Aidan

My first born. My son. Aidan turned nine a couple of weeks ago. It seems impossible to me that the little baby who changed my life forever is now a beautiful nine year old boy. Impossible and yet here he is. This will be my last post about Aidan specifically. He is nine now and on the precipice of preteen. He is aware and so are his friends. I want there not to be internet fodder for others to use to bully him. I want him to feel safe coming to me with anything and not worry that I will use it to create a post.

He is nine. Nine. Half ways to being completely independent of us. Of not needing us to help him make decisions and choices about his life. Half way to being able to drink (legally) and vote. Only seven years from being able to drive. And less than three years until he starts Junior High. Grade Four is huge. It is the end of his early childhood, the beginning of something so separate and so much more independent. The last few years have seen us go from bubble baths with me sitting nearby just to be sure that he wouldn't drown to him locking the bathroom door to shower. From me choosing his clothes to him insisting on growing his hair long and wearing that dirty hoodie. From me reading aloud to him to him reading with a flashlight in his bed. From us sitting together to decipher every single note of his music and me keeping time for rhythm to him playing music that he has worked out himself with determination. From us building his new Lego projects so that he could rearrange them bit by bit to him carefully following the directions to build the project himself before he begins rearranging. From him napping with us nearby to him excitedly going for sleepovers at friends' houses. From us making every decision about which activities he would be involved in to us only participating and offering suggestions for HIS decisions. From us determining how money would be spent for his things to him taking charge of his allowance, saving and deciding how important anything is before making a purchase.

Aidan has always been interested in the world around him. He thinks about things in great detail...how did that building come to be? why do we need trees? how do our hearts work? why is it raining? He asks questions and he tries to work out the logic of existence himself, coming to interesting and often long winded conclusions. We are already having deep philosophical discussions with him about why we are and what people do and don't believe. We are trying so desperately trying to let him find the way himself. We are trying to lay out the options, all of the information and see the conclusions he comes to himself. He amazes me everyday.

But now, he will amaze me privately. I will continue to keep his journal and continue to scrapbook for him, keeping the bits of his childhood on record for him but I will no longer do it publicly. I have sent him an email link to this blog because we live openly and honestly. And I will only refer to him in passing. In the joy and pleasure that is parenthood and also through it's frustrations. But that is all. Because it is tough enough to be a teenager without a parent recording it for the world to see and because even though it's my journey too, it's more importantly his. I respect him. He has earned that respect in the ways that he approaches the world. And I love him. I want only the best for him and the best includes him finding his own way with us there only to back him up or catch him if he falls.