I was gonna blog about things that annoy me, there are so many, but instead I figured I'd blog about something that makes me happy. There is this one that makes me so happy I feel that I could just burst and his name is PJ. He's my 13 year old son. Well ok he's 12 but he's turning 13 Sunday.
When I was first married my then husband and I had a hard time getting pregnant, to the point that I'd given up. I didn't want to go the fertility pill route or anything more drastic than that, there's nothing wrong with it but it just wasn't for me. For me I figured if I was meant to have a kid it would happen and since it wasn't...well that was a pretty clear answer. I gave up. I even got used to the idea of not having children and I figured that the pro's for it was that I'd have ultimate freedom. No worries. No stress and no responsibility. Of course that's exactly when I got pregnant and the second I found out all that other stuff was just bullshit. I remember we'd just moved into our townhouse, I'd just finished painting the entire thing myself and I began feeling not normal. I remember buying the pregnancy test, it was a special 2 for 1 sale, and the girl behind the counter smiled and asked me what I wanted the results to be, I said negative. I actually believed that too. I was utterly convinced I was ok with being childless for the rest of my life. I didn't tell my husband that I'd bought the test, I didn't want to get his hopes up for nothing and I was convinced it was going to be negative. Well sorta. There was this little, tiny voice telling me that this was the test that was going to change the rest of my life in ways I could not imagine. At this time we had a new puppy and my husband was getting up @5am to let her outside to do her thang so I figured I'd go take the test. It only takes a few minutes to get the results and when I saw the 2 lines I nearly passed out! I kept rubbing my eyes, figuring I was sleeping or something and when my husband came upstairs I asked him if he saw 1 or 2 lines and when he said TWO? I cried and told him he was going to be a daddy. Thing was I was BARELY pregnant, when I went to the doctor (after taking FIVE pregnancy tests) and was asked when I'd last had my period I said the prior month I got a look. Then the doctor came in and she asked me why in the world I would think I was pregnant when I wasn't even really concidered late for my period that month, I just had a feeling I told her, plus 5 pregnancy tests. She laughed and took blood for a definitive test and said she'd call the next day. I was at work the next day and I told them that any calls for me I was to be immediately notified so I could take it. The call came at just after 6pm and the nurse said, "We don't know how you knew but yes, you're pregnant. Barely 2 weeks but the test came out positive. Congratulations." and I just cried. My boss was quite concerned and when I told him he gave me a hug and the rest of the night off.
My pregnancy was uneventful thank god, I didn't even vomit once but was really tired almost the entire first trimester. I mean not being able to work tired 'cos I was falling asleep standing tired. That's pretty damned tired! I got through it though. One thing I remember from the pregnancy test morning was waiting for 7am so I could call my mother and tell her she was FINALLY going to be a grandmother. She laughed and said just the day before at work she'd said she gave up on ever being a grandma...little did she know! So my pregnancy went well, the ultrasound was a hoot 'cos he just laid there and showed his winky so we'd know he was a he...made the tech laugh. "He really wants you to know he's a boy." He said. I was thrilled because if I had to be honest? I soooo wanted a boy! Being a tomboy my entire life I was unsure I'd be able to raise a girly girl and was utterly convinced (and still am) that I'd have had a girly girl. So I had a boy, 23rd October 1998 at 3:23pm, he weighed 7lbs 9oz and measured in at a whopping 23 inches long. They didn't show him to me right away, he was a c-section because when I'd had a late pregnancy ultrasound he seemed to be well over 10 pounds so we'd planned the c-section. However we didn't plan for me to bleed out. I have absolutely no memory of this, I didn't even learn of this for the next 2 years until friends of ours had their first baby and my husband told me! Personally I think it was the doctor's job to tell me I nearly fucking died giving birth! So I had PJ and an hour later when they put him in my arms...I looked at the face of the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my entire life. My baby boy. Instantly and without a doubt I was in love. There was nothing I'd not do for this baby, nothing I wouldn't protect him from and I'd always be in his corner. I never knew such a love could even exist, I understood my own mother in a second in a way I couldn't have until I held my own child. There is nothing like the love a mother has for her child.
