In which my boy becomes a man...

Today is Father’s Day and it is also the 18^th birthday of the Teenage Son.  Good grief, is it a mere 18 years since I was lying in a hospital bed wondering if the bit between my waist and my knees would ever function as nature intended again whilst the Shah was dancing around the labour room shrieking “I’m a dad!  I’m a dad!”?

One look at this photo of the newborn and you will see that the experience was not great for him either.  In fact, he didn’t stop frowning for about five years after this was taken.

In the past eighteen years he has brought us 

• Pride (academic scholarship to a good independent school, hockey colours, great GCSE  results)
• Irritation (he once annoyed his music teacher so much that he was chased out of the classroom and across the playground.  “Why?” we asked wearily.  “Oh I, er, fell off my chair and into the cymbals...” came the reply...ahem)
• Worry (passing his driving test only a few months after his 17^th birthday, causing me and the Shah to hold our collective breath every time he ventured out the first few times) 
• Laughter (he has an excellent sense of humour – inherited from his mother, naturally) 
• Revulsion (he can belch like a feckin’ foghorn)
• And enormous joy, as has his sister.

But it has never been dull having him around.  We have taken photos at all the major junctions of his life so far...first day at school, the day he became a teenager – all those things that doting parents do and no doubt we will force him in front of the camera again later today and no doubt he will groan and pull faces and eventually give in gracefully.


This morning, he came down to open the cards that had been accumulating: Card number 1 from an aunt contained a fat cheque - huzzah!  Card number 2 from maternal Granny contained a slightly leaner cheque, but huzzah! anyway.  Card number 3 from paternal grandparents contained, er, two balloons.  Go figure....

The poor old Shah’s Father’s Day celebrations have been somewhat eclipsed by the birthday boy.  However, he did receive two very nice cards from his children – TD made one which featured a drawing of her and her father (they are so alike as to be virtually interchangeable in personality).  Under her portrait she has written ‘Dad’ and, of course, her name under his.  It couldn’t be more true and he was thrilled with it.

The birthday boy, meanwhile, ‘ceebsed’ making a card and loped down to the local Clintons to buy one, via talking his way out of a parking ticket in the process.  (How?  That’s so unfair, I’ve never got out of a parking ticket in my life).  His card listed the top 15 things every dad in the world has said at least once and goes like this:-

1.   Don’t ask me, ask your mother!

2.   You didn’t beat me, I let you win!

3.   We’re not lost, I’m just not sure where we are.

4.   Call that a haircut?

5.   I’ll tell you why – because I said so, that’s why!

6.   You’re going out dressed like THAT?

7.   Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.

8.   Careful!  You’ll have somebody’s eye out with that...

9.   What do you think I am, a bank?

10.  Now in my day...

11.  I’m not going to sleep, I’m just resting my eyes

12.  Oh for God’s sake, where the hell are my *&*@ing car keys?  Oh thanks, love.

13.  Oi! That’s my chair, now shift yer butt!

14.  What part of NO do you not understand?

15.  Call that music?

The Shah has many other delightful and not so delightful sayings, but I feel I should save those for another day.....