you're the voice

Sam, you're twelve today. twelve going on twenty-something. actually, you've been going on twenty-something for quite a while. i noticed you at the park on thursday, after your guitar lesson. you are all intuitiveness and awareness of others, with the peripheral vision of a fly. seriously, i have never seen a kid so aware of keeping the younger ones happy. slowing the roundy-roundy down so that someone with shorter legs can keep up with the pushing speed. going to check on a random kid who's face planted after spinning off said roundy-roundy. calling to your brother to make sure that he's listening to another random kid who wants to get off.

you are the family's cool-o-meter. you even make pink-and-white surf shorts look cool with a red-and-yellow-and-black shirt. i don't know anyone else who could do that. your current fave musician is van halen, and this morning before school, you got a *singstar* on the singstar.

and this year - oh how i have waited for this to happen - this year you have fallen in love with books. not just the comics you've been reading for the last three years. books, with words and chapters. not that there's anything wrong with comics. and the other thing is that you're finding your own voice with a pen. i knew that would happen too.

but that's not all. three weeks ago you got a rabbit. Thumper. a hand me along from a friend's sister. yeah. and every day without being asked you clean out his cage. and you even let Daddy take him for a walk. well, actually, Daddy sneaks him out while you're at school, but hush, i won't tell if you won't.