Category: Joshua

As you guys know, I am always up for a good back-to-school countdown. TWENTY-FOUR DAYS Y’ALL! But this year, this year, my glee and sending my kids out the door so I can eat bons bons all day work is beset by a smidge of nervousness. Because in twenty-four days, my Joshua starts fifth grade. And in our school system, fifth grade is MIDDLE SCHOOL! Middle school! How is this possible? When we started this blog Joshua looked like this:

and now he looks like this:

So, not only am I like, “MY baby! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?” – I’m also like, “Middle School! That’s when kids start being MEAN!” Joshua is very, um, sensitive, so I worry about him getting offended, being an easy target, (and quite frankly, being overtly wimpy and not “going with the flow” when he should) and refusing to trying new things.

I’ve already been carefully requiring him to be extra-good about brushing his teeth and washing his face – things he tends to be lazy about – because I don’t want to give kids ammo to use against him. I don’t want him to be “the dirty kid” when he has no reason to be – plenty of access to hygiene tools in this house! I mean, thanks to couponing I currently have like 20 tubes of toothpaste. (Anyone want some? I’m not trying to be a hoarder, I swear.)

I have NO idea why I am so paranoid about this. I never had trouble in school, and never gave anyone else any trouble. Joshua goes to a Christian school (as I did) and I should expect everyone to be a little nicer, but we are all human and kids are kids. I mean, I am not expecting him to get SHANKED, I just don’t want him to get excluded. Plus, he is just such a nice kid.

But he cries every time I talk to him about joining the swim team (which he really should do because he’s an AWESOME swimmer), so there’s that.

Ah, well, we’ve both got 24 days to toughen up! Middle School is coming for us!

Moms of middle schoolers, got any advice?

There is a recently-viral video of Wil Wheaton telling a girl who asked him a questions (I think he was on a panel at ComicCon) about what to do when someone called her a nerd. And Wil does a fabulous job telling her how to handle it and how to be confident in her own awesomeness.

But. I have to admit that I was a little perplexed about the whole thing because in my family? Being a nerd is cool. Nerd is not a dirty word, and we are ALL Geek Chic. Perhaps you’ll recall that we start our kids on the path to nerdery very young in this gene pool. We encourage and even expect that our children will be bona fide members (dare we say leaders?? One can only hope!) of the Nerd Herd.

In our family, amongst us adult and among all the nieces and nephews and cousins, we have band nerds, drama nerds, math nerds, science nerds, Star Wars nerds, sports nerds (yes there is such a thing) and we even have a WORLD CHAMPION RUBIK’S CUBE NERD – BOOM! Jealous?

When it comes to my own children, Joshua is embarking on the path to becoming a NEW kind of nerd in our family – a video game nerd. Joshua is pretty much obsessed with the WiiU – he loves Disney Infinity, LEGO Marvel, and a whole bunch of other games – those are the only two I can really deal with hearing about at this point.

My husband enjoys video games, but he is not a Certified Video Game Nerd, so although he’s been able to guide Joshua up to a certain point, our baby son is currently surpassing his dad’s capacity for video game nerdiness.

Luckily for us, though, Joshua has found an Ultimate Video Game (and comic book and a whole lot of other nerdy things) Nerd Mentor – our friend Corey. Although Corey is not a member of our family, he is a great guy and a certified Non-Creep.

Recently, Joshua had a question about his fave game for Nintendo WiiU – LEGO Marvel – and Corey is a huge Marvel nerd so of course he owns this game even though LEGOs are for children (ooh, come on LEGO nerds, don’t let me get away with that!), so he MADE A VIDEO of him playing the game to show Joshua how to open up a certain feature. So then Joshua made him a video back showing him how he had followed Corey’s advice…and because he is so cute and loves Corey so much, he asked for another video, and because Corey is a nice guy and excellent Nerd Mentor who works from home and has time to make videos of himself playing a video game because a 10-year-old asked him to, he sent one right back…and so on, and so forth. I think they are on like the 5th video now. Here’s one of Joshua’s; you don’t have to watch the whole thing to know that a) my son is well on his way to becoming a HUGE Video Game Nerd and b) Corey is a very patient Nerd Mentor who clearly has his eye on training Joshua up in the Way of the Nerd.

