Happy birthday to you!!

Twice, I started writing about my son's birthday today. How hard could that be, anyway?

I'll tell you how hard. Jonathan is a great kid. Actually, that's not true, because he is hardly a "kid" anymore. As his mother, it's sometimes hard to see him as an almost adult. Yet when I hear his coaches say that he is a "fine young man," I still see the schoolboy that we would say that about. I frequently step back and look at him, trying to see the person others see. Sometimes it's possible, other times, not so much. Then again, sometimes he behaves like that schoolboy!

I took the day off work today, but he's on the football team, which started pre-season practice yesterday. Between his two practices today, he will work at the pool. Normally, we celebrate with a meal of the birthday person's choice, cake, ice cream, the whole deal. This morning when he left, I asked what--and when!--he'd like to eat today. "I'll text you," he said. We might see him before dark tonight. Next year, he may already be at college on his birthday, celebrating with new friends that are really still strangers. How quickly time has passed!

As I have mentioned, I always wanted to be a Mom. When Jonathan was born, I remember wondering just what I'd gotten myself into. Babies are tough to work with, and can be so stressful to live with! I loved him to pieces, but sometimes thought I was crazy to have ever wanted this for my life. It was frustrating that a "great day" was one in which I had managed to shower, dress and brush my teeth in the nine hours that Guy was gone. "It'll get easier," so many people kept telling me, but the truth is, it never gets easier, just different. There is so much to think about; so much to remember on any given day. Being a Mom is harder work than anything else I've ever done, and I can't imagine not having it as my true occupation; my calling.

I've talked about wanting to see results; to finish projects and let them go. At the same time, I would trade nothing about this Mom job. I do see the results of my work: the man Jonathan is becoming, and his brothers, too. And I see the woman I am ever evolving into, in many ways because of them. My kids as "projects"--a concept that many will most certainly find offensive, but it's just a word. They are individuals, of course, and in all honesty, I have very little to do with who they are, yet our influence indeed has molded them. True projects, I learned in writing two papers a month for two years, often take on a personality of their own and determine their own direction, no matter how hard you try to control the outcome. I love that about everything I work on, and especially about the boys. Jonathan has not arrived at a point I expected, or even would have wanted him to; instead, we have traveled a crazy path together to arrive at a really amazing place.

See what I mean? There are no words that adequately fit this day. Everything just misses. What's so important about birthdays and the people that we love that makes words not enough? Or is it just that the simple words can say so much? Words like:

Happy Birthday, Jonathan!

I love you!

Thank you for being my son.

I'm so proud of you.

I can't wait to see what's next.

Those are the things that really say everything about this Mom job, and about Jonathan being my "prototype." Thankfully, I think Guy and Jonathan know what I'm talking about. This job, the projects we work on, is based on love, and with that comes joy, pain, sorrow, hope, happiness, laughter--everything I could ever want out of life. It's all about the gravy.