Here's to Year 15

Recently we celebrated my son's fifteenth birthday.  It's been a bit of an emotional time for me.

I spent a lot of the time as Elijah's birthday approached fighting off the inevitable grief that shows up around my children's milestones.  I've raised him entirely as a solo parent.  All he knows of his dad is what others tell him.  He often asks what I believe his father would think of him; but never more than around his birthday.  For sure Thomas would tell me how right he was about how strong Elijah would be.  My son is loving, protective, kind, curious, creative, athletic, funny and growing nicely in his faith.   Like a lot of teenagers smack dab in the middle of puberty, he can also be a bit of a smart aleck. I sometimes try to imagine the war going on between his brain cells.  Humility battling it out with crankiness in a puff of smoke like those old cartoons.  As it moves it interrupts the battle between cooperative and contrary who can't decide whose turn it is to respond to my saying it is time to fill in his notes after my World History presentation. 

Thomas would have loved Elijah's desire to learn about Christ though, especially his curiosity about spiritual warfare and prayer.  He'd want to be the one having these conversations with Elijah and frankly, I would love that too.  But he's inspired me to keep digging in these areas, which I can appreciate.  There's a definite fatigue when it comes to battling things out in prayer that I can't afford to feed without Thomas here.  Elijah's always been determined to protect me; but while he and his sister have switched roles as far as who's the protector and who's protected, I understand he's under my protection.  These moments are in a long list of the ones we have to have as he grows up where I trudge through saddled with the reality that I'm one person. 

I love who is becoming though.  He is strong.  He never backs down from a challenge even when it's tempting. I often tell him I admire that in him and his father would admire it too.   He may rant about it though.  Every now and then during an Algebra lesson he needs about five minutes to rant about the presence of letters in Math even though for years he's been clear on why they're there.  He still wants to know why every writing lesson can't be centered upon one of his favorite soccer players.  Do I tell him that none of them are and that I bring them up while presenting a new concept to make it more enjoyable? Nope he hasn't complained yet that after the first couple of days, the subject will switch from the Premier League to something random like the invention of the steam engine.  The exception is the soccer pitch.  He doesn't rant about issues on the soccer field even though the other kids are getting bigger and faster.  He says he no longer worries about how big an opponent is because he can't change it and he can get faster.  I can't say I have come that far with regards to the size of the other players; but the first season of high school soccer said, "Get it together woman!" I expect he would always just keeps going whether it is on the soccer field, in math class or in general life. I'm trying to encourage him to rest when he needs to when it comes to soccer, math class and in general life.

The older my son gets, the more I appreciate the life lessons in sports.  At the end of the year banquet, both of his school coaches mentioned his decision making, determination, physicality, and quickness.  One Coach in particular mentioned how even when opponents may think they've gotten away from him that he would run them down.  He's had good coaching over the time he's played soccer.  And these school coaches have shown themselves to be upstanding gentlemen of faith which is good for Elijah.  But a lot of that comes from the hard work he has put into harnessing in grown speed.  That has come from research into individual training, injury prevention, food and nutrition and how spirituality can help him on the field.  He's using methods he first learned and can continue to implement in our home school.  He wasn't sure of the purpose of "fact finding" lessons at one point.  That tide turned when he needed some information for something super important to him.  

Watching this development brought me back to him being in elementary school and his teachers complaining that he only wanted to read about dinosaurs, animals, and space.  Those are the things we read about at home.  I prided myself on supporting teachers so I would agree to talk to him and I would follow through on that promise.  It was one of many factors though that contributed to my decision to bring him home for school.  Once we began home school I stocked our shelves with books about dinosaurs, animals and space.  Dealing with Dyslexia was already fostering a dislike of the written word, I wasn't going to complain about what he wanted to read about when he was nine.  I was desperate to foster a positive relationship with written words before he fully transitioned from the "learning to read" phase to "reading to learn" phase.  Now, along with animals, dinosaurs and space,  his reading interests include military history, African Mythology, food, nutrition, fitness and he has started his journey reading through the bible. 

God how I love this guy.  Everyday of the last fifteen years has been a privilege, including the ones where he was driving me up the proverbial wall.  As a soccer mom I am often really cold, really hot, a bit tired, nervous, ecstatic, proud and a few other things like a one person wall during individual training on free kicks.  So as Elijah's mom, I am all of those things as well.  But I am absolutely never bored.    And I'm grateful.  I'm so incredibly grateful.