I often refer to my eleven year old daughter as a “freak of nature”. I mean that in the best possible way.

Let me start by saying that if I had stopped having kids after she was born, I would think the rest of you were horrible parents. I remember taking her to toddler storytime at the library only to be surrounded by children who didn’t look as much like small people as they did drunken vagrants. Stumbling about, picking their noses, their shirts covered with a mixture of snot, chocolate milk and popsicle stains.

Some would put their fingers in the floor outlets, others would dump their crayons and some would run completely out of the room. Not my kid. If she had been wearing a halo she couldn’t have appeared any more angelic.

Her pacifier, which had been an extension of her lips, was taken away when she turned two and she never asked for it after that. There were no tears or drama. She was potty trained in three days and never had an accident. If I told her not to do something, she never did it again.

So, I’m sure you will understand that I believed I was the best parent IN THE WORLD and the rest of you were a bunch of schmucks. Just sayin’.

Then my son was born. Someone got set straight. That someone was me.

Through all of my son’s trials and tribulations and health problems and odd behavior, my daughter has never strayed from her original path of being a darn good kid. Sure she rolls her eyes at me. She talks back and fights with her brother too. I’m glad she does those things so I know she’s human.

Despite having a brother with a lot of issues and despite being involved with Girl Scouts and playing soccer, basketball, softball and track this school year, she has managed to be on the honor roll every quarter. I never have to tell her to do her homework or study for a test. As a matter of fact, I have actually insisted she “put down her book” and “stop taking so many math practice tests”.

She is a great kid and if she would start picking up her socks I would say she is extremely responsible. Also, I wouldn’t mind if she cleaned under her bed. Maybe she’s saving the old magic kit, the ripped-up foam hopscotch set and the single Barbie shoe stuffed with dust bunnies. I wouldn’t be surprised if she put it all together and made something that puts MacGyver to shame. She’s that smart.

Tomorrow is my daughter’s last day of elementary school. She is growing up. Fast. I can’t bear to think that someday she won’t be around every day.

I kind of like being surrounded by such goodness.

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You know how you stay up late with your husband drinking homemade, blackberry wine and then you wake up at 4:30am and can’t go back to sleep, and four hours later you get on a school bus with 30 first graders for a zoo field trip, and then you walk around for four hours in the rain, and you watch a gorilla regurgitate and re-eat it over and over again, and sometimes the gorilla eats its own boogers, and then you go to lunch and give thanks that you didn’t pack guacamole, and then a bug flies in your mouth, and on the bus ride home your son sleeps the entire way, which means he doesn’t fall asleep until way-to-late-o’clock on a school night?

Yeah me too.

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I have a good friend with whom my family spends a lot of time. I would like to say it’s because our older daughters are in the same class and play a lot of sports together, or because her younger daughter and my son are nine months apart. But, pretty much, it’s because we both like beer.

My friend’s father is in his eighties and lives with her and her family. We call him Pops.

My eight year old son and Pops have a great relationship, despite the more than seven decades between them. They both tire easily, they are both hard of hearing and they both have heart problems. It’s kind of a match made in heaven.

It turns out, they both have eye problems too. Although I had never noticed, my son picked up on the fact that Pops’ right eye looks different from his left. Thank goodness the entire family is aware of my child’s blatant honesty, because he didn’t have any problem mentioning it.

And when Pops told my boy that he was blind in one eye, my son said, “Hey, Pops. Cover your good eye with one of your hands.” Pops obliged.

Then my son did what any good, supportive person would do to his blind friend.

He hid.

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My husband made me cry last week. The kind of crying that makes your lip quiver and your heart hurt. The kind of crying that leaves you shaken.

In a totally good way.

We were enjoying a Pearl Jam concert when we heard the first few notes of the song, “Given to Fly”. I threw my fist into the air, as any good rocker would, and I smiled because it’s one of my favorites. Then my husband leaned into my back, laid his hands on my shoulders and put his mouth next to my ear before saying, “This song reminds me of our son.”

The tears were immediate.

See, if you haven’t known my boy from the day he was born, you don’t know how far he has come. People who meet him now don’t know that he barely made it through his first year. People who meet him now don’t know what a fighter he truly is.

They don’t know that when he makes me laugh, it is a hearty laugh because I never knew if I would hear him speak. Or, when he completes his math homework that I want to burst with pride because I didn’t know if he would ever be able to hold a pencil, let alone comprehend the problems.

They can’t look inside his chest and see his mangled heart or his stomach which often can’t hold its contents. They can’t look into his eyes and know that he could rarely open his right eye until it was repaired surgically. They see a little kid, but I see an amazing human being who is living proof that you can’t judge a book by its cover.

A wave came crashing like a fist to the jaw
Delivered him wings, “Hey, look at me now”
Arms wide open with the sea as his floor
Oh, power, oh
He’s…flying
Whole…

He floated back down ’cause he wanted to share
His key to the locks on the chains he saw everywhere
But first he was stripped and then he was stabbed
…well…he still stands

And sometimes is seen a strange spot in the sky
A human being that was given to fly

Today my son turns eight years old. Happy birthday, child. Fly high.

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