Thirteen years have passed since I gave birth to my firstborn child. Isaac Jacob Gaskin was born on Wednesday, January 27th, 1999. I am now a parent of a teenager. AGH!
It truly amazes me how fast time passes. It seems like just yesterday that I held that sweet baby boy, cleaned up the Vaseline mess he smeared all over the walls and in his HAIR, beamed with pride as he read chapter books at the age of four, cheered him on in Little League, and got on him about being nice to his sisters. Okay, that last one was yesterday. But it is scary thing to stop and realize that somehow time slipped by without my noticing his transformation. It seems like it happened overnight really. I went to bed one night, tucking him in with a kiss to waking up with a kid as tall as me rubbing sleep out of his eyes the next morning. He has the beginnings of a mustache and leg hair. He wears deodorant. His shoe size is a 10.5...in Men's! He is outgrowing clothes by leaps and bounds! And is leaping and bounding to breakfast, lunch, and dinner....and morning snack, mid-morning snack, afternoon snack, late evening snack, and when-mom-isn't-looking snack! I look at my 7 week old baby boy, Taite, and then I look at Isaac and am absolutely stunned at the transformation.
Of course the scariest realization is that next school year, Isaac will be a freshman in high school. High school. Yeah, I said high school. HIGH SCHOOL! AGH! That means dating, driving, and college tours! I did take Isaac out to the car and sat him in the driver's seat. I had him put his foot on the brake. I explained the different gears. I had him shift it into drive. Then I had him slowly take his foot off the brake. The car slowly rolled forward. Hit the brake! He did and nearly bounced out of the seat. I smiled, laughed, and nearly had a heart attack at the same time. He put it back in park, thankfully. His first driving lesson.
And only four short years until I will be really saying goodbye. College years. My heart breaks just thinking about them. After all, this is my right hand man we're talking about here. My first born child. "Don't start crying, mom!" Isaac tells me every time I say that. And then, of course, that makes me want to cry even more. Isaac may be going through that typical fog called adolescence but he is my "little man." My helper. My confidante. When things are going crazy I can look at him, make a sarcastic remark, and hear his laugh (instead of the blank stares or attitude I get from the girls.) He has helped me take care of his sisters and dotes on his baby brother. He is passionate about reading just like I am. It still amazes him that I can pick a book for him and know that he will like it, even though he always looks skeptical. And then, of course, he loves it and can't wait to get to the library to check out the sequel or another by the same author.
The time has come to teach him all those things that I haven't gotten to...like all the popular songs when I was a teen, how to tie a tie, how to love an original and not a re-make, how to appreciate old black and white movies that have (gasp!) no special effects, and how to be a gentleman. The time has come to prepare for letting him handle responsibility on his own and....the consequences when he doesn't. The time has come to prepare myself. For hard talks. For difficult emotions. For silence. For goodbyes. For a new phase of life.
AGH!
(And yes, I did cry while writing this.)
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