When you wake up in the morning, nothing will have changed but somehow it feels like everything will be different.  There is so much anticipation in your voice when you speak of turning twelve, so much desire to be a young man instead of my boy child.  This is a first for both of us – your first experiments in growing up, my first experiments in parenting.  We’re both known to screw up, so I thought it wise to lay some things out on the table, to ease the pain as we move forward.

First, I get the hair thing.  I understand why you back away when I nervously ruffle your Justin-Bieber-do, or why you push my hand away as it approaches your head while you’re trying to make plans with your friends.  I spent my middle school years tethered to a curling iron determined to have the perfect feathered wings.  I wanted to fly, just like you. 

 Second, I see the way you hesitate when I suggest you invite your friends to our house to hang out.  I can read between the lines enough to know it isn’t nearly as cool to be here as there - anywhere that means you can experiment with who you want to be without a parent or a sister giving you our opinion.  I know what you want most in life at this moment is to be like everyone else, to fit in, to be the go-to-guy for sleepovers, to be picked for the team.  I still feel that way some days.

I have given up trying to win the cool mom contest, we have rules and I know that makes you mad.  When you have to put on your bike helmet and the rest of your friends go whizzing down the street without one, tell them that it’s your stupid overprotective parents that make you wear it.  Blame it all on me, I don’t care.  I grew up without rules.  I know what that feels like.  Rules may be tough to deal with some days, but having no rules feels much worse in the end.

Sometimes,  I will rescue you.  Like this morning when you called from school. “Somehow my shorts got ripped up the front and it’s so embarrassing. Can you please bring me a new pair?”  And even though the answer that you had no idea how they got ripped seemed highly unlikely, I still brought you clean jeans and saved you from social ruin.  But sometimes, I am not going to come.  As hard as it is for me to step back, there will be more and more times in the future when you are going to have to learn to rescue yourself.  I may have to lock myself up to keep from saving you every time, but I promise that I won’t.

About all those notes in your pockets.  You may want to try a little harder to remember to take them out before you throw your clothes in the laundry.  I’m trying really hard not to read them, but every once in awhile I admit I sneak a peek.  Just to make sure you’re holding your own.  Man, those sixth grade girls are manipulative.  Remember, I used to be one.  I still get how it works.  And, I remember how much a middle school social life can hurt.  I know you don’t want to talk to me about it, but I hope you know I understand.

Finally, and I know you won’t be able to look me in the eye when I say this, I am so proud of who you are becoming.  You do make some really bad mistakes, which leads to some major anger on my part.  I momentarily feel like I have failed and am scared that this is a precursor of the future.  Then, after you have had time to process, you surprise me once again with your ability to own your mistakes and apologize.  If that’s all you learn in this world, to admit when you have made a mistake and say you are sorry, you will have learned a greater lesson than many adults ever do.  Underneath that perfect hair, that dude-ish attitude, and those baggy shorts, beats the heart of one of the most sensitive twelve year old young men I will ever have the pleasure of knowing.

There is so much waiting for you out there, just don’t be in a hurry to discover it all at once.  

Happy birthday.  I love you.

Mom

P.S. I promise I won’t embarrass you by bringing cupcakes to your homeroom.