Mycroft's birthday is today, and he's fourteen. Which seems mad and impossible and hugely older than twelve, though I know it's not really. I'm afraid I'm going to turn into something like one of those annoying older relatives who pinch your cheeks and say things like, 'Oh, but you can't possibly be that old, I was changing your nappies just yesterday!' Not that I ever changed his nappies, but you take my point.
Part of it is remembering what I was doing when I was twelve (riding my bike, getting muddy a lot) as opposed to what I was doing when I was fourteen (would rather not say). But at the same time, it seems fitting, since Mycroft has often seemed older and wiser than his actual age would account for and occasionally older and wiser than the adults around him.
I'm continually impressed with his maturity and determination and maybe even more so by the times he lets himself just be a kid. I know it's not easy to let go of responsibility once you've got it. Or had it thrust upon you.
Anyway. Happy birthday, Mycroft. I love you, and I promise I'll try not to be too embarrassing when we come to fetch you from school.
Part of it is remembering what I was doing when I was twelve (riding my bike, getting muddy a lot) as opposed to what I was doing when I was fourteen (would rather not say). But at the same time, it seems fitting, since Mycroft has often seemed older and wiser than his actual age would account for and occasionally older and wiser than the adults around him.
I'm continually impressed with his maturity and determination and maybe even more so by the times he lets himself just be a kid. I know it's not easy to let go of responsibility once you've got it. Or had it thrust upon you.
Anyway. Happy birthday, Mycroft. I love you, and I promise I'll try not to be too embarrassing when we come to fetch you from school.
91 comments:
Happy Birthday Mycroft! I'm so happy that you're able to celebrate your birthday with people you love and who love you back. =)
~A from NW
Aha! I shall repeat myself, because this is clearly the right place for it--a very happy birthday to you, Mycroft! You are a very special person, and it's always a delight when you drop in on the blogs, either as a guest poster or in the comments.
I hope your fourteenth year will bring you everything you wish it to. Have a wonderful time at your birthday dinner tonight!
(John, you already changed his age in the subtitle! Awesome!)
(Also, that was a very lovely post. Truly.)
Yay for a happy day, AfNW!
Happy birthday, Mycroft! I hope the next year brings you a lot of happiness, and I'm happy you get to experience it with those you love.
Happy birthday mycroft :-)
I hope you have a lovely day and great fun with everyone once John's picked you up :-)
14 is a great age to be.
Anonybob
De-lurking for a change to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY MYCROFT!
Happy Birthday Mycroft. Hope you have both a great day and a great weekend. And that you get everything you had hoped (in your wildest dreams) for.
Mycroft, John's been so eloquent I'm not sure what else to say...
It really is a great pleasure to know you. The maturity and calmness you approach life with is very impressive, but as John says, it's brilliant to see you just having fun, too.
We're both very lucky to be a part of your life.
I hope you have a fantastic birthday, and that 14 brings you many great things and enjoyable times.
Happy Birthday Mycroft!
Lancs. Anon
Happy birthday Mycroft, may you get everything you wanted and have a fabulous day!
It's been lovely getting to know you, even in this limited capacity, and it will be even more so as you get older and wiser.
And hopefully Sherlock doesn't eat all your cake!
Happy Birthday, Mycroft! Have a lovely evening and a wonderful long weekend :-)
Happy Birthday, Mycroft!
Happy birthday Mycroft. You seem so grown up already. Hope you all have a fun weekend, it's hard being apart and missing kids growing up.
Happy Birthday, Mycroft!I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful day and weekend, filled with all of the things and people you love the most.
Happy birthday, Mycroft, and many happy returns!
Thank you, everyone, especially John and Lestrade. You're very kind.
You're more than welcome, Mycroft. And everyone here is moving heaven and earth so I can leave early - because they know you'd never ask, or expect it, but they all want to for exactly those reasons :)
Thank you - and to Sally and the people on your team, too. Can I help you make dinner tonight?
If making your birthday dinner would bring you more happiness than us making it for you, then of course you can. Sherlock wanted to help, too. I talked him out of his more outlandish menu suggestions, I'm afraid...
What did he want?
Live octopus and live lobsters. Although the lobsters weren't to eat, they were just to walk about the table as entertainment, and then he hoped to be able to put them in his pond... anyway, it was no on both counts.
That definitely would've been...entertaining. Until the dogs noticed them.
even more entertaining then!
I'm on the way home. DO you knw when you're Mum's getting to us? And have you all packed for the weekend?
And, mainly, are you all excited!
Mummy's already here. She says try not to get punched on your way home. I'm sort of pre-packed for the weekend, since I don't see any reason to unpack what I brought home from school. Can we take the dogs with us or will there not be room?
Sherlock is very, very excited. I've had to stop him packing his degus twice.
It all sounds like a very promising start to a fun birthday weekend!
