Happy birthday to Riley Bean Falcon England Eagle France Grandson (but not real). What a name!!
You are finally 11 and almost a man. (Gulp). The question is what type of man will you become because there are good men and bad men, selfish men and men who give everything to better their world. There are men who will make amazing fathers and men who destroy their children’s lives with their anger. There are men who work very hard but not very smart and they are always in debt and poor, there are men who work very hard and pour all their money back into their family’s needs and they are also always in debt and on the poor side but they are at least happy. There are men who are lazy and don’t work hard and some of them get lucky and are rich and fat. There are some men who are lazy and poor. There are some men who work hard and smart and get rich. There are some men who trade their integrity and character for some quick pleasure. It is all about choices. The choices you make today, the small character choices you make that create the foundation for the kind of man you will be tomorrow. The question is…what kind of man are you becoming?
10 things I like about Riley-Bean
1. I like that you are smart. I am not talking about book smart although that is important. I am talking about life smart. Book smart will help you get through school which will help you get to university which will help you get the qualifications needed to secure a good job. Life smart is about being able to observe situations around you and use them to your advantage or at a minimum to avoid being hurt by those same situations. An example: when your sisters are fighting and you can see trouble is on the horizon, you will just quietly and wisely exit the room. You avoid getting hit by their mess. OR when you see an opportunity to get something you want, you figure out what you will need to do in order to get your parental units to agree to what you want. You have life smarts and that, used properly, will help you achieve your goals in life. I like that you want to learn. As much as I wish your weren’t so fascinated with bugs and road kill, i love your hunger for knowledge. You are like a machine that chews through information and can never get enough. Do you know that every time I see you, before Mine Craft sucks your brain out through your ears and you become zombie child that is, every time you come over you tell me something new fact about something and you find a book or a toy or something and you ask a question about it. Every single time. I adore that about you.
2. I like that you are good looking. It makes my pictures look so much better. Beats being ugly. I would still love you but probably wouldn’t put your pictures up on the wall. Probably keep them in a book, in a drawer somewhere.
3. I really like that you have a sense of humour and you are strong enough to bounce back when you have been disappointed or upset. Some people, when they are hurt, will continually go over the situation that hurt them and obsess about it and the hurt will live on in them until it damages who they are as a person. You are quick to forgive and quick to give someone another chance. I really like that about you and it is a healthy way to live your life
5. I love your creativity. Creativity can be taught but those who have it naturally will always have an advantage. In school they want you to do things their way and your creativity has to be put in a box and is only allowed to come out when they say it can but in life, creativity is the gold. It is the key to business success. It can be the key to relationship success if used properly. It is also the ingredient in many a downfall. Creativity without discipline is a destructive force. It is the part of your brain that leads you to daydream when you should be doing your homework. Creativity can cause havoc in your life unless you teach it to sit and stay. But once it has been taught to obey, your creativity will be your crown and you have it is spades, lucky boy.
6. I love that you and I can talk. You can tell me anything and you know that I will not get mad or judge you. You know that I would forgive you anything and that no matter how bad it may appear at the time, one of the advantages to being old is that I have probably gone through that situation myself once before or know someone who has and we can talk about the best way to handle it or fix it and EVERYTHING, on this level is usually fixable. Not so much when you get older, I mean, if you kill someone, I will help you bury the body but things probably won’t be totally fixable. Just saying.
7. I like that you can push past your tendency to be lazy and work hard. Let’s be honest, almost anyone would really rather be lazy. You are no different. If given the choice you would rather play mine craft than do homework BUT you recognize that to be successful you have to control the tendency to be lazy and push past it and be a man. Real men work hard. It is in their DNA and I can see that in you. You will clean your room and do your homework and pick up that shovel and push yourself to work hard. I really like to see that.
8. You have a great capacity for kindness. You don’t always show it but I see it developing in you. In the struggle to separate your need to be a child and children are inherently selfish and becoming a man, who needs to be unselfish and protecting, I am seeing you leaning toward manly behavior, especially with regards to your little brothers.
In the past, you would tease your little brothers and make them cry which is what kids do because it makes them feel bigger and more powerful. It is the drug that feeds bullies appetite and it is normal in kids but as you become a man, those tendencies begin to change. Some men stay immature and bully forever but some, like you, begin to develop a more protective, kind way of dealing with the world and I see that in you. You are becoming more protective and kind and I love that about you because it gives me glimpses of the man you are becoming.
9. I like you because you like camping…with me. I really like that about you. You are really fun to camp with too.
10. I like that you are sympathetic and not afraid to show you feel when someone else is hurting. Again this is a more mature trait. Most kids are more concerned with looking cool than they are with being true to themselves. The irony of this is the fact that most adults spend their whole lives trying to figure out who they really are because they spent so much time looking cool that they forgot what is their own true self. You remain very true to yourself. I know you are concerned with looking cool a little bit but here’s the thing. The coolest thing a man can be is confident. And confidence comes from knowing that all the parts of you that make up who you are, your looks, your abilities, your talents even your faults are unique, God given, intended for greatness, designed for you to accomplish something on this earth that only you can accomplish and that is what makes you the coolest dude that ever walked in your shoes. It really is the only validation or license to live that you will ever need. Which of course means that it doesn’t matter what happens to you, you will always be confident and always be cool because it is a state of who you are and not a state of what happens to you. I love that you are so authentic to who you really are more than you are trying to be someone else just so you can pretend to be cool.
So based on that, I am going to predict the kind of many Riley Bean is becoming…ready?
I think you will be the kind of man that will do really well in your career. I think you will find a job that you will really like and you will get the education to pursue that type od career and once you have become disciplined enough, you will launch your business and you will go after it with the same tenacity as Mine Craft and you will build a great thing in real life just like you do now in your virtual world.
I think you will be the kind of man who can make a girl very happy because you will be all the things a woman looks for in a man. You will be kind and sympathetic but you will also know when to get out and leave her alone (important skill). You are learning to watch your mouth (another important skill that will save your life one day). You are affectionate and good looking and you can make her laugh. Some girl is going to be head over heels in love with you one day.
I think you will be a great father because you are already becoming more protective and nurturing. I can see those changes in you. Family is very important to you and you are quick to tell someone you love them. You are quick to being the band aides, to help with them when they can’t do something and quick with the hugs and love.
I really like who you are becoming. I think you are really cool. Happy Birthday.
And that is what I think.
Birthday gift choices:
Money (Borriiiing but possible)
An afternoon in Stanley Park – just you and me. Are you man enough to walk the entire Seawall (6 miles?)
An evening at the Rodeo
A movie date
A Celebrate Riley Dinner at my house
Pick wisely…….
Love you to the moon and back and once around your yard,
Grandma Shara
