How can it be that my dear son Eli turns eight years old today?

There’s something sad about him growing up, a different kind of sadness than I’ve felt with my firstborn, Zach. My oldest son has always been an old soul, my serious child, wise beyond his years. It is heartrending that he, too, is growing at lightning speed. But something about him maturing just feels right, as if his body is finally catching up to where his mind has always been.

For heaven’s sake, Zach is only 12 but spent a few hours Tuesday night looking at apartments online, deciding where he wants to live when he moves out. So far, the Lofts at Porterdale Mill top his list. You should’ve seen him looking through online photos and asking his father about the merits of stained concrete versus hardwood flooring.

I sincerely hope that says more about Zach’s confidence in the future than about any parental failings that may have fueled his desire to get the heck out of Dodge as soon as possible.

When I took him for a haircut Thursday night, Zach spent the entire time trying to talk our friend into hiring him as a summer go-fer at her salon. He also has an employment gig lined up at a friend’s Volkswagen shop for when he turns 16. That boy is seriously planning for his future.

Eli, however, is the complete opposite. He came out of the womb laid-back and smiling. He is lighthearted, silly, impulsive and one of the happiest people I know. Planning six years ahead would never occur to him—he rarely has a plan for the next minute.

He proves that daily when it’s time to put on his shoes.

He has a bin under his bed designated for his shoes. It is bright orange so he cannot miss it. Yet Eli’s shoes rarely end up inside the bin. We often find one shoe under the coffee table and the other beside the toilet.

I don’t know how he does it, but that child can take a room from spotless to disaster area in sixty seconds flat. Most of his messes involve Legos. He is a Lego architect, constantly crafting elaborate vehicles, buildings and Bioncle figures. He also expresses his creativity in drawing and storytelling. The margins of his workbooks are filled with caricatures and doodles. And he talks all day long, about dreams he’s had or inventions he’s thought of, or how he would change the ending of the cartoon he just saw.

It’s probably a good thing he’s homeschooled, because all of that doodling and talking would no doubt keep him in trouble at school. And his inquisitiveness would drive any other teacher mad. He is his mother’s son, fascinated by etymology, asking thing such as, “Why are they called spiders, Mama?” and “Where did they get the words they use for numbers? Who decided that 4 would be called four?”

His vocabulary is beyond his years, and since he was first able to talk, people have been amused by the words he uses. His favorite pizza isn’t “yummy”—it is “extremely delicious” or “fantastic!” When his second-grade spelling lesson asks him to write a sentence using the word “went”, one expects something like, “We went to the zoo.” Eli asks for help spelling, “I went for a walk beneath the drizzling rainclouds.

He is a natural-born entertainer, the court jester of the family. Our baby Jonah is his biggest fan. Jonah’s face lights up any time Eli enters the room. He happily watches Eli do the most mundane things, such as unloading the dishwasher, because Eli chats, sings and dances his way through the chore. I hope he never loses this ability to turn the smallest tasks into something fun.

Adolescence and adulthood have a way of tarnishing the joy of ones’ youth. And I think that is the sadness I feel as my middle son moves from the little boy stage of life into the big-kid years. I don’t want anything to ever quell the lighthearted spirit he was born with.

Eli, thank you for blessing my life with your enthusiasm, curiosity and love. May the light of your happiness shine this brightly, always, wherever God leads you.