I’m very thankful for Corey’s friendship to Joshua (he married our babysitter Krisha so since she can’t be our sitter anymore, it’s nice that he’s at least contributing to our son’s nerdery) but I also really like to make fun of him for being such a giant nerd (and I quote: “When I found out Joss Whedon was going to direct the Avengers, my heart exploded.”) so this situation is a TOTAL win-win for me! Especially since Bobby records and sends Joshua’s videos for him so I don’t have to mess with THAT inconvenience. Whew!

Nerd Alert, people! My baby’s on his way!

When I had my babies, all of them, but especially the first, I could not, while sniffing their fuzzy heads and ogling their wrinkly fingers, even begin to fathom how they would look, smell, feel, act, or be on their tenth birthdays. I couldn’t even begin to grasp the idea of this tiny human, flesh of my flesh, being a big kid. A double-digits kid.

But now, I know. Because today, my baby is TEN. Years. Old.

Joshua is such a joy, and he always was. I sometimes find myself longing for the carefree days when he was a baby and a toddler,  because he was SO easy, SO fun, SO portable, and always in a good mood. Bobby and I would take him everywhere. He was just a breeze. As much as I LOVE my other two, I can’t say I feel the same way about their babyhood. Joshua’s was honestly more play than work and if I could go back and do it again, I would. I know there will be other moments when I want to freeze my other kids (I think Sophie’s time might be this very year). For my sweet Joshua, even as he grows into a wonderful young man, I know it’s his babyhood I will miss the most.

But anyway. Here’s a story from his babyhood that I especially love, even though I wasn’t there when it happened. Joshua was born on February 27, 2004. But he was due the 25th. As it was a leap year, I was really anxious when his due date came and went, because I did NOT want to have a Leap Day baby. I would have been pleased, however if he’d been born on February 28th, because that is my oldest brother Charles’ birthday and my cousin Anna’s birthday – they are exactly 10 years apart. But neither the 28th or the 29th were to be, because on the 26th, I had a routine OB-Gyn appointment, and when I went in, my blood pressure was sky high. It had been fine my whole pregnancy, but now it was decidedly not fine. “You need to go to the hospital so we can induce you. You’re at risk of having a seizure. You can go home and grab your bag, but don’t stop for lunch.” my doctor told me. Well, ok. It was go time.

So I went in late in the afternoon of the 26th, and Joshua was born on February 27 at 9:00 a.m. exactly. Which as it turns out, is very fitting with his personality.

So he missed my brother’s birthday, and he missed Anna’s birthday, and thankfully he missed Leap Day.

But unbeknownst to be, he did arrive on another family birthday. And my mother, who witnessed his birth, knew it. It was her grandfather’s birthday. Taylor Dezarn, the father of my beloved Grandma Burns, my mother’s mother, was born on February 27, 1890.

I never knew him, but my mother has very fond memories of her grandfather, and it delighted her that my first child was born on his birthday (hers had been born just a day after!).

Which leads me to the story. My mom babysat Joshua when he was a baby until he was three years old, while I worked part-time 20 hours a week (did you know I used to do that?) One day, she and my Grandma Burns took Joshua to visit Grandma’s brother, my mom’s Uncle Neil and his wife Mae. The docile, sweet, portable infant Joshua was of course, an angel. And he was good for my Uncle Neil, about 81 or 82 at the time (he has since passed away) as he held him on his knee.

“How old is he?” he must’ve asked my mom, because she told him, “He was born on your father’s birthday.”

And then, an old man, holding a sweet young baby who was born 114 years to the day after his own father’s birth, got choked up, and his eyes filled with tears.

Memory, family, blood, and the circle of life. It’s a powerful thing.

And I am as proud now of the sweet young man I call my son at ten years of age as I was of the baby who brought joy to an old man nearly ten years ago. Who shares his birthday with someone I never met but who was dearly loved by those I dearly love.

Happy Birthday, Joshua Kenneth. Here’s to many more happy years (and many more happy tears) of being your mama. I love you!