Rant #317: A Very Special Day

Today is a very special day in my family.

Today is my son's 15th birthday.

Ah, to be 15 again! Actually, I don't think I want to go back to that time in my life. It wasn't as much fun as perhaps I want it to be now.

But for my son, 15 looks to be a great age. He has gotten a lot taller, more athletic, and smarter.

He is still a kid, albeit a big one, but is moving toward manhood full steam. Heck, he shaves!

This year is actually a big year for him. He enters high school, and he knows it's not kid stuff anymore. He knows he has to continually work hard, and he will work harder than he ever has now that he is in the top reaches of his secondary public school education.

My wife and I were reminiscing about our son's birth yesterday. We remember everything just like it was yesterday: the exact moment we decided to go to the hospital, his actual birth (yes, I was there to see it), and one funny incident.

My son was just born, probably a few minutes old and a few minutes removed from the umbilical chord, which it was my duty to cut. Anyway, shorn of that life line, the doctor first gave him to my wife to hold. She was pretty weak at this point, so they too him from her and gave him to me to hold.

I remember that I walked out of the room and into the hallway of the expectant mother area of the hospital (Winthrop Hospital, Mineola, New York) with glee. After having had a daughter seven years earlier, I now had a son. My "nuclear family" was now complete.

As I walked out with boundless joy, a nurse from out in left field screamed at me, "Get that baby back in the room!"

I honestly didn't even realize that I left the room with my wife still on the table. I was so happy that I guess I didn't know where I was at the time.

Anyway, the rest is history.

He has grown up to be a fine boy. He has his faults, and he has a learning disability which we work on seemingly all the time.

But he is a typical 15 year old boy. He loves sports (as I mentioned several posts ago, he ran track this past spring), girls, his iPod Touch, his computer, and ketchup and chocolate ... maybe not in that order, but he loves them all.

And I think he loves his parents. I don't know if he can tell us that flat out, but I think he does.

I know that he respects his older sister to the nth degree. He is so impressed with her going to, and graduating from, college, that he has declared that even though he has some learning difficulties, he wants to do exactly what she did.

And I wouldn't put it past him.

But right now he is 15, so he is a few years away from doing that. Let him get through high school and we will pick it up from there.

But again, my wife and I worry about him, like any parent worries about their kids, but I really feel the sky is the limit for him.

Let's see how he progresses. I can't wait.