ril's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Strange Reflections Strange Reflections Today is The Boy�s 12th birthday� and, even though he�s 12, I still love him� I am not normally very fond of most of 10-13 year old males I�ve had the opportunity to encounter in my life (soccer coach, primary teacher at church, Boy Scout leader, etc.)� the thing is that somewhere around this age they go prompt stupid� and their maturity, manners, and intellect don�t ordinarily resurface for about 5-10 years. Most parents make exceptions for their own children� which, I suppose, is nature�s way of ensuring the survival of the species� because otherwise none of them would live long enough to reproduce� I not exactly like that� I recognize my kids for what they are� and just spend a lot of time praying that they�ll grow out of it before I can no longer resist the urge to� well, I�m sure you get the idea� But The Boy is different� he just is� and he always has been� He�s a really cool kid. Someone I�ve always connected with, even when he was very, very small. To begin with he�s exceptionally intelligent (and although I have significant objective proof, you�ll just have to take my word for it)� he has one of the most amazingly vocabularies for a child� and he�s wonderfully entertaining to talk to� he�s got a great heart and a gentle spirit� all in all, I just really love the kid� The problem is that, as he gets older, he has begun to look more and more like me� to an unnatural degree (IMHO)� he is getting old enough now, that I have fairly vivid memories of my own self at his age� and (especially since I only see him 2-3 times a year these days) each time I see him he manages to startle me� His looking like me is not necessarily a bad thing (from a wordly point of view that is)� I mean, I am not happy about the way that I look, but that is primarily because I�ve allowed myself to get to be too big to be happy about the way that I look)� but it sure is scary� at least to me� My family is amused by the whole thing. They�ve all acknowledged the obvious, and have even gone as far as breaking out the old family photos to compare the younger me and The Boy� I am not� I�m not saying that I�m not proud of him (I obviously am)� I�m not even saying that at least some portion of that pride isn�t because my son looks so much like me (it is)� What I�m saying is that I feel an awful lot like Bruce Willis� character must have in The Kid. Looking across the table at �yourself� is enough to make the mind work overtime� I wonder what he will look like when he�s 40� I wonder if he�ll have a son of his own (who will look so much like the both of us)� I wonder what I�ll look like when he�s 40� Anyway� today is his 12th birthday� and I�m thankful we�ve had the opportunity to spend it together� - 2003-06-07 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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