Anne,
Wife of Fred for 23 years
Mom of:
Patrick (16)
James (16)
Bella (13)
Rosie (13)
Julie (13)
Daniel (11)
My children around the world:
Milly in Taiwan
Felice in Hong Kong
Eun Hae in South Korea
Nadya in Germany
Obrin in New York
And our critters Annabelle, Fiona, Sunny, Sophie, Cindy-Lou and Blue; Mamfy, Mali and Punkin; Nick; Frog 1 and Horny Toad; Charlie and Dizzy; Minnie and Alice; Elfie, Frex, Crope, Tibbit and Ozzy; Genevieve, Pippin and Finnegan; and a dozen or so chooks.
I'd like to ask God why He allows
hunger, poverty, and injustice
in the world,but I'd be afraid
He'd ask me the same thing ...
Is Patrick.
He's my first born. The one who brought us kicking and screaming into the world of parenting.
And I kicked and screamed for a good long while. When he was a baby I got to experience the neonatal jaundice and three day hospitalization of my firstborn. I got to experience a colicky baby and a horrific entry into the world of lactation that ended three months after it began.
When he was a toddler/preschooler I got the joys of learning to cope with the tantrums and opposition and "high energy" and "difficulties with transitions" of a boy who would later be diagnosed with ADHD, but meanwhile I had to run around thinking I was doing everything wrong and feeling exhausted every minute of every day. Good times.
Sigh.
But now? He's 16. Starting his junior year in high school. At about 6' 1", he's taller than his Dad. I've had to crane my head back to look sternly into his eyes for nagging purposes for some time now.
And he's still oppositional and distractible. But no longer so much with the high energy thing. Or the tantrums. We have learned to deal.
And you know what? He's amazing. So sweet with his little sisters. So dang smart. Remember how I said Fred is like the smartest person I know? Well, Patrick can usually beat him in Jeopardy now. And he's my go-to person if one of the youngers has a math question that's out of my league (read, from fractions onward) or a question about a word spelling. Or pretty much any academic question. Period. Don't even try to play him in chess.
He can debate the hind-end off a mule, though I'm not sure when that particular skill would ever be needed. Still, good to know it's there.
He's awesome with the dogs. Did some agility training with Blue, and Sunny is pretty much velcroed to his leg. She follows him everywhere, she sleeps with him every night. She goes absolutely insane when he plays hide and seek with her until she can find him. Then she finds him and goes more insane.
Generous as a little boy, still generous as a young man. And kind. And compassionate.
His future? He has no clue. Nor do I. Though he aces every test without cracking a book, he has this little problem with the whole homework thing. As in he usually does it, but the turning-it-in step gets missed more often than not. As a result, his grades tend to hover somewhere between the sewer and the toilet. But alas, we are finally realizing it is his battle, not ours. With any luck, some college somewhere will accept him after he graduates and he can move on to higher education, but who knows? He'll do alright in life.
Like I said, he's a good kid.
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