Jeremiah Calvin

Gosh I love this kid.  I don't have such good photos of him here.....but this is what I have tonight.  If Roger was not in Texas, he could help me find better, more current ones.  If my friend Jen was not in Mexico, she could help me post the really awesome photos she took a few weeks ago.  Here is a summation of me as a mom:  I have good words to write.  I don't have the technical skills to add a really awesome and inspiring photo.  That's me.  Half-baked.  Reaching for it but not quite getting there.  I am defining it because I happen to know that many of you out there who read this blog are just like me.  Feel better about yourselves tonight.  This one's for you.  

So here is Jeremiah being his sweet and silly self.  This kid is my heart.  He is sweet.  He is kind.  He is 12 and in the 7th grade at school.  He is always willing to help me, to fix things, to be a blessing.  He is the absolute middle child.  2 older sibs and 2 younger sibs.  

Tonight he and I went to a neighboring town for an "Interscholastic Speech" event.  His older brother and sister have also done this.  You prepare a "speech" which is a published piece, and read it/act it out in front of a judge who gives constructive critique.  His teacher offered him 10 extra credit points and a donut to do it.  Since he kinda needed the extra credit, he decided to say yes.    

I have a fear of public speaking.  (shhhhhh).  Every time I have taken a microphone in hand or stood in front of an audience I was in a cold sweat, having visited the bathroom multiple times as my fight-or-flight system released......and tonight I took Jeremiah to his speech event and was just as nervous for my boy......had to find the bathroom 4 times between dinner and his speech an hour later.  Crazy, I know.  

He was nervous too.  He rehearsed in the car as we drove.  One part of his Irma Bombeck speech about a boy who was a germ freak talked about picking up chewed gum from the side of an ash tray and putting it in his mouth.  I laughed out loud as he read the phrase.  He asked why I laughed.  I explained the part about the chewed gum on the ash tray which is a vivid memory from my childhood and young adult years.....and he asked me, "what is an ash tray, mom?"  

Sweet boy.  Sweet boy who lives in a smoke-free home, thanks be to God!  He didn't know what an ash tray was!  Between trips to public restrooms in gas stations on the way to his speech event, I explained the physicality of an ash tray, how it had grooves to support a burning cigarette so that a person could set it down and pick it up without burning someone or something.....and sometimes, if you were also a gum chewer you had to set your chewed gum on the side......and he was quite entertained by it.  He said that when he goes to disc golf tournaments, the grown up guys smoke a lot but they just toss the cigarettes in the grass and then pick them up again.  Wow.  Lovely.  

We got to the venue and found our"center" which is a classroom.  We waited our turn.  The "judge" was a younger woman with colorfully dyed hair (thank goodness!) and not someone stuffy.  Jeremiah was so, so nervous.  He pulled at his jeans, he didn't look up more than once, he was flushed and breathless.....and I just sat in row 2 and clenched my hands together and smiled, willing it to be over.  He had a few funny parts that were redemptive......and the judge was kind.....and it ended quickly.  My cramping diarrhea stomach dissolved when he left the room.   We left.  

Parenting starts with that first positive pregnancy test, and evolves with time.  Eventually you find yourself in a school classroom on a weeknight watching your tweener son sweat his way through a silly speech for a few extra credit points and a donut......and that's ok.

I came home and did the stuff that needed to be done, then had a major parenting issue with another child......and somehow we are all still alive.  It is really late and my 2 little kids are finally sleeping.  My big kids can handle themselves, and this middle boy....well....he has my heart tonight.  He will be up on time tomorrow, doing his work for school, wondering about breakfast and the weather.  He likes to be outside and go disc golfing with his buddies after school.

Jeremiah Calvin.....you bless me.  Tonight I was a hot mess of nerves and stress.  You were nervous, for sure, but you stayed calm and did your job.  I think when you are a grown up, you won't be as messed up as your mama when you have to speak in front of people.  I think that because you did this hard thing now, and you could "hit the dab" just because you found a moment in the speech for it....you are gonna be fine.  Maybe more than fine, Maybe more like your daddy than your mama.  Your daddy loves the stage.  I would love it if you did too.

Thanks, buddy.  Thanks for doing the speech tonight.  Thanks for taking me on that road of my own yucky stuff as I worried for you and watched you do just fine......I am so proud of you.  Everything about you is a smile to me.