M is for the....

Possible Kleenex alert...

So, it is exam week at Nickels school and he has extra time on his hands.  For some really interesting reason he decided to write a poem about dear old Mom in his spare moments today.

This is what he brought home:

M is for the million things she gave me
O means only that she's growing old 
T is for the tears she has shed to save me
H is for the heart of purest gold
E is for her eyes, with love-light shining
R means right, and she'll always be.

Put them all together, they spell MOTHER, A word that means the world to me.

Love, Nickels

Yes, he is a sweetheart a majority of the time.  And, for those of you who don't know him well, this is what Mike and I see in our oldest:  a kind, loving, affectionate boy who is perceived by the outside world (and by us, sometimes) as slightly immature, massively disorganized, and attention-deficit. 

I realize that the kind of affection oozing from this poem is going to become ultra-rare as the days tick on.  The affection he so readily showered on us in the past will be funneled toward himself or people his own age.  He is about to fall into that black hole known as "the teenage years".

Mike and I are already seeing glimpses of the ugliness to come.  We smell it, too.

As we understand it, life with our soon-to-be-teenager will only get worse before it gets better.  And, sometime in his twenties, he will wake up and pronounce "Mom?  Remember that poem I wrote you at the end of my sixth grade year?  I meant it.  And, Dad?  You really DO know something.  You, too, Mom."

But, that's a long.dang.time.away.

We are approaching puberty with our eyes as wide-open as they can get.  We are asking lots of questions of people we trust.  We are praying more than ever before. 

And, because I am already seeing my boy slipping into the no-mans-land of myopia known as puberty, I know that I need to guard this poem with my life.  Some days it will be the only thing that will remind me there is a heart in that body, behind all the yelling and anger and crying that will occur as the hormones overtake all sense of logic.

It's a new phase of child-rearing in our house.  We're seeing the "I want to be alone and independent and make my own decisions" from a child who refuses to shower properly or brush his teeth for more than two seconds.  It is frustrating and exciting and aggravating all in one breath.

And, if I had to write a poem back to him, to express my anxiety about what is to come, I'd have to include the same last line, with a little twist:

"Nickels, come what may, you will always mean the world to me.  Love, Mommy."