Orange County Register

My little boy became a man yesterday. At least in the eyes of the law: He turned 18.

OK, so he hasn’t been little — as in shorter than me — for a couple of years now. But it is hard for me to think of him as a MAN.

Maybe I will when he gets a  job. Or turns 21. Or graduates college. Or gets married. Or has his first child. (And please let that be sometime after he turns 21, has graduated college, has a good-paying  job and is married!)

He’s old enough to vote now, something he looks forward to doing next year.

And he’s old enough to be drafted, if the draft were ever re-instated. A registration card from the Selective Service System is tacked on the bulletin board in our kitchen, waiting for him to fill it in and mail it off. “Do the right thing,” the cover says in a shout-out to men 18 to 25. “Register. It’s quick. It’s easy. It’s the law.”

This much I know is true: Little boy or man, he will always be my baby. Isn’t that so true for all of us moms? No matter how old our children are, they are always our babies.

So I made my son a cake on his 18th birthday, just as I had on his 1st birthday (and several others in between). And I still had the No. 1 candle from that first cake, stored away in a kitchen cabinet all these years.

He blew out that candle once again, along with 8 other striped birthday candles, to the cheers of about 30 family members and friends we had invited to a picnic and softball game.

Then I smashed a piece of cake in his face, since he is too old now to do that again, like he did that first time.

In a little speech afterward, he said that besides having everyone there to celebrate with him, the highlight of  his day was having his team win the softball game. (He captained one team, my husband the other. I pitched for his team. I’ll post some photos later; our camera died so I have to wait to get them.)

My son had this to add about why he was so happy: It wasn’t just winning the game, but beating the other team by the score of 13-4.

Right then and there I said to myself, that’s a man talking, all right.

More from Blog On Board — Theresa Walker

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