Happy Birthday Son!!!

Today is my son's 19th birthday! There were certainly times when I didn't think that I'd get to this point of my life; having an adult child that is making his own decisions about the directions of his own life. Most people do this type of reflection on their child's 18th birthday. But I have to admit that I spent that day counting down the months until he moved out and went off to college.

Now, a year later I can really appreciate both of our accomplishments; me and my son's. It was not easy. There was the time that he dropped his television set out of his bedroom window. There was the time that he knocked out three windows playing baseball. Three. And the time that he snuck in my vodka, puked under his bed and pretended like he didn't know why his bedroom smelled bad.

But there is also blessings; gifted classes, Merit Scholarship Nominee, his band playing in Carnegie Hall, flying to London to march in the London Day Parade and just being a son that any mother would be proud to have. 

Here I am 19 years ago telling my sister to take the picture now. I wanted a picture of myself while having a contraction. Notice the forced grin and the tightening fists. You can't see the buttocks clenched in agony...but it's there.

He really was the cutest baby that I'd ever saw. Men would come up to me all of the time and say, "Wow that's a cute baby." And my toddler son would say, "Daddy?" He called every man Daddy. It got old after a while...believe me.

All Little boys want to be Superman. My Mom put the tape there.

Then began his baseball days...and the beginning of my many broken windows.

His first tux, but not his last. His band required him to have a tux throughout High School.

He went to California to stay with family for the summer all by himself. Had no worries about flying on a plane.

Now he's a college man, living away from home.He listens to jazz while he's doing his homework. Sometimes I used to pass by his bedroom and hear the soothing notes of Charlie Parker...mixed in with some Li'l Wayne and Drake. His favorite trumpeter is Arturo Sandoval, he speaks Spanish and has a 3.1 gpa after his first year of college.

He can also play a mean trumpet. Here he is, home for summer break, playing an old trumpet that he'd left at the house. He has no sheet music and is just playing it wild.

He even raps under the name Li'l Budha.

Happy 19th Birthday!