Hayden turns eighteen on Thursday.  I wrote about him last week, but this birthday week and whole "Senior" thing has me feeling rather melancholy.  Sitting in a pile of laundry with wet hair, my to do list waiting for me, I went back to a few old posts written before his sixteen birthday. I am lamenting.

And so if you'll excuse me, I'm going to be "that mom".  I'm going to recycle this post and who knows maybe a few others to memorialize days past and to share hopes to come. If you don't read them that's ok.  I will.  I'll click on this sight, if for no other reason, to look at him when he still had baby teeth and thought he was a superhero.  I'm going to share this post today because I'm sad about the six-foot something kid who has plans to leave the nest in eight months and for some odd reason I need the world to know there's a little sorrow under the smile I wear.  Mixed in with the sad I'm also hopeful and excited in a ( "with God all things are possible") way that can't be expressed in less than five thousand words. Lastly, I'm reusing the old stuff because the old stuff is still true stuff and at some point I still need to dry my hair.

Extraordinary

One of my favorite things about Hayden is his ability to be amazed at the the mundane.

He is engrossed in the ordinary. 

There was a time when this drove me nuts.

Stopping to observe a stray cat, a rock, and every piece of litter on the sidewalk slowed me down.  It got me out of my groove.  My routine offers little time for pause.

He touches everything in sight. It's as if everything he comes in contact with begs to be studied (this doesn't usually include schoolwork). I'm positive he could tell you what all fifty-two buttons on the remote are for.  He's tried them all, I'm sure of it.

I've told him to never commit a crime because his fingerprints will be all over the scene.

Hayden doesn't see a stick, he sees a javelin.  He doesn't see a Dr Pepper can, but a piece of art.  A fork paired with a glass of milk becomes an unwritten piece of music.

Hayden grabs on to things other people would neglect to notice.  This was a bit of a problem when Hayden was smaller when it came to shopping.  On more than several occasions, random items appeared in my shopping basket.  My current back problems I have to this day are from jimmying him into the basket when he was too big to be there.    I was often an aisle hog so that he couldn't reach items on the shelves of either side. Aisle hogs annoy me now.....so soon we forget.

One trip to Wal Mart, post-shopping cart age, I realized his amazement with the ordinary.  As I quickly piled groceries at the check-out, I noticed that Hayden had taken a sudden deep interest in the conveyor belt.  He was touching it, lifting it up and peering underneath.  It would, never in a million years, have occurred to me to look under there.  I hadn't the least bit amazement with how my groceries got from point a to point b.

I do life.

Hayden experiences it.

The show "Amazing Race" comes to mind.  And while I've never watched it, the name makes me think.  I'm not sure that its simply "the race" that is so amazing. I'm quite convinced that life becomes amazing when you see the wondrous in the midst of the race.

Even if it means stopping.

 Even if it means taking the long way for something that may not seem worthwhile. 

Even if you're not in first place at the race's end. 

I think Hayden is a champion.

I pray that this gift; his willingness to stop and be amazed, will never die.  I pray that he will be mindful that every sunset and every piece of architecture has God's name written on it.  I pray that his amazement will be a testimony to the glory of God.

I have been touched, seeing beauty and purpose in unlikely places through his eyes and hands.  I have come to believe, that it is through this very gift, that Hayden will leave his fingerprint on this world.