Mark KennedyView other columns by Mark Kennedy
When my 14-year-old son looks at me eye-to-eye, it's a little unnerving. It seems like I've been lowering my gaze to greet him forever and now this.
Who is this person, I ask myself? This husky, hairy, man-child who's taken over my baby boy's body? This person whose cracking voice alternates between Pee-wee Herman and Herman Munster?
These days, my son has to lean over to hug me or we'll butt heads. It makes for awkward embraces, but I'm just glad he still has the impulse. When he spreads out on the couch, his legs go on for days; his arms uncoil like fire hoses.
A boy's adolescent growth spurt, I'm learning, can be dramatic, bordering on cartoonish. His transition from an average-sized boy to a small man seems to have happened overnight. The sweatpants we bought last week are suddenly - unbelievably - too short. He walks around the house with his hands in his pockets like Steve Urkel.
Meanwhile, the sneakers we purchased just a couple of months ago are also feeling tight, he says. He surpassed me in shoe size about a year ago.
"The funny thing," he says, "is that at school I don't really feel that tall."
And at 5 feet 8 inches, 130 pounds, he is no eighth-grade outlier. In fact, some of his friends shot past 6 feet last year in seventh grade. I'm 5 feet 9 and I'm resigned to the fact that he will pass me within weeks, if not days. I find some consolation in the fact that it may take him a few years to pack on 50 pounds to match my girth. Maybe sooner if he keeps inhaling Krispy Kremes.
His neck seems to grow overnight, and his shrinking T-shirts appear to have all been soaked in a crock pot and dried in an oven. I look for my shaving cream to go missing any day. The growth spurt has been accompanied by an otherworldly appetite. A sleeve of Ritz crackers, for example, is considered a single serving. At Christmas, he consumed a spiral ham like a beaver chewing through a pine log.
Just as this physical transformation has taken over his body, I can feel his personality stretching and growing, too.
I see the beginnings of a mature friendship between my 14-year-old son and his 9-year-old brother. When "little brother" gets his feelings hurt, "big brother" is the first to go to his room to console him. Last Sunday at Wal-Mart, little brother wanted a Nerf gun that he couldn't afford, so big brother reached into his pocket and offered to pay half.
"I'll use it some, too, Daddy," he said, winking at me.
There was a time in my life when having one child seemed like a stretch, much less two. Now I can't see it unfolding any other way. I know from experience with my sweet sister that siblings can be lifelong friends who stick by you through thick and thin.
Eventually, little brother will catch up in size. The years will pull them apart for college, but I can already predict that they will circle around again to one another as young adults. Today, their tickle fights on our king-size bed with the family dog as referee are the foundation of tomorrow's unbreakable brotherly bonds.
As a parent, true happiness is made of this.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645. Follow him on Twitter @TFPCOLUMNIST. Subscribe to his Facebook updates at www.facebook.com/mkennedycolumnist.