You’re eleven years old! That’s wild to me. I don’t know why eleven feels so much older than ten. Maybe it’s because you’re going to middle school (WHYYYYYYY) this year, or maybe it’s because you’ve grown up so much lately. Whatever it is, it’s been really fun to watch you at this stage.
i’ve been thinking about what to write for you for a while. Sometimes your birthday brings a lot of emotions for me. I’m always thrilled that you’re here, but sometimes it’s a lot to remember. That isn’t your fault, of course, but sometimes I have difficulty figuring out what I want to say. So this will be a little departure from the norm. and if you decide you don’t like it… well, get your own blog.
”Looking Back”
A boy, a girl, They fell in love, Grew together Exchanged some vows.
Days went by, Then months, Then years, And they knew the time was now.
They had prayed And wondered aloud Seeking guidance On bended knee.
And one day, the answer came. God reached down And gave them peace.
The boy, the girl They felt such joy To have their cries Be seen and known.
But the joy they knew, The plans they’d made, Crumbled and faded Just as they’d grown.
Their precious boy, Already so loved, Fought to breathe And fought to live.
The boy, the girl They stood by his side Unsure, now, how to pray Unsure of God’s motives.
Days went by, Then weeks, Then months, So many days the same.
Their son, so loved Would rise, would fall Until one day, God whispered his name.
The boy, the girl, They had thought hard, And had known their son’s name For many days.
And now, while waiting, While fearful, while watching, Heard God remind them: “It means ‘I will save.'”
Their precious son, Already so bold, Already so brave, Began to fight anew.
The boy, the girl, Witnessed God’s love As He whispered, “See what I can do.”
For that same God Who gave them peace, Was with them, And stayed there each day.
His hands reached down To their precious son And continued To model the clay.
The boy, the girl, Now they knew That when God Seemed far and cold,
That He was the same God who had given The peace they had Longed to hold.
In times of sorrow, In times of joy, In times of peace, fear, depression, pain.
The God they knew. Who sent His Son, Was — and would always be — the same.
The boy, the girl, Their precious son, They had been given A most precious gift.
For though their son Would struggle still, Develop slowly, differently… There was a shift.
Not a curse; No, not at all. Their precious son Was free!
Not from hardship, Woes, or pain. But to seek God And know eternity.
Their precious son, Now growing up, Has declared it For his own.
He seeks the Lord, God’s will be done! He prays and sings, Never truly alone.
The boy, the girl, They thought before God was good When he brought joy.
But now they saw God’s goodness Displayed in the hardship Known by their boy.
The boy, the girl, They realized, then, That we don’t love God For good times He brings.
They loved their Lord, And sought Him now, Because He had given them A precious son who sings.
God showed them hardship; That part is true. But there is more to The story to tell.
God said He’d save, And then He did, And now, through hardship, It is well.
The boy, the girl, Their precious son, Would take sadness And despair again,
As now they know God is always God He will be, He is, And He’s always been.
Happy, happy, happy eleventh birthday to my Joshy, my Josher Washer, my Jo-Jo, my t-rex loving, Titanic facts learning, Lego building, always singing, pillow stealing boy. I hope you know that we love you always. We love you when you fail a test and we love you when you accomplish a goal and we love you when you drive us crazy and we love you when you make us laugh and when you cry and when you sing and when you wake up and when you go to bed. We love you and we would never change a thing.
A friend of mine shared that her daughter was recently stung by a bee, which was surprising to my friend, as it is January — not a time you typically look out for bees. And a year ago, I would have been as surprised as my friend to see a bee sting in January.
But that was a year ago.
Before the Science Fair of 2023.
Before we learned about the Bee-ening.
Last year, Josh was in fourth grade. At the time, our school required all fourth- and fifth-graders to participate in the science fair. It wasn’t meant to be a high-pressure situation (I don’t even think it was graded); it was to encourage the youths to learn more about the scientific method and how to problem-solve and some other school phrases. I didn’t hate the idea, especially because many of the topics that the students could pick from involved experience that required mechanical expertise, which is Daniel’s jam. In fact, I felt downright smug as I considered how very easy the science fair would be for us, what with Daniel’s skillset and Joshua’s deep love of asking questions.
“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18.
That verse will become relevant very soon.
Anyway, Josh had to choose his science fair topic at some point in September of 2022. He looked at all the options, read the descriptions, and picked the only topic that did not involve creating some type of simple machine. Josh, who has many talents but does not really enjoy the machining and the physics like his father does, chose the topic that spoke to him most clearly: Protecting pollinators in Georgia.
Terrific.
But it was his project, and we could learn about bees, and it wasn’t the worst idea.
Here is a little tip for you: even great ideas aren’t great if you don’t actually act on them.
