Holy Moly, He’s 14!

Jonathon turned 14 on the 23rd. We started celebrating early, because the week of his birthday was busy for us and we didn’t want him to feel like he was forgotten. It was almost like Magical Birthday March. Two weeks early we took him out to dinner and then shopping with just us and Henry. We also went to see Rango the weekend before and then we took the whole family out to dinner on his actual birthday. He had presents from all directions and got everything that he wanted.

He chose the same cake he has every year. I know why though, it’s amazingly tasty. How can you beat a pan of brownies topped with Oreo ice cream and covered in hot fudge and more cookies?

Really, I am blown away by the fact that it has been 14 years since we entered the wild world of parenting. How can my very first little boy be so big?

Oh, the memories. Since I didn’t write any of this down when he was a kid, I am going to dig deep and write a few things about Jonathon that I still remember. Warning: This gets kind of long.

For the first year of his life, we lived in a two bedroom apartment with Steve’s brother Paul. I could put Jonathon in his swing and he would sleep for hours. Sometimes I had to force myself to turn it off and wake him up so that he would be able to sleep at night. He was such a good little boy, but I really had no clue at the time. I figured it out later though, after I had Thomas.

When he was a year old, we bought our first house. He had his own room, and his own TV and VCR. His collection of video tapes was quite extensive, and he watched his favorites over and over. He could name what movie we put in for him almost before the first image would appear on the screen. He amazed us when he learned how to work the VCR by himself, and just started  watching his movies whenever he wanted.

One day I found him sitting near an open window with his face pressed up against the screen whispering loudly to the outside world, “Somebody help me, please get me out of here.” I have no idea if he was acting out something from a movie, or if he really felt that he needed someone to come and save him. He sounded very convincing though, so I had to get him away from the window before someone actually heard him and called in the authorities.

Jonathon also learned the art of video game playing early on in life. It was so cute to watch him play. He started off slowly with computer games – one of his favorites was a Little Critter story game - but it wasn’t long before he had mastered the Playstation. Anyone who has spent any time with Jonathon knows that he loves talking about his latest game – now you know that it’s really our fault, we led him down that road.

Over the years, we have found that Jonathon does not really like to play sports. He has been on a team for soccer, T-ball, and basketball. He did not enjoy any of them but was a good sport and went to all his games and didn’t complain nearly as much as I did. I have been surprised this year, because he has been playing all sorts of games during PE and talks about how much he enjoys it.

Speaking of PE, it reminds me of a funny story. When Jonathon was in the 6th grade, he only had to go to PE once a week, but he still had to change into gym shorts and a T-shirt. He didn’t have an extra pair of tennis shoes, so he just wore his regular shoes in the gym. Well, when winter rolled around, he started to wear his snow boots to school. One day he came home and told me about how he had to play volleyball in his snow boots, because he didn’t remember to take his regular shoes to school. He said it was no big deal, but I felt so bad for him. The next week I made sure that he had his shoes in his backpack and sent him on his way. Later that day he came home and told me about how even though we had remembered the shoes, he forgot to wear regular socks. The morning was chilly, and so he had left the house in a pair of Steve’s heavy wooly winter socks. They were so big for Jonathon that they went up over his knees. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to him to take the socks off, but he didn’t. I just picture poor Jonathon running around the gym in his shorts with fat socks pulled up over his knees and the heel of the sock sticking out of the back of his shoes while he played. It cracks me up.

That is Jonathon for ya – or Jon as he is now called at school. He also goes by Lauer, Jonny, Jon Jon or just J. He reminds me so much of myself when I was his age. He loves art, especially drawing and in my opinion, he is very talented. He is usually in a pretty good mood and looks forward to life with excitement.I can always count on him to help me out when I need it.

There is so much more to write about him, but I will save it for another time.

Happy 14th Jonny – we love ya!