liam at fourteen

Liam requested a laser tag adventure with his two best friends, Drew and Nathan, for his birthday this year. After some back-and-forth and scheduling challenges with the other moms, we finally worked out a plan for me to pick them up this morning and hit the laser tag place in South Bend early, before it got too crowded. I called the place last week to verify their hours and ask whether we needed a reservation (no), so everything should have been in place for a great birthday celebration ... except that when we got to the laser tag place, it was locked up tight and nobody was answering the phone. We waited for about half an hour (entertaining ourselves in the dollar store next door) but there was still no sign of life, so we made a hasty backup plan.

Off we drove across town to the trampoline park, only to find out that one of the boys had an expired permission authorization. So then we had to get in touch with his mom and get her to go online to sign the waiver ... but eventually it was all systems go, and three teenagers spent 90 minutes bouncing and flipping, playing dodge ball and basketball, and diving into a pit filled with foam. After that, I took them to Chipotle for lunch and then Krispy Kreme for dessert before heading back to Plymouth. Funny enough, both Drew and Nathan got him the same thing for his birthday: tins of Pringles, an inside joke from their field trip to Washington, DC.

I feel like this little misadventure encapsulates the past year for Liam (and for all of us) pretty well, and that it's an important lesson for him to remember: Sometimes things don't go the way you planned, and that's OK. As long as you can roll with the changes, you can usually make something just as good, if not better.

At 14, our Liam has gotten pretty good at rolling with the changes. He's weathered the big move and all the uncertainty that came with it, and he's more than ready to make the change from junior high to high school. He really does seem to just take everything in stride (something I could do much better at myself).

Liam's spending his summer playing tennis in the city league in preparation for trying out for the tennis team once school starts. He's been hanging out with his friends and cousins, playing video games, walking Pluto, and just generally enjoying this lazy time before things start to get more serious for him. He's grown so much physically this past year, shooting up to be taller than both of his parents, and the doctor says he's still got a fair bit of growing to do, so who knows how far he will end up towering over us in the end.

Of course, all that growth isn't one-directional, at least not emotionally. Liam is generally pretty easygoing with me, but still very grumpy and impatient with his brothers, and I can sort of feel him teetering on that teenage edge of starting to think that Mike and I don't know anything about anything, and even if we do know some things, we certainly don't understand HIM. You know what I mean. It's a phase everyone has to go through (I certainly did!), but I'm not eager for it to come into bloom, and I can't wait until he gets through it and can just see us as people, decent and well-intentioned but flawed like everyone else.

In the meantime, here's to Liam. Liam the tall, the strong, the adventurous, the confident. Liam who works hard and gets frustrated but then figures out a way around his obstacles. Liam who can adapt to whatever life throws at him. Liam who is so, so loved.