The End of an Era…

And the winner for fuzziest cell phone photos posted to a blog is….!

Yeah, I know that even though I have a better camera in my new cell phone (with a flash even), I can’t hold it steady enough to get a good photo.  Yuck!  This is the after PhotoShop version.  That ought to tell you something.  The next one ain’t much better, either.

But, I really had to share this.  This adorable kid, who looks like a clone of  hubby, turned 13 today.  Yep.  The dreaded 1-3.  Of course, it is an incredible and happy milestone for him.  It’s almost like breaking new ground for me.  Now, I have TWO, count ‘em 1-2 teenage boys living under my roof.

I am still not caught up with their laundry after 14 and a half years of being their Mom!

I still can’t stand the slightly fuzzy upper lips that make me want to hold them down and wash their faces like I did when they were babies (I know, I know, it’s all supposed to happen, but….well….sigh.).

I still don’t get the fart humor.  It’s not that funny all these years later.  It was cute the first 400 times, but….

But, this is my baby.  It seems like just yesterday, he was curled up in my arms and we rocked, and rocked, and rocked.

Emotional, Mommy responses aside, he really is a great kid!  I am so proud of him.  He has big dreams and is far more confident that I have ever even dreamed of being.  He wants to go to Cornell University and be a Ornithologist.  How is that for a dream?  He came up with that 5 years ago.

He is also the King of Shameless Self Promotion and he has taught his poor ol’ Mom loads about how it’s done.  To that end, he also just casually mentioned that if I was going to write about his birthday and post pictures anyways….

The cake is a sculptured representation of Dunkin, a character/prop that kiddo uses in his videos over at EMagnusTV on YouTube.  He thought that everyone just might get a better idea about this post if you all just hop right over and watch his videos (yes, he has discovered Monty Python) and become a subscriber.  Of course, in his mind, this is all to help you….

See what I mean about Shameless Self Promotion?  But, seriously, this kid has a Flip Camera and an amazing imagination and no budget for props–you’ll see what I mean!

What can I say?   He is my kid and I am desperately proud of him.  But, he is growing up way too fast.  Sniff.