Michael Turns TWELVE!

In the blink of an eye, my oldest turned twelve!  Honestly, I can't believe it.  Michael is the child who paves the parenting path for us.  Everything he does, is our first.  Our first time with a twelve year old and the official year-long countdown begins until we have a teenager!

Michael continues to be a conscientious, sensitive, loving, passionate, sports loving, creative, fiesty, and wonderful son.  As the roads on the parenting path continue to lead us to beautiful green pastures, the occasional dead end, and many forks in the road- Michael is making his way down the right path and we are so proud of him.

As a twelve year old, Michael's favorite sports are soccer and basketball.  He will play one more year of baseball but we suspect he will hang up his baseball cleats after that.  He loves most foods but despises broccoli and peas.  I usually cook them last when preparing dinner or Michael will detect their smell, run into the kitchen just to see if his horrible suspicion of the dastardly green vegetables was correct!  It usually is.

Michael is doing so well in school.  Fifth grade is quite a jump from the lower grades.  He is having to learn a lot of independence, responsibility, and accountability.  All good lessons to learn earlier rather than later but hard ones, at that.  His teachers love him and we constantly hear what great contributions he makes to class discussions.

I am starting to see a change in Michael that is really neat to watch develop.  Self awareness.  He is caring more about what he is wearing, thought that the clothes he got for his birthday were really cool (don't we all wait to see when kids start appreciating clothes!), makes sure his hair looks just right before he goes out, and *gasp* sometimes wants his distance from us when in public with his friends.  Michael is still so connected to us and we know that it's healthy to not just hang out with your parents.  I mean, what if we did something to embarrass him :)

In all seriousness, we love our little guy.  He may seem like a BIG twelve year old, but he is our baby, our oldest baby.  Sometimes we catch ourselves in pure awe when we think how far he has come.  He is an loving and caring big brother and has really slowed down to take the time to let his siblings know that he cares about them.  Matthew absolutely idolizes him which is so sweet.  Emily senses that she is very much like Michael.  Both are very driven and competitive.  It should be interesting to see what the future holds for those two!  Claire and Michael might not tell each other everyday that they love one another, but their shared relationship means so incredibly much to them.

Today on Michael's birthday, we ate birthday donuts for breakfast, had birthday presents for Michael after school, and then had some family over to celebrate Michael!  For dinner- he ordered up pasta and garlic bread.  Don't let the red hair fool you!  This kid is an Italian!!!  I also made him (per his request) a chocolate cake with peanut butter and chocolate frosting.  He was more than excited about it and claimed it was the best cake he had ever tasted!

He got some cool gifts, but he really wanted to get HALO 4 for the Xbox.  He really didn't think we would get it for him so we saved the gift for last and disguised it as a box of donuts.  It wasn't donuts, it was HALO!  In the box, we put a package of bagels to make him think it was filled with donuts but after opening it, he freaked out!

At the end of the night, Michael opened up a gift from Mark and Jocelyn.  The first little gift he opened had a thumb tack in it.  Michael was confused.  Then he opened the next gift which was a balloon that Jocelyn had put money in!  So . . . Michael had to pop the balloon to get his gift.  He LOVED it!  I just love his expression of pure happiness here.

Happy Birthday, Michael.  We love you so much and are so proud that you are OUR son!!!  May your 12th year bring you much happiness and love as you count down to the land of teenager-dom!  We hope your year is full of everything that you love.  Chocolate, family, friends, sports, and more chocolate.  We love you buddy.  Happy Birthday!