It’s Friday evening.  I’m sitting on the big chair trying to ignore Noah and my nephew Wyatt drowning out my repeated requests to stop throwing the ball in the house for the dogs.  If Wyatt’s at my house and he and Noah are having fun, I hate to step in and stop the madness.  It just makes my heart swell.  Wyatt’s staying over tonight so we don’t have to pick him up in the morning (ostensibly – they live only a few miles away) on our way to year three of Hurricane Harbor, a water park about 45 minutes away.  The first year it was the four of us.  Last year Noah’s friend Cameron joined us, and so did his older brother Brian.  This year we’re bringing Sophia, who we actually ran into on year one.  Sophia is the daughter of Renee and Mike, NPHS class of 1989 (with me).  Noah has been friends with her since he was maybe 3 - in preschool.  Nobody has dimples like Sophia.  She and Noah are betrothed.  They have both been instructed that they are to go to college and get their degrees, sow their oats, get really good jobs and then meet back up to marry and buy a home where they grew up (and we will still be) and then when they are ready to have babies Sophia can stay home to raise them if she chooses.  Otherwise, Renee and I will trade-off babysitting.  It’s perfect!!

Hurricane Harbor tomorrow is to celebrate a milestone.  Something I said would never happen.  It’s Noah’s birthday and…let me breathe…he’ll be 13.  He’ll be a teenager.  A teenager!  With the exception of Krysta Jean, Jenna, Mark and Cameron it’s been of my opinion that teenagers really shouldn’t exist.  They’re self-absorbed, dress inappropriately, cross the street as slow as humanly possible, think they’re better than the old folks because they can (but shouldn’t) wear teeny tiny shorts that show things I frankly don’t want to see, and they’re just everywhere.  I told Noah long ago he wasn’t going to be allowed to be a teenager but it looks like he’s about to disobey me because in a few short hours he’ll be there.

A teenager.

What am I, in my 40s?  Why yes, yes I am.  I’ve lived a veritable lifetime.  I will have a teenager tomorrow.  By the time most of you read this I will have a teenager.  Thirteen plus a few days.  I have to take back everything I said about teens because Noah (mostly) is nothing like them.  He’s sweet and affectionate and clean and well-dressed and he’s kind and crosses streets quickly.  He has a lot of teenager down pat like the rolling of the eyes and the thinking he’s smarter than me and he’s sleeping longer and eating more.  It’s just – I can’t get past the 3-year-old boy hiding in the kitchen cabinet, answering, “I am!”  when I asked, “Where’s Noah?”  Or the barely 6-year-old boy walking into kindergarten without looking back.  Or the 5th grader collecting his Honor Roll Award.  Then there’s there’s the four-day school trip he left on, leaving me without any means of communication.  He loved it.  I cried.

Soon he’ll be dating and driving and going to parties at the homes of kids whose parents are out of town leaving their kid unattended (where they not ever 16?) and taking risks and making out with random chicks and the next think you know he’ll be gone.  Living in a dorm somewhere, forging lifelong friendships while earning a degree.  Like today I will struggle to make peace that the Noah I will be looking at (whether 18 or 13) is the same Noah that was placed in my arms somewhere close to 11:00 pm on Wednesday, August 4, 1999.

I have loved every moment, every phase, every age of Noah’s life and look forward to see what he’s like in the future, my sweet funny boy.  For now, though, I must first make peace with myself, the mother of a teenager.