Months passed. I quickly forgot about the science fair. In my defense, I had SO much to do — the new season of The Crown was out, I had to pick some new spells for my abjuration wizard because I leveled up, I had to wash my hair… the list was endless. I’m only human.
But, Kristen, you may ask — didn’t Josh’s teacher remind you?
She did.
Okay, but, Kristen, you may ask — did the school not give you a due date?
It did.
Fine, Kristen, but — didn’t you write the date down on your calendar? (That one is for my mom.)
I did.
Listen, this is not a story of how the school system failed Josh. This is a story of how Josh’s mother failed to function as an adult in such a way that absolutely zero progress was made on this rassafrassin bee project whatsoever.
That all changed one Friday, when Josh came skipping off the school bus with the reminder that his science fair project was due the following Monday.
Important note: In the course of nearly 13 years of marriage, Daniel has been out of town maaaaaaybe three times. He doesn’t travel for work. He doesn’t even stay out late. But during this weekend, the weekend that involved Joshua reminding me about his project, Daniel was out of town.
Yeah.
So, back to Josh — he reminds me of the science fair project. And I would like to say I reacted calmly, but none of you would believe me. I ran inside (abandoning my children in the driveway) and checked the 3,000 reminders that the school has sent us. Josh was right. This project was due in a little over 48 hours and we had done absolutely nothing.
Josh and I read through the topic description together, and my heart sank even further. He was supposed to find a way to protect pollinators, like bees, in his local environment. Not only was it one of the coldest January days, it was also drizzling all weekend long. Not a great opportunity for bee-assisting.
During our research, Josh also let me know (again, he was very cheerful about this) that the teacher in charge of this science fair had offered to help each kid in the class. When I asked if Josh had ever taken her up on that offer, Josh looked at me very seriously and said, “Oh, no, Mommy. I knew you would want to help me instead.”
Terrific.
We learned that while bees do tend to hang near the hive during winter, they would occasionally leave to either find food or take a “cleansing flight,” which is what it’s called when a bee takes a potty break. #themoreyouknow
And when the bees leave to take care of business (beesiness?), they often can’t make it back to their hive because of rain, sleet, snow — basically everything that doesn’t stop the USPS. In those cases, the bees look for a little hole to hide inside, like a lil sensory bee swing, and wait until it’s safe to return to the mothership. To protect the pollinators, bee enthusiasts suggested that people make a bee hotel to give the bees some first-class room service during the stay.
Our bee hotel was made out of a yogurt container, rolled up construction paper, sticks, my tears, and looked like this:
Joshua loved it. He declared himself the hotel manager and decorated the bee hotel with a fervor that can only be found in someone who doesn’t have any children participating in a science fair. And I only cried a little.
We finished the hotel and hung it outside on a branch, just like the instructions told us. We waited.
But then Jenna got involved, and she told us how she had seen a show that talked about how you could attract bees with certain types of flowers or plants. This is why you don’t let kids watch educational television. I pointed out that there weren’t a lot of plants blooming in the bleak midwinter. Jenna, ever-helpful, reminded me that our grocery store always had plants, and we could just go get a plant from the store.
Te. Rif. Fic.
We found a lavender plant (a flower? I don’t do plants. It was purple. It was called lavender. Choose your own adventure.), which Jenna identified as being the scent of choice for bees everywhere. So now we had a bee hotel hanging by some yarn over a potted lavender plant.
I had few hopes. Mostly, I just wanted this to end.
The last requirement of the project was for the student to write up what they did and if it worked. Our printer had conveniently stopped working just a few days before, a fact that Daniel had planned to address upon his return. After all, as he pointed out and I agreed, we didn’t print all that much.
I called my mom and asked if she could print off our bee project write-up. And since I knew there was no way that any bees were coming to our sad Motel 6 of a bee hotel, I went ahead and asked Josh to write out why the project didn’t work, and what we could do differently (besides, you know, actually doing the project), and sent it all to my mom to print.
On Saturday night, it was finally over. The bees had not arrived. The hotel manager was in bed. We could rest knowing that this was… well, not a job well done. But it was done.
The following day, it rained even harder. I was dreading going outside to check on our soggy bee hotel, which I had promised Josh we could leave up until Sunday night, “just in case.” He put on his raincoat and asked if he could go perform his hotel manager duties and check on his unoccupied hotel. I agreed, thinking at least he had enjoyed the craft part.
Two minutes later, Josh ran back inside with an announcement:
A bee had checked into the hotel.
There was no way, I thought; absolutely zero chance that a bee had flown into this thing and stayed. I ran outside to check.
A bee had, indeed, checked into the hotel.
I’m not gonna lie… I was a little irritated. Not only was this bee undermining my whole “this is why we don’t leave things until the last minute” speech I had given to Josh earlier, but now our carefully crafted pre-written conclusion of failure was useless.
