(See also: That Time I Forgot How To Spell ‘Twelfth’ And Had To Look It Up)
Well, it’s here. Another birthday. The one thing that has always stuck with me from when I was pregnant was someone telling me, “Time moves so much faster when you become a parent.” I thought this was a fucking joke because those nine months of being pregnant moved like sludge. But shit, it really does feel true, maybe because I’m so hyper-aware that he becomes less of a kid as every day passes and I just want to go around curb-stomping clocks and burning calendars.
And now he’s 12.
Just like that.
He was 3, just about to turn 4, when I started working at the Law Firm. It feels like yesterday.
My friend Christina was like, “Wait until next year when you have to start adding a ‘teen’ to his age” and that scares me too, but honestly when I think about, he’s been acting like a teen for the last 10 years at least, so at least I’m sort of prepared.
Maybe?
He was about 3 months old in the above photo. Maybe 4? I’m a shitty mom, lol.
We had a small little celebration last night at Breakout, the escape room down the street. Chooch is obsessed with escape rooms and he and my mom have gone to three or four of them at this point but have never won because it’s always just the two of them, ha! So this time, we wrangled up a group of 7 (Chooch, his bff Sharyn, me, my mom, Janna, Blake and Haley) and we managed to escape with 4 minutes left! I’m so glad my mom joined us. She is hilarious, especially when we had to be handcuffed and she cried about how whoever found the key had to unlock her cuffs first and then I found the key first and made Haley unlock me and then we unlocked Blake while my mom was like, “HELLO” but then Blake was the hero and unlocked her cuffs since I’m an awful daughter, ha!
I didn’t care if we actually escaped so much as I just wanted to do better than Janna. I think she was low-key afraid to go with us because I hit her once playing Scattergories so she was probably thinking, “God only knows what she’ll do to me in an escape room…”
Afterward, we came back to our house and Henry and Calvin joined us for strawberry cake from the Priory, which was really good thank god because I’m a cake snob and it’s technically my birthday too so people should be glad that I was pleased.
It was nice to not have a full-blown party this year, especially since Korea was so close to his birthday, but I suspect that we’ll be doing something festive next year when he turns 13 because that’s a pretty decent milestone. Sigh. Maybe a recreation of his 1-year monster-themed party!?
For as much as we butt heads, this kid is honestly my best friend in the whole world. Who else would put up with my antics, let me slather make up on them and dress them in my clothes for lame photoshoots, cry actual tears with me when we watch videos of the Seoul subway announcement music, die laughing at random people’s birthday party videos on YouTube, learn all the names of 9-member Kpop groups with me, go on roadtrips for concerts, act as my wingman when we walk past my Mexican taco cart boyfriend, and just be the ultimate partner-in-graying-Henry’s-hair? Chooch is the best kid I ever could have asked for. He is so independent and smart, hilarious and sassy, and compassionate and empathetic. He’s wise beyond his years and can hold his own in conversations with adults (don’t get him started on his thoughts about Trump!). My friends are just as much to credit for him growing into such a cool guy. Henry and I are so lucky to have so many great people in our lives who love our kid, so thank you!
And now I will leave you with the last photoshoot of 11-year-old Chooch, taken last weekend. The theme was “stressed businessman” because he had slept over his neighbor friend’s house the night before which meant he didn’t sleep at all and had huge bags under his eyes in addition to being mad that I was keeping him from playing Fortnight.