For any of you interested, I did avoid getting punched on the way home. Although it doesn't look like it, with the shadows under my eyes....
And the dogs are indeed coming with us, and sleeping in the conservatory, with the kids. Which has spurred Sherlock into greater feats of degu smuggling, as obviously it's unfair the dogs come and the goos stay....
Not getting punched is good!
And it is a pity that degus, however small, need very large cages to be healthy and happy, which makes them a lot less portable than you'd think to look at them. :(
Not sure why you might have got punched Greg but glad you didn't ;-)
I'm glad you're home safe sound and having fun Mycroft :-)
Being completely mad, having lots of time on my hands and believing that there should be a song for every occasion I wrote this for you. The tune would be ‘I am sixteen going on seventeen’ from the sound of music.
He is fourteen going on forty
Smarter than you and me
Always he works hard, sometimes he plays guard
Great lad as you can see
He is fourteen going on Four
Playing and having fun
Flying a kite and riding a bike
Or digging out in the sun
Totally unprepared were we
For the joy he’d bring
Loving and caring, joyful and sharing
Thoughtful in everything.
He has us here thinking and caring
Letting him live his life
Hope he knows how much we love him
We are here for life.
It might come across as stealing words from Greg and John but actually I think a lot of people here would feel the same :-)
I hope you have a lovely evening and a great weekend away.
Anonybob
That's lovely, Anonybob. Thank you.
Brilliant, AnonyBob. Sorry - we've all been eating too much to comment!
Glad you liked it :-) and seriously Greg there is no need to apologise for being busy having fun :-)
Hope you have all had a brilliant evening and that you get some decent sleep before your busy weekend. :-)
Anonybob
(That is so sweet, Anony!)
Here's hoping the weekend continues to be as lovely as its beginning. :)
And since it's still the 10th, another happy birthday wish for you, Mycroft! I hope it was a wonderful day. May you have many, many more. :)
Sorry this is late Mycroft but happy birthday for yesterday and I hope you have a lovely weekend away.
EBSanon
Hey Mycroft! Mum texted to say she'd bought all the ingredients we asked for, and that you should already be there when I get home from school, so then we can cook. I hope you're having a good journey and Sherlock and Uncle Orio aren't being too annoying!
xoxox
I'm never annoying! Well, not since they changed the radio station to stop me singing...
We seem to have a couple of stowaways...
I think Sherlock has just booked a long weekend on the naughty step...
Is it wrong that I'm giggling madly?
(Sherlock, where were you planning on having them sleep? Or stay when you want go out--to fly kites or anything else?)
Sherlock my dear you do like to test the patience of Greg and John don't you?!!
A short illustrated story about the holiday adventures of degu might not be a bad punishment (not that we might find it fun to read you understand ;-) )
I hope you don't find anything else unexpected :-)
Anonybob
He's lucky Mycroft's a nice big brother who says he'd like Sherlock to be here this weekend, because otherwise I'd take him back home with the degus and he could have done schoolwork all weekend while I did paperwork, and missed out on all the fun.
As it is I hope he gets a good explanation together for why he thinks it's okay for him to disobey us.
He is very lucky!! You are a lovely big brother Mycroft :-)
I hope he comes up with something but I doubt it will be convincing!
The degus are rather slumming it in an old hamster cage. Sherlock is sulking. John is frowning. I'm being fucked on by my sister. Mycroft and Carla are cooking. Normal day, eh?
... picked on?
Okay... Thanks autocorrect. Now I'm just being thoroughly laughed at.
Yes, picked on.
Christ, this phone is just out to get me in trouble.
:D
(Never mind, we love you anyway. :))
The more autocorrect makes mistakes like that the more you'll be able to hide behind it when you want to ;-)
picked on by your sister is just the way the world works so sound like a perfect way to spend your time :-) I hope John's frowning is only a short term thing :-)
Anonybob
I'm told that autocorrect just chooses the words you use most frequently. Is this correct?
It does sound like normal family life to me. At least you all got there in one piece, even if there were more pieces than you thought there should be.
You can't see it, but I have my mom face on (Danger Glare Grade 3. Maybe even 4). I won't lecture because its not my place and I'm sure you said everything and more, but man, am I disappointed.
(My normal brain though is asking how the hell did he manage to smuggle two rodents of that size?)
Wish me luck - We're waiting for a Dr. appt for our 6yo - caught a ball with his face last night at baseball practice - the swelling almost has one eye shut. It's pretty horrific looking, but after a cry and a good sleep he's of decent cheer. After the hernia thing last week and this today I think the Dr. is going to start keeping tabs on us.
All the luck in the world Maz. Hope it's nothing that won't heal over the next few days.
Best of luck, Maz! It's been a rough stretch for him--and you.
Now that (presumably) Sherlock is if not in bed at least in quiet-time mode...
