At Long Last!

After sixteen years of waiting, Matthew is finally a legal driver. He got about thirty minutes advance notice for his driving test, which happened on Saturday morning. He was actually in the middle of a rehearsal for the musical but told them he was skipping out for a while to take his test. Skipping out on something like that is definitely not his style, which tells you how important getting his license is to him! Once the test was successfully completed, all he had to do was go to the DLD and do the final paperwork. An appointment was scheduled for first thing yesterday morning with the knowledge that he would miss most of his first class of the day, but unfortunately, Matthew got sick and spent the morning in the instacare getting hooked up to an IV to get rehydrated and pumped full of antinausea meds instead. But this afternoon, with the worst of the illness behind him, he was off to become a legal driver. And then he did his first ever solo drive on the snowiest, most slippery roads we’ve had in quite a while. There is so much snow that today was a snow day/virtual learning day for both Matthew and Malia. But he’s legal! And gleeful about it!

And He’s Off!

Today is Nathan’s actual birthday. It is also the end of the school year which means the end of driver’s ed. And it just so happens that all the info about driving hours, instructional hours, and the driver’s test has already been sent to the state. All that means that as of this very day, Nathan is eligible for his driver’s license. And guess what? School got out early enough (the teachers pretty much kicked the kids out of the school so they could enjoy their end of year teacher luncheon) and Kevin was amenable enough that Nathan went out to the DLD today. He is now officially sixteen and officially a legal driver. He’s completely stoked.

Nathan has been an old spirit in a young body since he was about nine. He thinks and acts older than he is and gets along better with kids who are older than he is. That has created a variety of challenges for him and turning sixteen brings him one step closer to being able to participate in more of the things his friends are doing. We keep telling him that once he graduates from high school, all the artificial separation created by school grades will go away and age won’t really matter anymore, but for now, it is a challenge for him.

Nathan has a variety of interests and strengths. He is a talented musician. Playing piano is one of his happy places and one of his strongest mood lifters. He has outgrown yet another piano teacher and we are looking for someone who can take him to the next level. Although the past year of choir has left him with a very bad taste in his mouth, he is looking forward to singing for a different director and finding the joy in his singing again. He took a semester of woodworking this year and really enjoyed that. He loves the smell of wood and enjoys working with all the fancy power tools. He has also discovered that he loves physics. Occasionally it bends his brain in unexpected ways, but he really thinks it’s cool. He sees the world through the lens of physics and frequently draws diagrams on my white board to illustrate a principle of physics for us.

Nathan has always had a tender heart and a strong desire to help others. He is constantly helping out at home, not waiting to be asked, simply seeing something that needs to be done and taking care of it. One of the challenges he has had of late is the fact that he hates to say no to people and as a result, he often gets overloaded with too many commitments. He also has a really hard time not feeling responsible for the outcome of everything in which he participates (choir, the musical, etc.) even when he has no control over the situation. It is a challenge helping him find a good balance between his innate (and wonderful) desire to help others and the need to help him realize that he can only be responsible for his own actions. I believe this intense desire to help others is one of his spiritual gifts, one not necessarily noticed or appreciated by the typical teenage crowd, but I truly believe it will be for his benefit throughout his life. I just hope the multitude of negative experiences he has had over the past year don’t dampen it too much.

Although he was a terror as a toddler (not out of malice, he was just incredibly curious and even then, wanted to be older than he was) he has grown into a very responsible, organized and generally pleasant young man. I’m very proud of how hard he works at school, how dedicated he is when he has made a commitment and how strongly he stands for what he believes is right. I’m incredibly grateful he is a part of my family.

And as a side note, this evening he drove himself to the yearbook stomp at the high school. 😊

When Did He Grow Up?

Today has been a big day for Daniel, and not just because it was pie day. 😉

(Nathan and I created some very serious pi. He made the lovely crust and I made the cranberry custard goodness that filled it.)

This afternoon Daniel became a legal driver. Yup, that’s the official temporary license. I’m not sure if he’s excited or not, but I’m excited (and a bit nervous). It will definitely make getting him to all his various activities easier though. He has become a typical teenager who is heavily involved in extra curricular and social activities and getting him everywhere he needs and wants to be has become wearying. So this will be a good thing. I just have to steel my nerves for the moment he walks out the door alone, with the keys in his hand.

This evening Daniel received an official invitation to his first ever school dance. The lovely girl who asked him has been in band and the various accompanying carpools for years. Like Daniel, she is a Whovian and she knows that he is a Trekkie as well. (Since the advent of the new iteration of Star Trek, being a Trekkie isn’t viewed as being anywhere near as geeky as it used to be. Either that, or being geeky has become more mainstream.) The tribble reference from Star Trek was a perfect fit for Daniel.

I try not to think about the fact that this kid of mine with graduate from high school in a year and a half…