Last week, Joseph turned fourteen. Joseph's birthday is just over two weeks after Elizabeth's birthday and it always sneaks up on me. I spend so much time making sure that I've got everything in order for her birthday that I forget about Joseph's coming up very soon afterwards. The mail situation here is significantly worse than it was in Astana (it could sometimes get to Astana in ten days, and here in Dushanbe it takes a month at the fastest), so that has only made the consequences of my inattention worse.
Thankfully, Joseph is an incredibly low-key child, and didn't mind that we forgot it was going to be his birthday until a day of two before his birthday (it didn't help that it was on a Sunday this year). He was very happy to have cold cereal for breakfast, and was fine when Sophia baked him cinnamon rolls instead. And when the grocery store didn't have any bacon for BLTs (one day I will live in America where every single grocery store has bacon - and at least five different kinds!), he was just as happy to have tuna fish sandwiches instead. His cake was the same as Elizabeth's had been - vanilla cake with vanilla frosting.
When it came time to open presents, there was only candy that some siblings had bought him and a duplo construction with the name of his present taped to it. But he was still happy and grateful. Joseph really just is a happy kid.
It's funny to think that it has already been a year since we celebrated Joseph's thirteenth birthday in the hospital in London. It feels like that much time shouldn't have passed already. But when I look at the pictures from that birthday, he looks very much different. Last year he was a big boy and this year he's a small young man. He has grown about five inches, and the suit that fit him just fine for Kathleen's wedding in April now looks like he's trying to wear something that belongs to a younger brother. His voice is toying with the idea of dropping, and his face is stretching out. He is just an inch short of joining the taller-than-Mom club that will eventually include everyone in the entire family (and will grow larger as more in-laws join the party).
It's strange to have this happening again - my little boy turning into a young man - especially on the heels of Edwin's doing the same thing to me. I only have one little boy left, and that is also for a limited time. I really enjoy watching my children grow older and seeing who they will become. It's fun to see the beginning lines of who they will be adults and imagine what that will look like when the process is done.
Joseph will enjoy the status of 'most changed' when we leave here in less than three years. He will have started out as a gawky thirteen year-old with horribly messed up teeth and will leave as an almost seventeen year-old with (hopefully) normal teeth, most - if not all - of his adult height, and one year left before he leaves us for good. It feels like they take forever to stop being little children and then they turn into adults nearly overnight.
Thankfully Joseph is still happy to have me hug him, kiss him, and do all of those affectionate Mom things that teenaged boys cringe at. He will talk my ear off if I sit still long enough to listen to all of the things that fill his ever-churning mind and awesome things that he has planned. He still loves to be the ringleader for his younger siblings and whatever visiting children are present to join in his amazingly inventive games. I hope that he never grows out of those things, even if he gets taller. For those are some of the things I love best about him.
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