Birthday thoughts

Tomorrow Rob is 14.  Hard to believe really.  When we first met, he was younger than KC is now--but oh so much more worldly.  Chet was flabbergasted when Robbie asked him if K and I drank "40's" or had weed in the house.  Chet said weeds were in our garden and had no concept of what a "40" was.  Questions that won't come up for my two younger kids.

And tomorrow, he is 14. Now taller than me, with a deepening voice and feet that just don't stop growing! LOL   It used to be that the weeks leading up to his birthday were pretty tough.  Not tough like what i read on some other blogs, but tough for us.  Upticks in crazy lying, sleep pattern changes, less talking.  Nothing so severe we had to change things up like celebrating on a different day, just stuff to get through.  For Rob, I have actually found that ignoring most of it seems to cure it.  It is event specific behavior.  The event passes and the behavior does too.

I don't really know the why of the acting out.  I suspect some grief of course.  But I also think that at some level he feels unworthy of a focus just on him.  Or nervous about it.  He is my quietest child who prefers helping to starring.  If our family were a play he would be stage crew, not on stage.  But my personal strategy is to ignore that for this one time each year.  For this one day you ARE center stage in the best way possible.  And despite the fact that he rarely asks for a gift, we manage to find something cool and truly wanted (younger sibs are really great source of parent intel!).

At any rate, this year the weird birthday blues haven't been as intense.  They started later, and were so minimal that I am astounded by his progress.  He has been a bit quieter.  He has had some "forgetting" of some basic family rules.  But really, nothing huge.  No crazy lying at all, which is a really big achievement.

We have his party tomorrow.  All our birthday parties are family parties.  The one thing I did change was from having "kid" parties.  That was a layer of stress that didn't help him.  And it didn't help him feel closer to us.  But tomorrow while he unwraps gifts, he will be wrapped in our love.  And on Saturday when we train in to the Big City to see Fiona I will bring cupcakes so that we can fete him again with her present.