Sixteen Candles

This weekend was S.B.'s sixteenth birthday.  To celebrate, we hosted another Sick and Twisted family affair at our place.

Tired of pushing two long tables together and crowding into our living room as we usually do at such functions, I decided to set up several smaller tables for a more intimate ambiance.  Of course, the only small table I have is the small patio-type one shown in the left of the picture.  Which led me to decide we needed an indoor bistro-cafe.  Which led me to deduce that we needed strings of lights.  Which led me to determine we needed an umbrella from which to hang some of said lights.


Bee and I moved out our love seat and coffee table and brought in smaller tables we owned or borrowed.  Bee was actually a pretty good sport about the whole thing.  He was not, however, thrilled about the umbrella idea, although I was expecting that.  Which is why I was not terribly surprised when he refused to let me saw four inches off the umbrella pole so that it would fit into our living room.  Undaunted,  I instead unscrewed the two halves of the pole, then suspended the umbrella from our ceiling, with the shortened pole camouflaged by the table under it.

The umbrella was, of course, the highlight of the entire scene, exclaimed over by the ex-in-laws when they arrived.  Which goes to show that Bee sometimes just needs to shut up and accept my vision.  Unfortunately, it also goes to show that I can't complain about Bee's vision too much, either, since the suspension of the umbrella was made possible by the huge, unsightly hook he'd drilled into the ceiling years ago so that he could hang a dingy hammock chair . . . yes, in the middle of the living room.  No, it did not live there long once I'd moved in.

Anyway, S.B.'s birthday brunch was lots of fun.  The family each brought a dish, Bee used some of my new homemade cinnamon bread to make French toast, plus I got to make the cake (a White Chocolate Brownie Torte; so  I couldn't possibly go wrong).  It was a morning resplendent with ego-massage.

It made me think, though, about how my relationship with these people has changed.  How comfortable I am with them all; how I take it for granted that we are part of their family.  And, of course, by having S.B. turn sixteen, I -- naturally -- realize how much I've changed; he was, after all, just nine when I met him.  A sweet little fourth-grader just a short time ago, he's now a sweet sixteen-year-old: ready to drive, accepting college brochures, and talking about moving out-of-state in a few years.

And as much as I love life more now, I can't help but feel a little nostalgic for the past.  I don't really want S.B. to grow.  Is it because I don't want him to get older, or because his aging is a more-immediate proof of my own?