Yes, I have an 18 year old!

I'm not old enough to have forgotten his birth, or the many times I imagined this day. It doesn't feel any different, and I suppose for him, it doesn't either. But it *is* different. It's 18.  It's not 5, 9, 12 or 14, it's eighteen!

It was about 157,788 hours ago that my life changed so dramatically. His impending birth surrounded by so much unknown risk and uncertainty...ranging from risk of death to under-developed lungs to nothing...The memory I have of his birth, the image in my mind, is a literal blur...the high blood pressure affected my vision so that I could not see clearly. But there were so many more moments afterward that I sat and stared at him, not wanting to miss a memory or ever forget the sweet tiny babe that came out of my body!

I could never forget how tiny he was. I was only a year older than he is now, when he was born. I spent months imagining what he would look like, and after he was born, many moments imagining what his personality would be like...then all these years, watching it unfold.  Watching him unfold.

 

I remember how long the hours lasted when he was a colicky newborn.  Thrust into the world too early, but obviously, right on time...Those hours that seem to never end and yet here we are... 157,788 hours later.

I was determined he would not be shy, like I was as a young child. (severely so!) I taught him how to make a conversation.  I did not allow him to say he was shy, I corrected him if he did. I did not allow him to *believe* it to be so.  If we went to the park, I always asked him afterward, what friends he made. 

How do you measure 18 years, really? In birthday parties? In report cards? Broken bones? (there've been none--there was a fracture once) pairs of SHOES!?! How about inches? He started out as 19! lol

It's not like my role of his parent, his mother, ends now. Of course not. I know I have made parenting mistakes too. I am not one of those who holds onto that though.  I figure, mistakes are expected. Also, by the time he realizes most of them, he'll be paying for his own therapist, right? haha!

What a journey, a joy and an adventure to watch a human grow from birth to "adulthood", so up close and personal. Seriously. I can honestly say, it's been pretty freakin' FUN! Camping trips, zoos, thousands of Legos, learning to ride a bike, drive a car, scooters with light up wheels, training wheels, climbing trees to impress a girl, praying for a baby brother, laughter and tears, drive-in movies, road trips, bowling, karaoke, paper--reams & reams of paper we have gone through, filled w/ artistic expressions, school books, learning to read, algebra, science fairs, rockets, fires!, friends, pizza, burgers, tooth-in-soda-experiments!, volcanos, fixing washers, making movies, a puppy for Christmas.....a million moments

a million memories

a million breathes

and how many hairs on his head? 

Only God knows. 

Truly, God has them counted, his steps numbered, thoughts for him that out number the grains of sand on the beach. 

As a very young boy, I've prayed for him, his future, his friends and future relationships but I could never have imagined the moments, not one of them, that God laid out for him, and still lie ahead.

And yet...I try.

I tear up and I smile, over the past, for the future.

Excited for what's to come...for me as a mother, maybe someday a grandmother.

Excited for him, a young man, filled with his own dreams of life and a confidence that he can and will accomplish all that God has in line for him.

Who can ask for more?

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Eph 3:20-21