Zach's Birthday. . .

I've been putting off this post about Zach's birthday because I've had all kinds of deep thoughts about it and I've wavered back and forth about whether or not I should go on and on and on about my baby turning 17. So, I guess I'll just start typing and see if I keep it light or if it makes me cry. It could go either way.

I usually try not to blather on about how great my kids are because every mother thinks her kids are the greatest. Every mother should think her kids are the greatest. And the smartest. And the cutest. Etc. But. . . it's my blog and it's my baby turning 17, so I guess I'll just blather. . .

Zach and I have always been close. He was 5 weeks premature and came home after 11 days in NICU on an apnea monitor. He would occasionally forget to breathe and his monitor would beep. It would also beep if he cried too hard, if he wiggled too much or if a connection was a little loose. Needless to say, I didn't put him down very much during his first year of life. We bonded. Totally.

(Stop reading now if blather makes you feel nauseous. . . )

Now that he's 17, I can look back on his life and honestly say he's an amazing kid. I can count on one hand the things he did that could really be considered naughty:

1. He wrote on the wall with a black crayon when he was about three.

2. He refused to come out of the McDonald's Play Place when he was four.

3. He said "dammit" on spilling a box full of crayons when he was about six. (OK, this was more funny than naughty. . . )

4. In first grade he got in a bit of trouble for bullying a kid. One time.

5. (I'm sure there's a fifth one but I can't think of it right now. . . )

He's not perfect by any means. . . He spends way too much time with his electronics, he occasionally forgets to do things I've asked him to do, he enjoys teasing his sister AND he cleans his room by pushing things around the edges but, for the most part, he's a really good kid.

I could list hundreds of good things about him, but I won't. But I will list some of them. Because it's my blog:

1.He's smart. He has been very easy to home school because he is self-motivated and self-directed. For example, this summer he picked up Tolkien's Silmarillion and dissected it by making color-coded maps and lists of characters for his own enjoyment. He spent time learning to write in Elvish and spent many hours sketching Tolkien-like characters in his drawing book.

2.He helps around the house without complaining. Seriously. I can leave him a list of things to do and when I come home at the end of the day, it's all done. It's not always done the way I would do it but the house has stayed "clean" this summer without a huge amount of effort on my part.

3.This summer he was "crew" on our events. He's helped out in the past, but this summer I've been able to count on him to lift heavy objects and work long hours. He has a tendency to move a little slow but he doesn't complain no matter what kind of task we throw at him.

4.He makes me laugh. I enjoy having a conversation with him. We talk about serious stuff but he also comes up with off-the-wall things that just crack me up.

5.He takes his Bible everywhere. He doesn't read it to thump people with it, he reads it as history (for the battles, especially) as literature (he likes to point out "interesting" phrases) and, of course, to study for Bible Quizzing. It's not unusual to see him sitting off to the side at one of our events reading his Bible. This summer at High School camp, he decided he might want to be a pastor when he grows up. I think he'd be good at it.

So. . . it's hard to grasp the fact that Zach is 17 and almost grown up. It's hard to imagine that I'll only have his company at home for two more years and then he'll be making his own way. It's hard to imagine that I'm old enough to have a 17 year-old!! It won't be long before he'll start to say he's almost 18. . .

On a lighter note. . . :

Zach's actual birthday was on Saturday, August 29th. We drug it out over three days in order to really celebrate. Poor kid, went to the mall with his family. We had a really nice time. . .

After dinner at the mall we went to Wahooz Family Fun Center and played laser tag!!

I didn't think I'd like running around in the dark with strangers shooting at me but I actually had a really good time!!

We played about 9 rounds of miniature golf. . .

. . . before we got rained out and had to head inside. . .

We ended up receiving a rain-check to come back another time even though we were able to have a couple of hours of fun in spite of the weather. . .

We continued to celebrate on Sunday with my side of the family . . .

On Monday evening we continued partying with the Bakers. . .

It was a Guitar Hero party!!

We'll have one more party up at the cabin in September with a few friends, but for now I'm going to pretend that he just turned 14 and I'm barely 40 . . . For at least the next 10 years. . .