Birthday Boy - Thirteen Today - A Teenager - draft

I've not seen Nat yet; he'd gone to school by the time I got home but today (12:15 PM to be exact) he became a teenager and for all intents and purposes his childhood is now over. I don't mean, by that remark, that he's suddenly an adult but rather today sort of marks a transition, one that he's been transitioning through for the last 18 months in reality, to a state of independence. His life now really becomes his own, we are now, and will more and more rapidly become, a peripheral part of his OWN personal universe and that universe will grow to encompasses more and more things of which we will be unaware and most likely will never become aware of. I'm going to miss that little boy more than I can ever say; it's like a long drawn out bereavement, as gradually the child you doted on, the child you changed and feed and washed and hugged and..... vanishes and the adult emerges. Yes I know it's my job to create that adult but it's much like what puppy walking must be like, no matter how much you realise the important role of guide dogs you can help but miss the puppy when it finally leaves. Have I been to the cinema with just Nat for the final time? What'll replace those things; taking him for his first beer when he's fourteen and can pass for eighteen? I don't know and as for Hannah she does those things with Ded and seems utterly disinterested in doing anything with me...I'm Sad!