Sixteen Short Years Have Already Gone By

Sixteen years ago today life as my husband and I knew it was forever changed when we became initiated into parenthood with our firstborn; a son. We had no idea what we were getting into but we’ve been fortunate enough to figure it out fairly unscathed.

 

Throughout my first pregnancy, the big joke with extended family was whether our baby would come out with a big handlebar mustache. My husband was known for his signature mustache. Back in the mid nineties, having ultrasounds and finding out a baby’s gender was just becoming popular but my husband and I didn’t want to find out what we were having. I liked surprises and the tradition of not knowing whether it was a boy or girl until the baby arrived.

 

When I was four days past my due date and getting bigger by the day, my doctor said I should probably be induced and scheduled me to be at the hospital the next morning to have our baby. As fate would have it, my water broke in the middle of the night and I was extremely relieved not to have to be induced. I preferred labor and delivery to happen on its own and wanted to experience childbirth with minimal intervention from drugs used to aid in labor and delivery. On February 24, 1996 right at lunchtime, our 8 pound, 11 ounce boy arrived (but he didn’t have a mustache).

 He’s grown up wearing Wranglers, cowboy boots, cowboy hats, and scotch caps most of his youth.

Like a typical little boy, he’s always been enamored with guns: toy guns, sticks or jaw bones that looked like guns, cowboy movie rifles and pistols, and of course the real guns we kept locked in the cabinet. In the summertime he would sleep outside with his cowboy “bedroll,” saddle, toy gun, and dog, and slept outside under the stars.

Growing up, he didn’t have favorite Disney movies or cartoons; he had favorite cowboy movies that featured guns.

Once he got a sister to play with, he was usually able to get her to dress in cowboy gear, gun belts and holster was always willing to loan her one of his guns to play cowboys with him. 

He wore out hundreds of toy rifles and especially toy pistols. When he turned 12 he took the hunter’s safety course and soon became a crack shot and shot both of his bull elk and Black Hills deer with one clean shot. Not surprisingly, for his 16^th birthday, all he wanted was a gun. A Ruger 223 with specific features.

One of the things I love best about our son is his memory. Since our boy was a tot, he has always been inquisitive and loves learning. He picks stuff up like a sponge and manages to retain it and is a factoid fanatic. I can ask him any science, math, or history question and he knows it. When he was in 6^th grade, his math teacher asked the class how many liters are in a jug of milk (3.78 liters) and our boy was the only one who knew the answer because he’d just seen it on the milk jug the week before and remembered. Anytime I forget someone’s phone number or street address, I am usually saved because our son always knows.

 

He’s always loved dirt and water in any form. Most of our son’s diaper years he was either thoroughly immersed in dirt or water.

He loved a good garden hose or soft dirt pile he could kick and stir up.

He also enjoyed anything with a steering wheel.

Before he was three he drove a lot of miles parked in our driveway in the mornings while his dad drank coffee.

 He’s been around cows all his life and  grew up going out to check cows or feed them with his dad and grandpa.

Over the past 16 years I have tried hard to savor every day of being a parent and enjoy each new phase my kids go through. Some days (and nights) were dreadfully long as a mom but when it comes to raising kids, it’s so true that the days are long but the years are short.