Happy Birthday, Paul!

Today we're celebrating the twentieth birthday of our oldest son, Paul.

Paul's birthday is actually next week, but he's got plans elsewhere. So, the party is here today, which is good because his next-down brother, Kevvy, is in town this weekend, so it does work out well. But, well, I gotta admit, I'm feeling a little nostalgic for the days when the earth rotated around our plans for family birthday parties and get-to-gethers. Nowadays, we find we have to fit our family celebrations around the children's other plans. =sigh=

And that's OK. Really. I'm fine with it. If my big boys were still rooted here at home, I think I would think something was wrong with them. I'd worried we hadn't successfully taught them to be self secure and independent or something.

So, though I understand that home and family are not the hubs around which our young men still revolve, I can't help but feel a little bit lonesome for my little boys.

I miss them tearing around the farm, playing cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians, or whatever the scenario of the day happened to be.

I miss the building block castles and baseball stadiums they used to make.

I even miss stepping on their army guys.

I miss getting up at 6:30 am, with Paul already up, the goats already milked and his math already half done.

I miss pouring over the dioramas at the Denver Museum of Natural History with the boys.

I miss seeing Paul, tanned and strong, building and fixing our fences, better than the pros.

I miss Paul winning our trivia quizzes almost every Friday.

I miss his rice every day for lunch.

I miss him being a daily part of the life of his siblings, always teasing, but always helpful.

I miss just seeing his face every day.

I can't very well call him "Pauliwog" anymore. And he's going to roll his eyes when he sees that I've written his old nickname here. But, in a philosophical, poetic kind of way, the moniker was appropriate, because our polliwog is a big frog now, in many ways. He's grown up. But he's supposed to be. And he's turned out to be a darn nice guy. We're proud of you, Paul.