My son Logan graduated from high school this week. Poof and the last seventeen years flew by! I feel emotional about this. My boy slowly morphing into a man in front of me, and soon moving away from home to go to college in September. I dread the sight of his empty room, and the mess that will no longer be there.

Just one more notch in my life belt and one of many in his.

Driving to work the other day, stuck in traffic, I started to reflect on Logan’s past seventeen years. I was thinking of the day he was born. I can remember the back labour like it was yesterday. The struggle to deliver my baby boy.  I can remember those first days, weeks, months and years. They passed so quickly, waiting for each first. The first time he smiled, giggled, sat up, rolled over, walked, first words and sentences.  First time he told me he loved me and hated me, first time peeing and pooing on the potty, the first time he shared with other children. When he learned to ride a bike on his first try. First pair of glasses (one of many), when he learned sarcasm, humour, when he learned to agree to disagree (he struggles with this one-Lol). First broken bone, his second, and third, when he learned to swim, when he played soccer, when he tried football and then rugby. So many firsts and he still has many more to come in his life. The firsts I won’t witness.

I drove him to work yesterday, I felt sad and angry that this summer is a last for that. Yes, he could take the bus, but I have come to realize that our best and longest conversations are in the car. So, yes I go out of my way to pick up and drive my son any chance I get. Often it is not convenient for me, but in bad traffic I get an hour or more with my boy. We listen to music and he is amused that I know so many of the songs that he knows. We sing together, talk, laugh, sometimes he sleeps, sometimes we argue (mostly about politics), but by the end of the car ride we have said our apologies for over reacting, and have talked out our differences. He has his driver’s license now, so I am not sure how much longer this will last, it will be less time spent together.

I have a memory bank of all the times he and I have spent together, just the two of us.  When he was 6 years old and we drove to Toronto to go to the Exhibition. We had our adventure on the subway and street cars. He learned the lesson of why you shouldn’t eat fast food before riding on a ride that spins….public puking in a garbage as I rubbed his back, not his finest moment. When we went to Canada’s Wonderland with Christina and his friend Tyler. He and Tyler were too afraid to go on the larger roller coasters and really enjoyed the merry go round. They were maybe 10 years old. I did manage to get him on the ride where you need to lay on your stomach. The ride started and we went up the track and he panicked. The fear of his glasses falling off, and me trying to comfort him as best I could being trapped in my own ride cage. By the time we got to the end he was fine. Happily, we went back as a family after Jack was born and the boys and I got the fast pass, we let Andrew go to kiddy town with Jack (he doesn’t enjoy rides at all). We had a blast, unfortunately, Logan was still not a fan of roller coasters, but neither is Jakob so they did all the rides that weren’t roller coasters. Kyle and I rode them all! Over and over,  we got all of our monies worth that day!

I remember when Logan and I went to Granby Zoo for the weekend, we had so much fun the two of us. I bought him a stuffed snake that weekend, and when we went back as a family him and Kyle each got one, it was a big thing at the time. The boys have long since passed on all of their treasured stuffies to Jack there youngest brother. I look back on all of our adventures together and my heart is filled with happiness. So many special times with my boy.

As he has gotten older it has been harder to do things with just him, but we have seen many movies together, and eaten our share of bulk barn candy and popcorn. I remember when I had the great idea to go to bulk barn and buy a very large bag of candy – the movie was UP (3D) we both cried at the beginning, how could you not. I don’t know if that prompted the eating of the entire bag of candy, but we did. Needless to say it was a very long time before we ate candy again. Sugar tongue, need I say more….oh and stomach ache. Learning to drive has been a bonus, as he was willing to leave his room for larger periods of time in order to drive. Hey- I will take what I can get at this point. Having him clean up the kitchen after dinner also means more time spent talking about our day, and making plans for the next one.

I know Logan will have many more firsts and will experience many lasts, one’s I won’t even be aware of. It makes me sad, but I am happy that I get to have this experience 3 more times with Kyle, Jack and Rose. Logan will be part of those firsts and lasts for them, as I know his older brother Jakob has. I know it gets easier, it is the initial letting go that is hard.

August will be here before you know it and I will be saying good-bye to my boy as he embarks on his own path, which no longer has me organizing, nagging and micro-managing his everyday life. I am scared for him, scared that I did too much for him, that I didn’t let him fail enough. Scared that I didn’t push him harder, scared that he hasn’t heard and listened to all of my words over his seventeen years.

I will miss hearing him say, ‘I love you Mom,’ as he gives me a hug and kiss. I will miss having to get the step stool out to give him a proper hug.

I will love watching him grow into an independent man, following his own path, making his own adventures along the way. My son.

“I will Love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living my baby you’ll be.” -Robert Munsch