Tuesday’s Tribute: #1Son

Jay and Deb’s writ­ing exer­cise, Tuesday’s Trib­ute, chal­lenges blog­gers to pause and remem­ber that it is not all about them. Rather, each Tues­day, par­tic­i­pants “shine a light on some­one else.”

I started writ­ing a lengthy post about my old­est child. I was going to tell you what a hand­some young man he is. But I decided to sim­ply let you see for yourself.

Class of 2005: Senior photo out­door pose, with Sophie.

I was going to tell you that he was an adorable, bright-eyed, inquis­i­tive and happy lit­tle boy, but decided to show you instead.

Christ­mas 1990.

One of my all-time favorite photos!

I planned to brag about what a won­der­ful big brother he is to Mat­tieBoo, but con­cluded that these pho­tos would demon­strate the point.

He is also quite a prankster, as this photo illustrates:

I didn’t real­ize until laster, when review­ing the pho­tos, that as I snapped shots of Mat­tieBoo wear­ing a tux for the first time, #1Son was mak­ing faces in the door­way! What a stinker!

Occa­sion­ally, he sets a bad exam­ple for his younger brother, encour­ag­ing him to misbehave.

“Mat­tieBoo, hide your face or you’ll end up on her blog again!”

Like all par­ents, there are times when I wish he would be a bit more ambi­tious.  As on this Sun­day after­noon when he was not par­tic­u­larly enthu­si­as­tic about assist­ing with laundry.

But to be fair, there have been times when he has been forced to be a good sport.

Really … what was I thinking?

I believe that true char­ac­ter is revealed by the man­ner in which an indi­vid­ual treats his/her elders. #1Son always cared for his grand­moth­ers with­out hav­ing to be asked to assist … and misses them terribly.

With Mat­tieBoo and their Nana (my mother, Ethel) on Christ­mas Day 2002.

In June 2001, #1Son found Buddy via the Pets ‘n’ Pals web­site and absolutely insisted that we pay a visit to the shel­ter the next morn­ing to meet him. We only agreed in order to pacify him. But I’ll never for­get his reac­tion when the man­ager got very excited because we were there to con­sider adopt­ing Buddy, whom she termed “the sad­dest lit­tle dog in the shel­ter.” #1Son looked at me with his “I told you so” expres­sion and I knew that Buddy would be the newest mem­ber of the family.

Hav­ing a late-night conversation.

It is hard to believe that yes­ter­day he cel­e­brated his 22nd birth­day. Like all moth­ers, I miss the days when he used to run to me the moment he glimpsed my arrival at his school or a friend’s house to pick him up. Occa­sion­ally, when he is speak­ing, I remem­ber the higher-pitched lit­tle boy voice that used to call out for “Mama!” instead of the manly one that booms “Mother!” or, when he’s feel­ing snarky, “Juanita,” from the other end of the house. When he hugs me, I recall how shocked I was the first time I real­ized that he had grown as tall as me:  He grinned proudly as we noted that we were look­ing at each other exactly at eye level.

As he walks around the house with Patrick Dempsey-esque stub­ble, I am reminded of the day my mother stroked his chubby lit­tle cheeks as she rocked him, say­ing, “Just think … some day he’ll be shav­ing these soft lit­tle cheeks.” My sis­ter and I groaned and rolled our eyes in exas­per­a­tion, say­ing, “Oh, good grief, Mother, he’s just a baby! Give us a break!” But now I under­stand that she knew how fast the time would pass. If she were here, she’d laugh and tell us — yet again — “See? You girls should have lis­tened to your old mother!”

#1Son, along with his brother, groans and rolls his eyes at me just as I did my own mother, espe­cially when I do “The Time Warp” on Hal­loween, turn up the vol­ume when a disco anthem is played on the radio, rem­i­nisce about things that hap­pened before he was born, or reach up and pinch his stub­bly cheeks just to annoy him. He thrives on his unfail­ing abil­ity to drive his father bonkers. I fre­quently hear Big­Bob com­plain that he’s “just like your mother!”  It’s true.  While Mat­tieBoo is a vir­tual dupli­cate of his dad, #1Son def­i­nitely favors my side of the fam­ily.  He looks like and has my father’s man­ner­isms, but views the world much the way I do and unde­ni­ably has my tem­pera­ment. That’s prob­a­bly why the things we enjoy doing together include watch­ing “The Daily Show,” “The Col­bert Report,” “Real Time with Bill Maher,” and Penn and Teller’s series on Showtime.

But also like me, Big­Bob would not change a thing about our #1Son. Like his brother, he is a gift from God.

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