As PJ grew that love grew of course, I watched the baby turn into a toddler with enough personality for 12 toddlers and then I watched that toddler turn into a kid. I'd say he was an average, normal American kid but my PJ has never been average or normal a day in his life and I've not raised him to reach for that. He is exceptional. To me. To his family. When he was little and didn't know a word for what he was feeling he'd just make one up. He was never hungry, he was empty. He was never thirsty, he was drinky. He was a ham, a comedian and a poet at 3 years old when he'd take his dad's microphone and sing lyrics he was making up as he went, and his mom was on the sofa writing it all down. I have to say some of what he said was beyond his years, way beyond. When he was 7 he wrote 3 songs that I still have, that contained emotions that should have been well beyond him. One song in particular made my heart ache. He's always been artistic and I always thought that he'd be a musician but at 6 years old he discovered Star Wars, George Lucas and movies. Since then, even though he wrote poems/lyrics, he was determined to be the next George Lucas. He's been writing his own sci-fi show or film (he's not decided which yet) since he was 6 years old and the things he's come up with? Massive. I find it impossible that the person I gave life to was this talented. I always knew he was special. He's turning 13 in less than a week and plans on going to university, he's torn between Columbia College here in Chicago and Northwestern University, which is said to have an excellent film program. He is determined to be a huge star, a movie star first and then a director. However he says if the acting doesn't work for him he won't be that upset, he'll just make films. I look at this young man, puberty has taken him over in the past year, growing him over 6 inches, deepening his voice, putting hair where there wasn't hair a year ago, and am amazed at how utterly convinced he is of his future. How hard he works towards his future. For Christmas I'm buying him a video camera, put his feet well and truly on the road to success.
To say I'm proud of my child is ridiculous because it goes much further than that. He's a good kid, a good person with a huge heart, a brain he uses and the ability to meld the two...something most adults cannot do. He's more politically savvy than 99% of the adults around him, has his own opinions on everything from religion to politics to what we're gonna have for dinner and no, McDonalds is not happening tonight. :o) He is a most impressive young man, I'm not nearly as together at 44 as he is at nearly 13 and it's just not fair! lol I mean I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up!
So I sit here and look at this beautiful creature that I'm told is my son and my entire being is filled with an emotion so much stronger than love that there isn't a word strong enough to describe it. How I've raised him as well as I have is a marvel, because I'd never have believed 13 years ago that I would be a good mom much less the best mom in the world (PJz words, not mine)! He's not perfect, nobody is, but in my eyes he's as close to perfection than any human being has a right to be. I'm proud of myself that he's not afraid to tell me everything going on in his life, that's going on in his head, and sometimes it's hard to hear. He's just like most kids who are different, he's gone through being bullied but now since he's so big everyone leaves him alone, but he remembers how it hurt to be bullied and he refuses to let anyone around him be bullied. I saw online today that a beautiful teenage boy killed himself last Friday, because he was gay and felt he had nobody, that is the last thing I want for my son, to feel alone like that. My heart cries for that boy because he was wrong, it DOES get better. We've mostly all been there, felt that pain, been bullied, and we got through it. I'm not making any judgement on his parents, my heart hurts for their loss, I just wish he knew they'd understand and would have done anything to help him. I've told my PJ since he was a toddler that there is nothing that the two of us cannot make it through, that I'm always in his corner, that I'd fight for him until the day I die and beyond. I mean I've pounded this into his skull over and over again and when in fifth grade he came to me because the bullying had gotten so bad he was considering suicide, he saw how fierce his mom is in defending him. At the end of that school year he had enough confidence to push the bully onto his ass and to tell him if he ever gets in his face again he'll get worse than being pushed onto his ass, the kid believed him and has not even looked at him wrong since. I cannot even allow myself to think what would have happened 2 years ago if he didn't know to come to me when he was being bullied because I'd help him, and I refuse to allow myself to go there. He made it through that. He doesn't care over much for Lady Gaga's music, a few songs here and there he likes, but he says he appreciates how she stands up for kids who are being bullied and how strong of a message she has for them. He's convinced she's saved more lives than she'll ever know about. I love Lady Gaga for fighting for kids like my son, who are bullied, and don't have someone in their corner to fight for them. Plus she makes some good, butt-wiggling music too!
So here's PJ, in 7th grade, taller than me with a voice as deep as his dad's. I look at him and am filled with pride, love and awe. I birthed me a beautiful baby boy who is turning himself into a spectacular human being and that I will not take responsibility for because whilst I may have laid the ground-work for it, he's done the hard work, made the right decisions and continues to try to be the best person he knows how to be. He doesn't care who sees him hug me in public, kiss my cheek in public and say I love you in public...I'm his mom and he loves me and wants the world to know it. How lucky am I?!!
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