up, up up!) at this young man and I am sometimes overwhelmed with missing my squishy baby, my soft cheeked giggly boy, my serious 5th grader... and then I am equally overwhelmed with awe and excitement for the broad shouldered, witty, intelligent and insightful person he is becoming. And then I step back and take that breath and I see the baby, the little boy, the middler schooler- all still there in his crinkle eyed smile, his careful approach to life, his still-soft cheeks with the subtle dimple on the right.  And I love him so much it sometimes leaves me breathless.   

Fourteen years of loving this son of mine. Fourteen years of being constantly surprised and delighted as he grows and changes and leads me down this path of motherhood. I don't know how time has gone so fast-- but I see how my heart is so full. 

I can't wait to see where fourteen takes you, Jackie bear.