But at least it had worked. Now Josh could go to school and fool his teachers into thinking his parents were competent for one more semester. We took away the conclusion, added some photos of the bee in the hotel, and hoped the results would speak for themselves with little to no follow-up questions asked about the timeline.
Somewhere in the midst of all this, Daniel came home, and helped us turn the Failed Bee Project into the Wow, It Really Worked Bee Project. Finally, the world’s longest weekend was over.
The following morning, Daniel woke me up before he left for work. He had gone outside to retrieve the bee hotel to put it in our van so Josh could bring it to school. Except Daniel couldn’t retrieve the bee hotel, because it was now literally buzzing and filled with at least 20 bees.
Apparently our bee hotel had filled quite a gap in the market.
This required Daniel to quickly make a new bee hotel, because a) he didn’t want to get stung 800 times when he moved the OG bee hotel, and b) after all this work, we would be darned if Josh didn’t have SOMETHING to bring to school that was, preferably, not filled with bees.
Joshua brought his project to school the following day. All was well.
Fast forward to our school’s STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) night, where they were going to showcase the science fair winners and honorable mentions in the school’s media center. Nothing against science, but Daniel and I had had our fill for the year, so we didn’t even plan to look.
That was, of course, until we saw Joshua’s project, beckoning us closer like… bees to a yogurt hotel.
Okay, I thought, they must have put all the projects in here.
Nope.
After I saw Joshua’s project, I saw something else on the front of the posterboard: a shiny ribbon that said “Honorable Mention.”
Son of a bee hotel.
It wasn’t enough that we were able to make the bee hotel. It wasn’t enough that the hotel had actually worked. No, after all that, Josh received an honorable mention in the school science fair. He was one of only around 30 kids to be singled out.
Unbeelievable.
Thankfully, the Honorable Mentions did not advance to the next level of the science fair. When I tell you that I would have sabotaged my own child’s project before I celebrating having to continue with the madness, I mean it. But Josh was happy with his work, and didn’t even notice the very small aneurism plaguing his mother as she surveyed the scene in front of her with a mixture of surprise, delight, and rage.
The bee hotel lived on for many months. Summer actually saw fewer bees visit the hotel — the management thinks it’s because our yarn was fraying. Who knows. But since we had sort of skirted some building codes, our bee hotel eventually became one with the recycling bin. It does live forever in our hearts (and in the parts of our brains associated with white-hot anger). Plus we have that sweet ribbon.
All in all, I learned a lot that weekend. I learned about bees, of course, and how much Josh loved managing hotels. We learned about the bathroom habits of bees and that you shouldn’t write a conclusion for a project you haven’t actually finished.
What didn’t we learn? The fact that leaving a science project until the last minute never, ever goes well. I would elaborate, but I have to get back to helping Jenna finish her science project. It’s about birds, and it is, of course, due tomorrow.
You are TEN!!!!! You have been ten since yesterday, actually, and I waited to write this because I wanted to just enjoy hanging out with you… and maybe also because I am way too old to be staying up until midnight writing blog posts.
At any rate, you are ten. A decade. 3,650 days + however many days extra for leap years worth of life. That’s crazy. It feels both too old and too young for you. Too old because you are still my little buddy who obsesses over dinosaurs and the Titanic and Tesla and Legos. Too young because when you are not talking to me about how a fight between a t-rex and a stegosaurus would go, you’re referring to yourself as a “mature adult” (as if) and explaining to me how an electric car works.
When I write these posts, I always want to make them special. Sometimes I recap the year. This is the year, for instance, that you somehow got a special mention in the science fair in spite of having only worked on your project for three days before it was due. You started Taekwondo and have excelled at it, displaying a persistence and fortitude that I could only dream of having. For the first time ever, you gave me a list of ways I was allowed to address you at school, and banned me from your presence in the cafeteria. But that’s okay. I still love you. And I will be showing all future girlfriends many photos of you in diapers.
It’s your favorite day of the year — your birthday!! You get more excited about your birthday than anyone else I know. As soon as Christmas ends and we flip our calendar to January, you start counting down. Once we get to may, you make a habit of checking the calendar each morning, counting the days until it’s your birthday — “finally,” in your words. And now it’s here!
This year has been another great one for you. Your personality shines through so much. You have this amazing blend of confidence, compassion, patience, and an amplified rainbow of emotions. Watching you open any kind of gift is the best, because you get so excited, regardless of what the present actually is. You have a very scary monster voice that you break out whenever the mood strikes you — school, home, and church are all likely places to hear the patented Jenna Monster Voice TM.
You’re always listening. I noticed that even when you don’t respond to something you hear, you still remember it, sometimes tucking it away to ask me about later. You are super observant and often the first person to notice when I am stressed or worried. Ever the peacekeeper (when you are not the disturber of said peace), you usually offer me a Pop Tart or make me some slime to help me get through a time of not feeling well or of being worried about something.
