Holy crap, we are the parents of not one, but TWO adults. Well, kind of. I mean, he can’t legally drink, smoke, or go to casinos. Actually, he can’t even get a tattoo or a piercing right now because the shops are closed, due to COVID-19. He couldn’t have a party, couldn’t go anywhere, or really do much in the way of celebrating, but he was a good sport about it.
I keep hearing comments about the class of 2020, being born during the 9/11 era. Aside from a few kids who were born literally days before 9/11, this is the first class to be born After that historic event. Ironically (or not), I had my first prenatal appointment on 9/11. The newspaper called me in that day to take photos. As I made my way around town with a reporter, I remember wondering if this baby would ever even be born. And yet, here we are.
Karson O’Neal Ward was born at 8:48am on April 3, 2002 at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Portland, Oregon. He weighed 8 pounds, 12 ounces and was 21 inches long. Born via c-section, he sounded like a screeching cat when he was born. We called him our “runt” because he was much smaller than the other two, when he was younger. Where his brothers were usually in the 90th-100th percentile for height and weight, Karson was usually around the 5th percentile, and even dropped off the charts for a bit. He was 33 pounds when he started kindergarten and he had to be in a carseat FAR longer than what he considered to be acceptable. He is now creeping up on 6’2” (I need to measure him tomorrow) and the kid has a stupid six pack.
He was a total mama’s boy until he reached elementary school. In fact, he really wanted nothing to do with anyone, even his father, for about the first year of his life. It is no coincidence that I got my first gray hair, a few months after he was born. He was a difficult kid until he was probably about 8 and after that he was just a shy kid, other than at home. He never stopped talking at home. I called him the “look at me kid” for a while. He’s always been quirky and has always owned it. From the time he was 3 and was adamant that he wanted pink rain boots, he marched to the beat of his own drum. He got teased by older kids, but he still wore the shit out of those boots. I should add that we lived in New Mexico at the time, where it was usually 80 degrees, so those boots did NOT smell good, but I couldn’t take them away. Nope. He grew his hair long in 3rd-4th grade, despite being teased, in order to donate it.
He finished high school early (January), which was kind of a surprise because this kid hated school for the longest time. What a relief that we don’t have to worry about him finishing during this pandemic (and yay for me because that means I only have one kid to get through school from home)! Who knows if they’ll have graduation, but no matter what, we are proud of this kid.
Anyway, here are some more of his senior pictures.
