My child, that is, although I’m sure that is true of other children as well. And other parents probably feel just as amazed with their children as I do with mine.

What amazes me is how they grow up in fits and starts — how someone who can be so mature and adult in some areas of life can be so… well… unthinking in other areas.

This was the conversation when my phone rang at 11:30 PM last Saturday:

Mom: Hello

#1 Son: Hey. What’s up?

Mom: Well, I was just about to go to bed. What’s up with you?

#1 Son: I’m over at E’s house. [pause]

Mom: Did you have a nice evening?

#1 Son: Yeah. It was great [pause] Hey, Mom. It would be OK if I went camping with E’s family on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday down at Crater Lake, right?

Mom ["mom radar" suddenly on alert]: Probably. But I would need to talk to her parents first.

#1 Son: Why?

Mom: Oh, just to find out where exactly they’re camping, and when they’ll be back, and all that “mom stuff.” You know.

#1 Son: Oh. Well… actually they’re going down on Sunday but I have to work on Sunday and Monday so I’m going to drive down by myself on Tuesday and then I’ll follow them back on Friday.

Mom: No. I don’t think that would be OK. It wouldn’t be safe for you to drive that far by yourself and you do not have my permission to do that.

#1 Son: But I already took the time off from work!

Mom: Maybe you should have checked with me first!

There followed a rather long and somewhat heated discussion about exactly how “safe” it would be. This, remember, is a person who has been a proud possessor of a valid drivers license for all of two months. This is a person who sleeps in the car and has since he was a baby. This is a person who can’t drive to the coast and back without someone to spell him. Five-hour car trip by self = bad idea.

But it was a rather heated discussion. I even threw caution to the winds and offered to drive him down myself, until good sense reasserted itself and I realized that a 10-hour trip (I’d need to be back at work the next day) was going to be exhausting and unsafe for me, regardless of my driving expertise.

In the end he gave in. Not overly gracefully, it’s true, and we had do discuss it awhile again on Monday. But he isn’t angry with me and he has promised not to defy my directive and go anyway. Today we “did lunch” and tomorrow we’re going to a movie together. He usually gets called in to work if a shift needs coverage, so chances are fairly good that he’ll make the missed hours up. He’s disappointed, yes, but not angry.

In some ways he’s very mature and I’m very proud of him.

Now if the judgement will only catch up!