kiwords

Tomorrow Tre will have his final day as a freshman. I think it's only natural to pause and look back. Somehow, though, I can't seem to see past right now.

This weekend there was a dance at school. The theme was black and white.

Here he's cleaning his Converse and being irritated that I'm taking pictures of him.

He somehow convinced me that he needed a new black tie, ironed himself a crisp white shirt, and was pretty annoyed by me and my camera.

His dad was permitted to help him with the tie.

I was invited to stop calling him cute.

I think he and Sophia attended the same Someone-Is-Pinching-Me school of smiling.

This is more like the truth.

And then I was allowed to sit next to him in my van and let him drive to school. He's doing well with the driving, and he only nearly hit one parked car. That's practically not even his fault, because he was scanning a group of kids at the school entrance to see if his friends were among them. I think we've all fallen prey to THAT particular driving hazard.

I noticed that there were no other ties in the group of boys. I wondered if Tre should wear his, and if I should say anything or just shut up.

"Huh," he said, "I'm the only one dressed up."

"Well, if you feel uncomfortable, you can always just take the tie off and push up your sleeves."

"Yeah, I could. Or I could just go ahead and be the best looking one here, Mom."

And that's what he did. He hopped out of the car and trotted off to join the group. How did he become so self-possessed? When did that happen?

Take a look at these pictures. On the left is his school ID. That photo was taken the first month of school. On the right is his driver's permit, taken in March.

 
 
Somehow, over the course of this school year, he's morphed from that soft-cheeked boy into a near man with angles in his face and convictions about what he wears.

It's like a magic act, except those don't usually make me cry.