Happy Birthday to the Blue-Eyed Wonder!

#3 lives most of his life incognito, changing costumes and personalities, peeling off one layer and assuming another. From mild mannered boy to crazy-eyed wild child, he flits back and forth, not really one or the other. The truth that is him rests securely in the middle, but he enjoys playing with the extremes and testing out who it is that he wants to become if only for a moment.

#3 turned 8 this week without a lot of hoopla, just a trip to the Lego store with a friend and a cake his sisters made for him. He would have preferred to share his birthday with his newest brother, but #6 wasn’t having that. It didn’t matter, #3 spent the day introducing the new guy and then adding, “Oh, yeah…and it’s my birthday today. Did you know?” His delight in his brother overshadowed his birthday joy, if only for a moment. I knew it would.

#3 is the definition of mischievous, most of the time. He has the twinkling eyes and slightly naughty grin which will someday melt girls’ hearts. Today, it only melts his mom’s. I know that underneath his elfin looks is a sweet spirit, easily bruised and extremely sensitive. He delights in the mayhem he causes until he realizes it has harmed someone else, and then the tears spill down his cheeks and the contrition is immediate and absolute. The bad-boy with the heart of gold.

Silent like his father, #3 keeps himself to himself and wants nothing from the world except to share with the rest of us the adventures he has found. #3 has never been content to simply daydream or sit quietly playing a story in his mind. He has to live the story and be the excitement. I think he gets bored with the rest of the world which doesn’t dress as Indiana Jones for a trip to the super market or wield a light saber and recreate battle scenes while watching Star Wars. It is not enough to enjoy a movie when you can live the movie.

Always creating, always thinking, and possessing an encyclopedic knowledge of everyone’s closet contents, we have long since given up our fight to keep him from wearing our clothes in the interest of seeing what creation will emerge next.

A secret part of me hopes he keeps living this way, although I know he probably won’t. He will one day put aside his sister’s tights and his father’s ties, stop stealing his brother’s shoes and no longer use my eyeliner for battle camouflage. One day he will wake up and be normal and boring like the rest of us. Unless…..unless he finds a way to continue living out the stories he has in his head. Some people do. The lucky few. We call them adventurers and visionaries and creative geniuses. The luckiest of us get to call them “Son”.