That boy!

That boy drives me to distraction, sends me round the twist and into dementia; all the time!
That boy who was the sweetest, easiest, quietest baby ever to be born.

The boy who slept in my arms and made hardly a sound.

That boy who turned into a smiley toddler; I just had to say "can you make Mummy happy?" and he would give me his bestest smile, which is the widest smile you'll ever see and really does go from ear to ear.

That boy who crawled and hid behind the sofa with all the chocolates off the Christmas tree, and ate them all!
That boy who always needed a Mummy cuddle and believed me when I told him that we were psychically connected when he started school; if he was worried he had to do was think very hard about mummy & she would hear him & send a message back! (old fashioned texting??)

That boy who is so painfully shy but also so gifted and talented.

That boy who prised open a bottle of beer at age 3, "'cos I like the taste!"
That boy who should be admired for his continual optimism and positive thought, even if the school report doesn't say he's top of the class, he actually was, the teacher just made a mistake!

That boy who argues so much with all of us.
That boy who has made me smile and cry more than anyone else.
That boy who plays sport so hard that he must be exhausted and under pressure to perform all the time.

That boy who refuses all offers of a haircut until now, right now, this minute, when he absolutely must have one right now!

That boy who makes me almost say very cruel things, things  a mum mustn't say, things that may have been said to me when I was young.

That boy who's best present ever was the huge cardboard box filled to the brim with sugary, brightly coloured sweets - which disappeared very fast.

That boy who is so competitive it hurts, who, in this years 1500 metre race, came a close second to the boy who represents England.

The boy who never speaks out even when he knows he's been treated unfairly.
That boy who denies all knowledge of the disappearance of a whole box of Christmas chocolate biscuits but who is the only one to leave a trail of crumbs behind him.

That boy who always thinks he is taller than he is and has bigger feet than he does. Who sent me running around the city one Saturday to buy size 9 cricket boots before a match, as his size 7's were 2 sizes too small. Only for me to discover that he was still a size 7 but walked onto the pitch wearing his clown like size 9's, just to prove a point!

That boy who denies drinking all the "special occasion fizzy" although the denials come through a series of burps!

That boy who was presented with a school award today for the highest marks in the end of term exams in his year.
The same boy who, for the past term, has left lessons most days at 11am to play school or county cricket and missed most of the work.

The boy who only had to remember to get himself ready for the prize giving today and arrived at school having forgotten to eat his breakfast and was minus his blazer.

The boy who has caused me to have a permanent letter saved on the computer addressed to the school to explain why he has no shoes; they are left in a changing room/on a cricket pitch/on a rugby pitch/ on the bus, or just "missing"

The boy who never has homework, apparently.

That boy who has a room like a bombsite  and can never find anything but it is very definitely NOT HIS FAULT!

That boy who has friends but who is always on the edge of a crowd, never in the middle.

That boy who loves his family so very passionately, but seems to hate us most days too.

That boy who has never made a mistake, never got anything wrong, ever.

That boy who I have just left at school with an army issue rucksack bigger than himself, as he waits to go on an RAF camp for the week, looking a little shy and lost, and maybe a little smaller than he normally does.

That boy who will no doubt return home with a lot fewer clothes than he went with and will have found all the sweets at the bottom of his bag within 5 minutes of getting on the bus.

That middle child who drives me mad every day and makes me scared about what argument we will have next; that's him, the one I'm missing already and can't wait til he comes home Friday night!