A letter to the birthday boy

I took this picture last month at the Louisville Slugger Museum.
He's holding a famous player's bat...I'll have to ask him which one.
He remembers stuff like that now.

Dear Will:

Yesterday you turned 10 years old.  A decade!  You've been on this planet for a decade.  Well, a decade and 38 1/2 weeks or something like that.  Your dad and I have marveled all month about the last ten years and how fast they've flown by.  its will!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Well, that's what I get for walking away from the computer for a few minutes.  We'll leave it in there for posterity.  Back to the birthday letter.

The baseball sign.  Your smile says, "is that all I'm getting?" 

For your birthday, you received a Harry Potter shirt that your sister picked out and a wand that lights up.  I found you a cool baseball sign for your wall and your grandparents sent you clothes and money from one side of the family and a case for your Kindle and a baseball glove from the other.  You got cool earphones from Aunt Vicky and Uncle Matt and Nerf stuff galore from the Nebraska relatives.  You celebrated with a bunch of friends, a sister and the baby cousins at a local arcade.  For two hours, you all ate some pizza and an ice cream cake (you didn't want me to bake!!) and played video games.  There was a lot of 'bro' and 'dude' and other tween-isms but we all survived. I even beat your dad at a marathon game of air hockey.

Why didn't I get pictures of the air hockey?!  Here are some tweens.  

And a 3-yr old.  3-yr olds can play video games too Bobo!  

Little sisters and little sisters of friend's even got in on the action. 

The highlight of your birthday?  You got your own phone.  We told you a few years ago that you couldn't have a phone until you were 10 and boy did that seem like a long way off when I told you that. Dad and I went shopping a few weeks ago and picked yours out.  We told you that it would probably be an old fashioned flip phone and we tried to keep your expectations low.  Your dad had a great idea to hid your phone in a box of cereal in the kitchen and we'd call the number when you were done opening all of your presents.  I couldn't last as long as he wanted to - the look on your face when you opened your last present was more than I could handle.  When you heard the new ringtone, your face lit up and you dove through the Cheerios looking for your present.  My next blog post will just be a list of everything you've texted me in the last 36 hours.  It'll be riveting.

A boy and his phone, a love story.

Will, you are a sweet kid.  While I was cleaning up the kitchen tonight, you and Reina were playing a game. I'm not sure of the details or the plot but your name was "Xavier."  You two have your moments but there's nobody she looks up to more than her big brother.  I hope you'll remember that.  Your cousins think you are pretty great, too.  Baby Cousin thinks you are pretty funny and Toddler Cousin wants to marry you.  No pressure there buddy.

She was delighted to wear your jacket at the wedding.  

 Will, you are less than enchanted with school at times but when you bring your report card home or when we work on math together at night, I see how sharp you are and how hard you are working.  You've already read 1,000,000 words this school year.  A million words!  That's amazing.  You just finished the sixth Harry Potter book and I've suggested a slight break before you tackle the last one. I'm not sure if you'll take that advice or not.  You and I are reading the Secret Garden together right now and while there aren't any wizards or wands in this one, you seem to like it so far.  You also read sports books and gave a report earlier in the month on Honus Wagner.  Not many other students would pick a player who's last game was almost 100 years ago.  When you aren't shooting hoops in the driveway, you are throwing a baseball up against the house in the backyard.  Soccer starts in a few weeks and baseball will overlap into the summer. It's always some season at the Pauley household.

Happy birthday big kid.  Double digits, I still can't quite wrap my mind around that.  You made me a mom a decade ago and I'm so very thankful for that.  I hope this year is a great one for you and I can't wait to see what happens.