the young adult child

On Sunday, we celebrated (one day early) my son’s eighteenth birthday.

Also, he got baptized.

One day he came home from church and said that he’d decided to get baptized and would be taking the catechism classes. Okay, we said.

And so he did.

For his birthday breakfast, he requested day-old apple pies (for some reason, they got weirdly saucy). Lunch was waffles with all the fixings, and my parents joined us, as well as my brother’s family. I’d told my son that we wouldn’t be having cake — too much sweet — but then I went and bought an Oreo Blizzard Dairy Queen Ice Cream, I mean Chemical, cake to surprise him (we never buy DQ chems)…though I kind of think he might have preferred a homemade cake? Oh well. And supper, since I’m being all nitty-gritty about the food, was pesto torte and crackers and raw veggies and dip. Then we sat around reading all his birthday surveys, from age 7 to 18, for the very last time.

On Monday, my son made an appointment with an investment advisor, and then the two of us had an exciting date at the bank where we spent an hour discussing stock and looking at charts and learning about The 30-30 Rule and The Rule of 72 and a lot of other things that boggled our brains.

We really know how to tear it up.

My son is pretty tickled about all the privileges that come with turning 18. Now my money is all mine, FOR REAL, and I can get a tattoo! and If I get pulled over for driving a 100 miles an hour, I don’t automatically lose my license. I just get a hefty fine or go to prison.

Also on the list: drive an ambulance, go skydiving, begin paramedic training, vote, be the accompanying adult when his sister drives, see R-rated movies at the theater, join dating websites, take out a loan from the bank, get a motorcycle license, walk into Verizon and set up an account, legally kiss a girl who is over eighteen, get married, buy a lottery ticket, donate blood, go into bars, watch explicit content on youtube, sue someone.

But make no mistake — in many ways he’s still a child. Also, my husband and I are still king and queen of this roost. It’s just that now that my son is getting older and wiser, he both knows and appreciates this.

And that, if you ask me, is one of the very best parts of having a (somewhat) mature, young adult child.

This same time, years previous: cilantro lime rice, the quotidian (10.26.15), the quotidian (10.27.14), the quotidian (10.28.13), the details, sweet potato pie, the morning kitchen, 2009 garden stats and notes.