Dude. 17.

My teeny tiny little blog baby, the one who started this whole thing on a fated trip east while still in diapers, my dissertation ride or die. My practice pancake who has been an adult in a kid's body since the beginning of time. This kid has literally one more year before he's a legal adult. It somehow feels like both the most bizarre and most natural thing to have this person in my life who is practically grown, who has the biggest feet and the deepest voice but who still gets irrationally frustrated by his little sister and is obsessed with his kittens (who he has emphatically claimed and who he believes no one else can take care of or keep safe). He is wise and brilliant and has the kindest, most loving sense of gratitude but also is ridiculously adolescent and entitled enough to remind us that he is absolutely still a teenager. 

There are very few pictures from his birthday because he's a grown person who threw himself and his best friend/birthday twin a lake party, but one where he made responsible choices and invited his thirteen year old sister to join him. His birthday donuts were NOT from Dunkin because he holds a grudge on his sister's behalf but they were delicious. He was thrilled with his headphones and his shoes, since all he asked for was for us to buy sodas and hotdogs for his friends. I am obsessed with him. I can't believe he's going to be a senior and I desperately want him to have all the amazing things he hopes for. Right now that's to make all the memories, to dual enroll in a fire sciences program, and to wrestle as much as is humanly possible. He's planning on becoming an EMT and pursuing the fire academy and I'm planning on trying to entice him to live with us for at least five more years.