Birthday Boy. I Mean MAN.

Once upon a time I was this young mom with her brand new first baby who showed up six weeks early. He was really tiny and basically would only sleep if he was in touching me. He was so little he was kind of froggy-looking. That how things go when you're six weeks early and the day you're brought home weigh less than five pounds. 

 

Of course it didn't take long for this kid to put on a few pounds and get cute and chubby and happy and snuggly. (Chase would DIE if he knew I still thought of him this way. I can't help it! He was my first baby!)

Pretty soon though he was this funny little kid who was absolutely nutso for dinosaurs and also pretty  much any carnivorous animal. (This is still true.) He was happy and healthy and funny and adorable.

Fast forward a few years, (which went by in about 5 seconds, by the way), and suddenly I look around for my little boy and instead am confronted by a very large man in my house who still sort of likes me but won't rest his head on my shoulder any more. And I have a hunch that the main reason he still likes me at all is that I am the calorie-provider. I just keep feeding him, my own personal bottomless pit. It's an old joke about teenagers, but we tell it because it is true. 

Chase went ahead and turned 18 in October. I did not feel okay about this but I guess it was out of my control. I am going to say that raising a boy into a man feels a little bit like having the cutest boyfriend ever and then having him break up with you for 15 years. It's kind of heartbreaking. But that's how it is supposed to be. It is just amazing though to try to reconcile in my head the 6-foot-tall hilarious and occasionally irreverant person with the chubby little guy who used to climb into my bed every single night. Oh my gosh he's going to hate this post.

Chase's birthday fell on a Wednesday, which so happens to be the day when the kids don't have live instruction from their teachers. They just have online assignments and a catch-up day. It was a good day for a birthday. Normally at our house we have a fun birthday breakfast and let the birthday kid open their presents that morning. I offered to Chase to do presents later so he could sleep in. He decided presents were better than sleep and we carried out our normal birthday breakfast. Well, we tried, anyway. I made crepes and they were a bit of a disaster, sticking to the pan and scrambling a bit. Oh well. The gifts were basically all clothes - his favorite thing on the planet is hoodies, so naturally he got one of those, plus a couple of goofy t-shirts. Best of all, we gave him two climbing lessons at a local gym. I think he's really going to love those.

 

The plan had been to spend the day going shopping for clothes and going out to lunch, but Chase ended up spending time with a friend for a few hours. (Amazingly they wore their masks for the whole time. I feel compelled to add that. Feeling a bit touchy about social distancing, maybe?) That was certainly a better way to spend the day rather than shopping with his mom. 

I, instead of shopping, spent the day making a huge mess in my kitchen in order to, as a joke, create one last theme cake for my dinosaur fan. I've never been particularly good at cake design or decoration. This certainly looks homemade, but I think it got the point across and was pretty funny to give to my now-adult son. 

Before we had cake though our family went out to dinner. Chase really wanted to try Korean BBQ and of course I was all over that. We actually had an absolute ball - we found a great little spot called Ombu on State Street. It was basically an all-you-can-eat place, with the cooktop on your table. You just pay one price and then order anything you want on the menu. I don't know why this was so much fun but it really was. The kids got so into it. Romney ordered cow tongue which was pretty good. We had squid and shrimp and lots and lots of beef. We had potstickers and kimchi soup and really good kimchi. We had pork belly and fried rice. It. Was. Awesome. I would like to go back for Bleak Week.

 

After we rolled ourselves out of the restaurant we headed home and the Moores came to the back porch for the dino cake and some video games around the fire. It wasn't exactly the 18th Birthday Bash that I might have tried to throw in the Before Times, but Chase had a fun birthday and that was all that mattered.

I can't believe my little guy is 18. 

Here are some of my favorite things about Chase.

He loves music - and every week when we drive to guitar, he plays new songs for me and shares with me the music he loves.  He is hilarious at impressions. He does a mean Kronk, Gollum, Mr. Bean, Grenda and John Mullaney. He makes us laugh constantly. He still adores animals - so I know my little guy is still in there somewhere!