Apollo turns Ten

You can try to instill your thoughts and beliefs in them. You can try to program them to be who you want them to be. You can try to shape them, mold them, bend them. The harder you try, the less influence you seem to have. Kids are like a flood; they start out like a little trickle of water that grows exponentially, gaining speed and power. You can try to stop it like a dam until there is so much pressure built up that it bursts through with even greater force and determination. All you can do is offer guidance or suggested paths, and encouragement to take one route over the other. 

  Ten is a benchmark for a child. Its a doorway leading from childhood to adolescence. As a parent, I find it both exciting and terrifying. Apollo turns ten today. I couldn't be prouder of the person he is becoming. He is so different than the person I thought he would be as I waited for him to be born, yet there is an innate familiarity to his personality. I couldn't see him being any different than he is.

 Apollo has a connection with animals and nature. He sees himself as a part of them and understands them. Yes, we are a very animal friendly home and we love nature, but Apollo has a gift that was not taught. From the time he learned to crawl, he was fascinated by anything living and always treated them with special reverence. To this day, we cannot kill a spider in the house (if he is watching) or pull a snail from a plant and throw it into the street. To him, they are all living creatures that deserve to live. He is kind and patient with animals. We have adopted birds that come to us a little less than friendly and Apollo always wins them over and turns them into putty in his hands. He never has to be told to interact with his pets. They are the first thing he checks on in the morning, when returning home from school, or even a short trip to the store.

When Apollo is interested in something, he is unstoppable in its pursuit. Last year in school, it was math that sparked his interest and he excelled well beyond his grade level. This year, it is reading and mythology. Apollo has always been introspective and once he discovered the worlds that written words can paint, he was off to the races and has read about a dozen of Rick Riordan's books, starting with the Percy Jackson series. Apollo always has a book in his hand. His teachers have to take the books from him as he will start reading in class and get lost in them. In his English class, they track how many words the students read (by the number of words in the books they read). Apollo is closing in on one million words! At last count, in march, the class goal for the year was to have read at least 175,000 words. Apollo was over 850,000 at that point and had yet to take tests for two more books that he had read, in order to get credit for reading them. Melanie likes to tell him that he has read more books in one school year than I have in my entire life...do audible books count?

 
 Apollo is very funny and quick witted. He is sarcastic and understands dry humor. He loves to laugh and to make people laugh. Even so, his personality is complex and often adults, usually teachers, see him as quiet or forlorn, and are unable to "read" him, finding it difficult to know if he is interested in something or not, or even trying to get him to participate. If he is interested, he is in 100%, if he is not, his mind is elsewhere. He doesn't understand why he needs to do something if it doesn't interest him. Did I mention that he is stubborn?
  One of my favorite things about Apollo is when he finds something appealing; sounds, tactile sensations, sights, etc., he will say "That is really satisfying." At 9-year-old, he has made the connection between stimuli and behavior and sees that pattern in people and animals and then found a way to put it into words.
  His sarcastic quick wit and stubbornness, are not so satisfying to his mom though. When Melanie points out to Apollo that he has not yet done his homework, he likes to reply with, "That's interesting."  Did I mention that Apollo is also good at pushing peoples buttons?

Apollo, you are an incredible young man. I enjoy every moment that we spend together. I love your sense of humor. I love the way you care for animals. I love the way you see the world. To me, the person that you are is very satisfying. I am honored to be your dad. ~ I love you!

Fifty

Fifty. I don't feel it. Not in my head at least. My body feels it for sure. I get sore easier, I get injured easier, recovery takes a longer time, my body aches more in the mornings.
  They, whoever "they" are, like to say things like "50's are the new 40's" or "40's are the new 30's" Well, if that is the case, my "new 30's" were painful.
  The irony is that the older I get, the harder I push myself in certain things. Maybe it is because I remember what I was capable of in my real 30's. Things came easier. To achieve the same results as I once did, I have to work harder to get there.

  They also say that with age comes wisdom but they never seem to say the same thing for maturity. My wife will tell you that my maturity level is perpetually stuck in my teens. Apparently she tells our kids that to! Just a few nights ago, Apollo told me that, "Mama said that you're not much different than a kid." Although I am sure it was not meant as a compliment, I will take it as such. I still think of people that are the same age as me as being much older. But then I look in the mirror and have a hard time reconciling that the face I am seeing belongs to the person that I envision in my head. My residual self image is that of a 20 something.
  At fifty, I have a 1st grader and a 4th grader still at home. How did that happen? I often wonder if physically it would have been easier to have kids in  my 20's rather than in my forties. It comes back to pushing myself harder (physically) for what would have been easier 20 to 30 years ago.

 I travel a lot for work these days and spend many nights hotels. Actually, I have always traveled for work and have always enjoyed life on the road and have never minded being in hotels. Now that I am older and have Apollo and Orion at home, I find that I would much rather be home with my family. Melanie likes to point out how nice it must be for me to have someone clean my room everyday, cook for me and clean up the dishes, etc. Yeah, that is nice, but I really miss the my routine of putting the boys to bed, getting them all riled up, getting yelled at reprimanded by Melanie for amping them up when I should be winding them down. Then in the morning, waking them up by tickling them, sprinkling water on them, cranking up some rock music, and getting yelled at reprimanded again because Melanie is trying to squeeze in 20 extra minutes of sleep. I will take a hundred nights of that chaos over any one night in a hotel.

  Don't get me wrong, I love my alone time but life on the road is not what I crave. Give me a winding, hilly country road far from the city and a road bike and that is where I find my solace and meditation. The sights, sounds, smells, and wind on my face, all change with each crank of the peddle. The smell of Redwoods, soil, moss, and wildflowers are incredible, especially in the spring time here.  Cycling has been my passion for the past 4 years, starting originally by pulling Apollo on a Trail-A-Ride tag along bike with a bike trailer connected to that for Orion. I towed them all over Sonoma county. Now they are on their own bikes and can easily do 10 to 16 miles with me, albeit on flatter roads and at a slower pace than I like. I know that it wont be long before they can keep up with me and not much longer before I cant keep up with them.

  I am looking forward to my fifties to include many more adventures with my little tribe; on two feet, two wheels, two wings, whatever it takes to get there, I know I will be in good company and will always strive to be "not much different than a kid."