Happy 16, Boy Teenager

Birthday cake!

This morning just before 4:00 my second born child, my son, turned 16. I wasn't ready for this. In fact, I'm pretty much in denial that it happened.

Never did I agree to my little boy getting old enough to be on his own. I know he's not there yet, but turning 16 is the first step towards Official Independence. I remember the first time Amazing Grace drove out of the driveway all by herself & I stood there watching her, crying into hubby's shoulder. It's the beginning of not needing Mom. The next step is moving off to college 5 hours away and living on their own, eating ice cream for breakfast and Ramen for lunch every day, & not sanitizing their bathroom or washing their sheets weekly. It means "Goodbye, Mom" & I'm not ready to let go & have my heart live that far away from me.

So I'm sitting here thinking about how it's just not possible that Boy Teenager is 16. It's just not. He was just 4 years old telling everyone that when he grew up he was going to drive a big truck and marry his Mommy.

Darn candles, Boy Teenager just
couldn't blow them out.

It all started when he was 6 & told me I couldn't hold his hand in public anymore & hugs & kisses good-bye at his school were completely banned because "I'm not a Mama's boy, Mommy." The day he said that while on the way into his school I should have scooped him up, threw him over my shoulder, & ran as fast as I could far, far away from Time. Just put that little boy in a bubble where Time couldn't get him & he'd hold my hand & give me hugs forever.

Why oh why didn't I run with him that day?

Since I didn't run, I have to deal with him getting older & I just don't wanna, darn it.

Well, actually since you can't hide from Time, I have to deal with him getting older whether I want to or not, darn it.

So I made him the Birthday dinner that he requested, corned beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, & asparagus. And I got him the cake that he requested, peanut butter cup DQ cake. And since there was no school today for parent teacher conferences, I let him do what he wanted to all day. And I even let him eat in front of his computer so he didn't have to interrupt his game to eat, even though I really wanted to eat his Birthday dinner with him. I did tell him he had to give me a Birthday hug in order to eat dinner at his computer, something I don't allow, & he gave me a look I've seen before. I said, "It doesn't have to be a full hug. Any form of hug that gives me at least one full arm." I got a one armed hug & a thank you & smiles over the dinner I made. I'll take that.

They just kept relighting on their own.
I swear they weren't trick candles. 

But I did all of that, celebrating a day that I didn't want to believe was happening. It's kind of an odd, unexplainable feeling to be celebrating when you actually wish you could turn back time & not be at this point yet. I wanted to say, "Wait, this is happening too fast. Can we slow down a wee bit & Time can catch up with me when I'm ready to let him go?" I didn't say it. I celebrated & now I have a 16 year old son who is beginning down that road to Official Independence.

Blondie had a couple friends over because they were getting ready together for the dance they had tonight. As I was getting the cake out, I asked a random child to grab me the Birthday candles out of the drawer. Turned out it wasn't my child, but she figured out which drawer they were in.

She handed me a box of Birthday candles & I thought they looked funny but I still put them on the cake. Poor Boy Teenager. No matter how hard he blew, some of those candles stayed lit and some of them relit on their own. Boy Teenager was laughing while I swore they weren't trick candles. They really weren't.

I showed him the box, which I remembered my niece had left here from her Birthday. She had grabbed a bag of candles at my Mom 2's house & brought them over to show me, because like all little kids she finds odd stuff amusing.

"Come on, Mom, those were
trick candles."

My Mother in-law is known for saving things that have memories of her son tied to them. If my hubby touched it or looked at it, she's got it packed away in the attic & remembers exactly when hubby held it in his little hands or batted his eyelashes at it. I figured the candles must have been bought for one of his Birthday cakes & she just couldn't bare to use them because of the memory, but when we looked them up, they are even older than hubby. They're vintage. 

These candles are from the 60's. 1960's candles. I'm not so sure I didn't just serve my family and kids' friends cake that had had burning lead candles on it. Who knows what they put in candles back in the olden hippie days.

This was an unopened box
of candles from
1960-something...

...until I decided to put
them on my son's cake
in 2014. 

I didn't want to scare him away so
I snuck right next to him & had
hubby quickly take a picture.
That's him working hard to not
smile at his Mom's antics.

Not only did I put hippie candles--possibly made from lead or patchouli or LSD--on the cake, but the cake itself was hijacked before I even got it home. When I stopped at DQ to get the cake, one of Amazing Grace's friends was in there eating. She ran up & told the guy to write on the cake that it was from her. Boy Teenager was amused when he saw it.

She could have at least helped me out & paid for it if she was going to take the credit for the cake.