Teenagers . . . a whole new kind of unpredictable species!

Every year on each of my children’s birthdays, we have a tradition (other than the dreaded birthday bumps) that I look forward to as much as they tell me they do.  I tell them about the day they came in to my life.  But, this year I’ve been kind of fretting about whether my oldest would still want to hear his birth story. 

Why you wonder? 

Well, because today he’s a teenager.  And, . . . teenagers are different, aren’t they?  

They’re a whole new kind of unpredictable species to me. 

Nice and gregarious one minute then brooding and silent the next.  Gone is my sweet and innocent little boy who lived for Barney and Thomas the Tank Engine.  Now, he’s all in to Family Guy and dare I say it, but Mfriggin’ TV!!  The little boy who dreamed of becoming a roller coaster designer now wants to go in to architecture or graphic design.  The child who only ate Amy’s organic soy mac ‘n’ cheese for a whole year now is eating me out of house and home, inhaling everything in his sight.  His sweet, lilting voice that used to tell me all about which roller coaster was the highest and which was the fastest is now showing the beginning signs of deepening.  And, the little guy who used to be up every morning with the sun is now sleeping later and later!

Gulp!  He’s changing in to a young man before my eyes and I can’t stop it.  I just need to go with it . . . and study and learn all about this strange, new species in my house, right?

So, yesterday I was joking around with him about becoming a teen.  About how much he has and will change when I  thought it a good opportunity to gage the new species’ interest in said family tradition.  I managed to blurt out how I thought that this year he would be too mature to listen to the story about the day he was born.  Anxious for a response, I didn’t have to wait long because my teenager stopped in his tracks, looked up at me with those same beautiful blue eyes that greeted me when we first met in the delivery room and said, “of course I want to hear it Mom!”

And, my heart melted.

But do ye see what I mean about teens?  A whole different species!