Santiago is 12

Sweet Boy!!

As I look at you in this picture, I can't help to think of my little baby that used to love to cuddle and nurse and smile at me just like you do today.
You are 12 now!!  I can't believe it.  I remember being 12 myself and how big I used to think I was.
You are an amazing kid.  And I'm not just saying this because I'm your mom.  I keep hearing it in my mind and feel it in my heart and off course other people tell me all the time.  You have gotten to be such a self confident pre teen.
This year has been a little tougher than others with all the changes in our lives, but you have shown an incredible strength   You are so resilient and adaptable.  You have adjusted to our new schedule and can pretty much predict consistently when you are with mami or daddy.  And I know that gives you a sense of security and you can count on us to be there when we tell you we will.  You trust that you have our unconditional love no matter what the situation looks like.

Following the stars!!

You are still ok with our birthday ritual and actually enjoy it.
I questioned whether or not to do the stars and the birthday story this year, but we found a way to do it in which we all participated and it was such an intimate moment of remembering and honoring this last 12 years of your life.  You are a gift to me!!
Thank you for choosing me as your mom.
I love you!

Here you are looking everywhere for your gifts....where did mami hid them??

I gave you a chess game.  This year you are really taking it on and enjoy playing it.

Some of your good friends came to celebrate with us your birthday and Mothers day as well.  We all had a great time!

You are still an animal lover and have so much fun taking care of the chickens, watching them and naming them...yes, we have more baby chicks!!  We can't resist them in the springtime!

For your birthday, you asked for a goat and here it is:  Levi is our newest member of our family!
He was hand raised and loves all the attention we can give him.  He wags his tail when he sees us just like a dog.  He can go around the yard following us all day if we let him.

And since Levi couldn't be on his own, since he is a herd animal, we got him a friend.  Mr Chompi!  You named him and he was at the beginning a little afraid of us, but pretty soon he became very friendly and now comes up to us and loves to be around us.

Now that Autumn is here at our house, you are the one in charge of feeding her in the morning and you do take your job seriously!  Your farm chores before school are multiplying and I don't see that this is a burden for you.  Quite the contrary, you always come back with a smile and a tale from visiting the animals in the morning.  

We had your birthday party at a go cart racing in Grass Valley.  Most of the boys from your class came and we all had such a great time..  Yes, I went too and loved it!!

Then we came home and sang happy birthday and you boys had a chance to play with the water guns.  

I'm writing this post a month after your birthday and I now have more time to reflect on this year and how it went.  You are feeling to me like you are starting to come out of your shell.  The world is starting to open up to you and you can't wait to drink it all up.  You are also very cautious and think things thru.  

This year, you deepened your relationship with your friends at school and spend more time with them.  Yo-yo is your number one past time and you are so talented.  The tricks you do are incredible!

This was a very good year for you at school.  You loved all the subjects:  Ancient civilizations, botany, geography...the maps you draw are amazing.  You are continuing with the flute and the violin and it seems like next year you will be playing the trombon!  In your assemblies you showed much more confidence presenting things in front of an audience.  For this years play you did very good, learned all your lines and did excellent.  

Now you are showing interest in competitive sports and this month you started in swim team, which will be happening all summer long.  I can see how you will really take this one on and master it in no time.  You have always been very comfortable in the water.

Books are your best friends still.  You are so enchanted by all the stories and can get lost in a good book and forget about the world around you so easily.  

You are very reserved in some ways but one of the blessings of our current family situation is that now you and I have regular check ins when we tell each other how we are doing.  Our feelings are honored and off course I still talk to you as my son and share according to what's developmentally appropriate.  But sad feelings are shared, and

 thru this times, we've been able to deepen our relationship.  To feel like we really know each other and I would not change this for anything in the world.  

We are all learning to acknowledge our feelings, to pay attention to them, to feel them even though they might be painful at times.  Because if we ignore them and hide them, they will not go away, they might show up later in unhealthy ways.  Like your therapist Shawn Sullivan says:  Feel it, move it and let it go!  We are stronger, much more centered so thankful for the lessons we have learned.

Why didn't we do it sooner?  I don't know, but it is here now and that's what's important.  Things come just at the right time in our lives and we are learning to love what is!

I feel the luckiest mami on earth to have you as my son!