This is what a 13 year old Ralph looks like . . .
Even being home a lot more during the last year (due to the pandemic) it still feels like he grew up overnight or in the blink of an eye. I know its easier to miss changes when one is around someone all the time but he had grown so much - enough that has graduated to sitting in the front seat of the car which is may be not a change from six months ago but is from a year ago.
Ralph and I are nearly eye to eye with each other. I have used the "you are as tall as me you can do that" comeback a time or two when he doesn't want to do something. We are waiting for his feet to catch up to his height as his feet still fit in 4.5 kids. He has moved into small men's sweats but only this brand - the more nylon athletic pants are still too big with the regular hem (no elastic) and looser waist. Size 18 boys are too big in the waist as well. In the year of the pandemic and no lockers being assigned at school, all belongings are carried in/on one's backpack all day, and face coverings are worn all day he usually wears short sleeves no matter the temperature outside and on the coldest of days will wear a hoodie.
Ralph spends most of his time at home in his room . . .reading, on his computer, or on his phone watching youtube. He comes downstairs to eat meals and find snacks. I would like to say he isn't too picky on his snacks but he does have his favorites and when he finds something he likes it won't be sitting around for long.
He has become accepting of food made for him but when given the choice of re-heating leftovers for a meal he'll usually chose cereal though did get on a string of chicken tacos last week. He does not care for soda and will get a lemonade, fruit punch, or similar drink in the fountain drink when completing a combo meal.
From a grade perspective school is going well. I don't get many reports from him. Most days his homework is done when I pick him up, once in a while - mostly because I picked him up too soon from homework club - he will have some homework to do at home. I have only done conferences with one teacher this year via zoom.
Extracurricular activities include playing a season of middle school basketball, continuing with CCD, and being involved with BSA scouts were he recently earned his 2nd class rank and is now working on 1st class. as well as some merit badges. He still likes to read for fun . . . and sometimes later than I'd like.
While I can think of other stories and Ralph-isms to share, Ralph is now 13 and I need to respect the boundaries of not sharing too much.
His birthday had snippets of time where we were all home but not for any length of time so we split up the festivities and squeezed them in where we could.
We opened up gifts last night.
He was most excited about a microphone for his computer and wanted to leave "the party" to go up to his room to plug it in and test it out. This morning he was most appreciative of Grandma's homemade blueberry sauce. He topped his pancakes with the sauce at breakfast then a couple of hours later finished off the pancakes with more sauce. He has yet to dive into the rest of his gifts.
Ralph spent his 13th birthday eating throughout the day and spending time in front of screens. . . . I wish I had his metabolism but am pretty good with entertaining myself with various screens. He started his day watching Season 2 of The Office then played Minecraft for a bit with some YouTube viewing mixed in. He had Freddy's for lunch (hot dog combo is his meal of choice there) and Arby's for supper (double roast beef combo).
A few weeks ago I asked Ralph how he wanted his cake themed or decorated and he dismissed the cake idea and mentioned he wanted Arby's. Taking the idea one step further after finding a few Arby's themed cakes on internet I proposed the idea to our cake artist as I'm going to start calling her. Cheri has done the spectrum of cakes for us. I would think this would be among one of the more "simple" cakes but still takes talent.
