Andy's Sweet 16

Yesterday, my baby boy turned 16.

Sweet 16.

A milestone for teenagers. At 16, he can now legally drive any time, any place and have anyone in the car with him. No more restrictions. He's taken a big step to independence. He's taken a big step away from my apron strings.

We struggled with deciding what exactly to give Andy for his birthday. He didn't really need anything, he has everything he needs for his shooting hobby--shotgun, bows, arrows, quivers, etc. He gets to drive the Ranger pickup, so no need to buy a vehicle (like that would happen). So, we were at a loss. Andy knew what he wanted--he gave us two ideas.

1. A new cell phone with texting.
2. A PSP, a personal playstation, an upgrade to the old Gameboy.

We vetoed the PSP immediately. And we weren't sure about the cell phone. We certainly weren't crazy about the texting. Bailey, our young neighbor, had a big phone bill all because of texting. We told Andy we wouldn't give him texting, because we didn't want that kind of bill either. He was really annoyed with Bailey for ruining his chances at getting texting.

But, we couldn't decide just what to get him. So, finally, on Saturday, we decided to get him a razor cell phone and some texting. He gets 750 messages a month and we will pay his texting bill for 6 months. After that time, he will pay me $10 plus tax for the privilege.

So, yesterday morning, we "hid" the phone and I called it.

Andy asked me who I was calling at 7 a.m. in the morning. I lied and said "Kim." Then, his new phone started ringing. "What's that?" I said. Andy stood there, looking puzzled. He followed the sound over to the phone and picked it up. At that time, it dawned on him that this was his birthday present! He started laughing and...and...he punched me in the arm. A playful punch, but still, a punch. Then he just hugged me, hard; laughing the whole time. I wish we had gotten out the video camera to get a shot of him, his expressions were so memorable, the confusion, the enlightenment, the joy.

One of our family birthday traditions is that the birthday person gets to choose the evening meal. Andy chose steak for last night and requested that we have supper with our neighbors. They couldn't do supper until Wednesday, so we made plans to eat out with them, and decided we'd have steak, baked potatoes and peas for supper with cheesecake for Andy's birthday cake. But then, at 5:00, he asked of we could skip supper and go to see Spiderman 3 instead. So, we ate cheesecake and then went to the movie--just the 4 of us. Supper consisted of cheesecake, popcorn and soda. Healthy, very healthy.

When we got home, Andy thanked us for a great birthday. And it was special; it was exactly what he wanted. And, that makes me happy, to see my baby boy happy.