National "Jeb Is Awesome Day"

Otherwise known as Jeb's 13th birthday.

National Jeb is Awesome Day!

This is Jeb's "show me what a teenager looks like" look.
Deer in headlights feeling uncooperative with mother?

However, on my calendar is recorded the above.  Clearly Jeb knows he is worth celebrating.  And not shy about reminding us. :)

Today is his day.  And I marvel that I have a second born who is already thirteen.

Thirteen years ago he arrived, smiling.  A quiet, sweet, gentle little smile.  Truly.

For an hour he held his daddy's finger while he warmed in an isolette.  I waited in the room, alone and in wonder.  Daddy and newborn gazing, eyes locked in welcome and love.  After that hour he was almost never out of my arms.  I still remember frantic at the park, not knowing where he was, and my friend looking at my laughing, "Sara, he is in your arms".  Oh, just a wee tired, perhaps?

Jeb in arm.  That's how we rolled.  In arm, in bed, in crib in dining room (yep...our house was so small that was a solve for the daytime hours since he never really slept in it anyway.  We put him there so we could eat dinner while he slept those first few months.  So fun to remember it all!).  Right snuggled up like the dear wonder he was.

He wore often a darling little white and light yellow striped onesie outfit with a little sun on the front.  Totally describes his personality.  Not loud yellow sun; soft warm golden sunshine.  Happy making sun, soft glow of morning.

Jeb was born in spring.  Not like Minnesota today.  That year, there was grass and budding flowers.  Trees were ready to shoot forth new leaves.  We went on walks and sat outside the first week home.

Jeb is like spring.  He brings a freshness and goodness with him.  What is happening is good and what is next is good, too in the world of Jeb.  He's always been like that.

His three younger siblings celebrated his day by staying home from school after their mother got stuck in the driveway three times backing out, and watched school buses slide backwards down the hill to school for twenty minutes.  Said mother called it a home day and back we all went.   I won't recount the great snowblowing event that ended in a small, tiny little ding somewhere.  It's nothing, really.  Don't even fret.

Anna made signs galore for her Jeb.

They are all over the living room and dining room.  His awesomeness is well recorded!  "Jeb is osum!"  "Jeb is the best!" "Go, Go, Go, Go Jeb!" "The best big browe".

Luke's sign reads, "Beast!".  I think in boy-speak that bodes well as a compliment?  Snips and snails, I tell you.

Jeb had pancakes, bacon and strawberries for breakfast before school, and steak and asparagus stir-fry for dinner with a raspberry rhubarb pie and Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream for dessert.  Yum.

Now that his gifts are open, he will never hear us again.  He received the longed-for ear phones...called Skull Candy.  How funny is that?!  The design is as offbeat as the name.

Look at my teenager?!?!?!

He will be well-dressed for spring thanks to his grandparents.

And on spring break he will also find great escape in a new pile of books.

All in all, a super awesome birthday for our SUPER AWESOME Jeb...or Jeb-o, as Emma calls him.

Jebby Mac {as I love to say}, you are wonderful.  Growing in grace and truth; into the man God created you to be.  It is a privilege and a true and honest pleasure to be your parents.  We delight in you, and love seeing you become more and more Jeb each day.  Valiant Jeb.

We give God such honest and humble thanks for the gift of you.  You are fearfully and wonderfully made by a God who fashioned moonbeams and likewise laid the beams of heaven; a God who called forth snowflakes and created peonies unfolding in spring sun.  All His creation sings of Him who created: the Creator.  The Uncreated One.  And the One who made you!  Glory be.

You are a wonder to us.  A wonder straight from God's hand.

Happy Birthday, Jeb.  On National Jeb is Awesome Day, we celebrate another year of you!

Yay, Jeb!

You will always be our "Bah", with blaster eyes and a theme song, geared up as batman, hair halo-white and baby chick shorn, goggles on, perched on the dock and frogs in hand in the waning day's light.  Sweetest Jeb!  Don't be mad I wrote that. :)  I hold that Jeb of yesteryear in my heart even as I watch you transform right before our very eyes into the Jeb of today and tomorrow.

We love you!  Happy birthday, son.

p.s.  Hide those headphones...

just a suggestion!