We also learned that you are smart as a whip. I mean, we knew that, but this year has been an amazing display of your intelligence. You were accepted into the school’s gifted program, which made sense after we saw you bring home test after test with high scores. This might not sound very humble, but… meh. We are SO proud of you. Not because you’re so smart — that’s awesome, but the best part is watching you challenge yourself, never settling for finishing a job halfway when you know you could do better. Your determination and, dare I say it, stubbornness, have combined to create a lean, mean, brain-powered machine.
Best of all, this year has been really cool to watch as you explore your relationship with Jesus. You have proudly declared to me that you are a Christian and we have had some great conversations about what that means for your life. You want to get baptized and are always excited to answer our Bible questions when we’re in the car. Seeing you take what you know and apply it to your life has been so incredible to watch. You are usually the one to start conversations about what it means to follow Jesus and I love your passion for your Lord.
Jen, you are just plain fun. You are all about rainbows and unicorns and glitter and slime and dirt and cats and dragons and so many other things. You have so much compassion and joy. Whatever you feel, you feel it big. You’re always making plans and coming up with new ideas and it’s never just a passing thing — you don’t stop until your plan is complete. You bring tons of joy everywhere you go. You are all in, all the time, and it can be hard to match your pace but it sure is fun to try. I hope you always keep the confidence and joy that you possess right now. And I hope you keep your D&D strategy skills, because you are decently well-prepared for combat for a third grader.
Happy, happy birthday to my little sidekick, my strong girl, my sweet buddy, my Jenna bear, my precious, precious daughter. The next year is sure to bring even more of the indescribably cool parts of your personality to life, and I am here for it.
Well, you’re nine. I tried to bribe you to stay eight forever. I offered you a frajillion dollars. You refused (which is good; I don’t have a frajillion dollars) and explained you had to turn nine — you couldn’t help it. So today you did and I am (mostly) glad about it, even though I think you should have considered the bribe.
This has been another hilarious, fun, fantastic, sweet, wonderful year with you. You’re really becoming your own person with lots of opinions and thoughts about the world. Tonight, at your birthday dinner, Daddy tried to stump you and Jenna with an astronomy question — you both answered him correctly without hesitating for a second. It seems like you are always learning, always looking for new info or ways to research the things you love.
For example, the Titanic. Joshua, I would die for you… but if I never have to hear about the Titanic’s grand staircase again, it will be too soon. Just kidding. Kind of. But, at any rate, you love the Titanic. You didn’t just find a passing interest. You learned real facts about the real ship, you taught me about the way it was built, you can recite the number of lifeboats it had and how many it should have had without blinking an eye, and you even know the name of its sister ships and what happened to them. This is just one example of the incredible way your mind works. When you want to know something, you throw yourself into it, and you don’t care how long it takes or how hard you have to work — you will learn it all.
This also applies to your encyclopedic dinosaur knowledge, your Minecraft prowess, and your unerring memory of every word that is said in a 20-foot radius. Once you know something, you know it, and you know it forever. I think that’s cool. You would make a great teacher someday. Or a fabulous historian.
This birthday, like all your birthdays, has me reflecting on your life and all the things you’ve had to overcome. Did you know it’s been nearly three years since you’ve had to be hospitalized? I never thought we’d reach a milestone like that.
The day after you were born and we were so unsure what to do or how to feel while you struggled for life in your little isolette, your aunt Mandy was working hard to help us feel better. She pointed out that your ninth birthday would be a really cool day — 2/2/22. At the time, that seemed so far away. I remember trying to envision what a nine-year-old’s birthday party would like, and what you would be like at nine, but I stopped myself. At the time, we were worried you wouldn’t make it to three days old — nine years felt like a lifetime.
But you did make it. You overcame everything. They said you wouldn’t live and then you did. They said you might never walk independently and then you did. They said you may have trouble communicating, and, WOW, were they wrong about that one. You wanted to learn to jump on two feet, so you did. You wanted to figure out how to build your own Minecraft world, so you did. You thought it would be fun to memorize the names and physical traits and who knows what else of all your favorite dinosaurs, so you did.
You lived.
You did it.
You’re thriving.
You’re a living, breathing testament to God’s love, God’s timing, and God’s infinite grace.
And I am so glad to be your mom.
Happy, happy, happy birthday, Joshua. You are so loved. You are the kid who made me a mom, the little boy who loved to play practical jokes (actually, you still do), the big boy who begs me to turn down the Disney music in the drop-off line so I won’t embarrass you. You are my Josher-Washer, my Joshy-pants, my best little buddy and, as always, my favorite son. I love you now and I always will… even though you turned down my bribes.
I hope the rest of this year is as awesome as you are.
thepluckyprocrastinator 