16

Leif turned 16.

This kid used to escape out the cat door as a baby. He shredded entire loaves of bread into pots and pans while we weren't looking, painted the walls with my semi-permanent 24-hour lipstick, flushed toys and pads down the toilet, ate peanut butter out of the jars by the toddler fistful, and got an empty sugar packet stuck so far up his nose that we had to go to the otolaryngologist to get it pulled out. He's a rascal, quick to laugh and quick with funny comebacks. 

These days he's been really interested in military history - the complicated moral issues, the stories of survivors, how PTSD was viewed, how young the soldiers have been, and the fact that so many regular people are so willing to commit atrocities. He asks questions like, Do you think the ends really justify the means? How many German citizens knew what was actually happening? How does a good person stay good? What would you do if you were ordered to do something you knew was wrong? Things I'm glad he's thinking about. We've been watching war shows in the evenings after Zenny is in bed, and he chimes in with information about diseases/politics/technology like a nature documentary narrated by Hawkeye Pierce. Right now we're watching a really good German miniseries called Generation War (on Prime), and he's just finished reading Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard. I'm along for the ride and reading The Tattooist of Auschwitz so we can watch the new series adaptation. It gives us interesting stuff to talk about on the daily commute.

He has also been learning advanced CNC machining on the robotics team, and this year he's being paid for it. He's still planning to go to university for engineering, but it's great that he has skills to fall back on if he wants to apprentice somewhere, instead. 

He's also been DRIVING. My heart. His dream car is a Mazda Miata with the headlights he can pop up and wink with.

It may have been a homely cake, but it was from scratch and had layers of cheesecake mousse

He responds to mom-texts with the usual teenage one-word answers, but he sends lots of videos and memes to make me laugh. He makes sure he jumps on the bed and gets a big goodnight hug every night, and always yells, "I love you, sweet dreams, sleep tight!" as he heads to his room. I started yelling back, "I love you, sleep dreams, sweep tight!" and now if I accidentally say it the right way the kids correct me.

2 years left with this guy. I love him so much.