This morning I was on my knees, head down, hands clasped. This is not difficult. Not this part, anyway.
Please let me be a good mother to him. Let me raise him to be a good person, let him be kind and helpful and open and true. Help him be strong. Help him be happy. Help me to make the right decisions and above all let him know he is loved, always. No matter what.
Amen.
Today is the day! The day Henry turns ten, and the day I've had in the back of my mind since he was born, a day where I would exhale and realize that the younger years are over with and I no longer have to worry about cups with lids or cutting food or choosing clothing or holding hands because if I don't he will disappear.
He knows to wash his hands without having to be reminded and that it's pretty damned cool to get up early on Saturday morning and head downstairs to make toast and watch cartoons before the rest of the house awakens. He cries easily and laughs so loud. He is a full two inches taller than Ruth was when she turned ten and he likes anything with robots, pirates, chocolate or magic. He clears the table, cuts the grass, walks the dog, takes the garbage out and if we would only let him, start the car.
Pretty amazing, if you ask me.
I hope the next ten years are as wonderful, and I know they will be tough, since he's now in double-digit birthdays those teenage years are not far off. I can't picture him driving, or working somewhere, or starting his band, or having a girlfriend, though I have been an unintended first-hand witness to his efforts to wish a classmate a good summer while she signed his yearbook. She lives two streets away and Henry turns an absolute wicked shade of pink when I mention her name, but only on the tips of his ears. I can't imagine how it's going to feel when she breaks his heart.
I have a house full of people and his favorite foods on the birthday menu, which has not changed since he was old enough to answer when asked what he would like, somewhere around his third birthday. Spaghetti, chocolate cake with chocolate icing and chocolate sprinkles, and milk, please. Easy enough.
Happy Birthday, Henry Jacob. You are the greatest little boy in the whole entire world.