Let me start by saying that I cannot even imagine anyone that could be anything like as good for Sherlock (and Mycroft) as the two of you, John and L, and I mean that with absolute sincerity and in every way possible.
I'm just a bit worried about Sherlock--that you were able to explain in a way he understands why you were (rightly) upset.
Because I can so very clearly remember feeling--as far back as first grade, so at just around his age--feeling a deep, deep, burning sense of injustice that people were angry when the only reason I behaved in a way that I had been told not to was because it all JUST WASN'T FAIR. I mean, I knew it was Not Allowed to (for example) write a note telling a teacher that my mom would have her fired (no, of course my mother wouldn't do that, she IS a teacher, but I thought she would!), but the teacher was WRONG and she was just wrong and wouldn't listen when I explained. Looking back, of course, I know my mother had three of us under the age of six to deal with, and she just didn't have time to figure out how to explain it until I got it--and anyway, it wasn't the way people interacted with children 40-plus years ago--but the end result was that people were upset, and I was upset, and I was very upset that everyone was upset but I just did not get it and it all made me deeply frustrated and unhappy.
(I still have trouble with understanding why upset people sometimes, but I can apologize with all sincerity for upsetting them, because I really am sorry for that.)
Anyway--were you able to sort it all out so that Sherlock gets it?
*goes and hides*
RR - Mycroft has already assured John and Greg will be more 'reasonable' than I would have been if mine of similar age had done it because they and the degus would have been back in the car and on the way home (I may have got 20 miles down the road and gone back, or I may have got all the way home and gone back in the morning or I may not have gone back at all depending on the reaction but I would have been out of there)
Sherlock has the explaining to do not John and Greg, they were clear in the fact that degu did not travel 'fair' or not that was the decision.
Sometimes adults make decisions that kids don't like but that's just called parenting I'm afraid.
Anonybob
Anony, I'm not talking about making different decisions, or second-guessing decisions (and this one was absolutely, no question, right--degus are not travelers)--it's about Sherlock understanding. Not about him understanding a particular decision (although that is good, too), but about him understanding what got people are angry and upset. Because I'm still hurting 40+ years on, so yes, the explaining matters.
(Before anyone get all I don't know at me, it's not warping my life and I'm not mad or resentful at my parents or anything like that. I have really good parents. But I can remember a string of these incidents as though they each happened yesterday, and it's not a good feeling, that's all.)
I'd think both John and Lestrade have demonstrated their abilities to explain things adequately in a Sherlock-friendly way by now, RR. This isn't exactly their first rodeo with him misbehaving...
so do you mean explaining that people get cross when you don't do as you're told but that it's about the incident not about you? if thats what you mean then I think I agree. Actions may be bad but children are not. :-)
DW, I SAID that I couldn't imagine anyone could be better for Sherlock than these two, and I meant it, I don't know how to put it stronger! This is me being worried (from my own experience, which I wouldn't have bored you all with--I'm sorry--except for wanting to make it clear that that was where it was coming from and not anything else) and wanting reassurance, that's all.
There has been explaining and no doubt there will be more. No one needs to worry about that. It's the only way with Sherlock, really.
Thank you, John. I'm neurotic, I'm sorry.
(Are you sure you don't want to rethink that time machine ban? It would be lovely if you could go back and explain things to me, really.)
Well at the risk of sounding like I belong in the past, then, I think that adults don't actually have to be accountable to children, and no, as a child I didn't understand, as an adult I do.
We do, because we choose to, explain things more fully to him.
You don't belong in the past Greg you belong right where you are raising boys who will know right from wrong but who will also know how to make reasoned decisions for themselves :-)
They are lucky boys but then you are lucky men too :-)
Anonybob
I'm sorry, L, I must not be expressing myself at all well. I tried to explain that it has nothing to do with accountability or adult's decisions. While it's good for him to understand particular decisions, I'm about him understanding why people are reacting in certain ways--it may be obvious to you, but it really isn't to everyone.
(And I don't know that this is true of Sherlock, but his frustrations about fairness reminds me very strongly of, well, myself, so I project. I can see where he's coming from, or at least I imagine I do.)
Well at the risk of sounding like I belong in the past
I hope you don't belong in the past, because I agree with you but I'm also scared of dinosaurs...
I agree with you too L. DW, L doesn't belong to the age of dinosaurs, just the age of Federicorns.
Maz - belatedly, I'm sending good thoughts your way.
Hope everyone in Bristol has had a good evening, and that the fallout from the degu-smuggling hasn't put too much of a dampner on Mycroft's birthday weekend.
Mycroft, Carla - what did you two conjure up for dinner?
Everyone sensible is scared of dinosaurs.
Nameless - the degus probably think they're in prison, but everyone else is fine. Sherlock even forgot to sulk after a bit.
Mycroft and Carla made fish'n'things.
I actually had recurring nightmares as a child/pre-teen involving dinosaurs chasing me around, had them for years. I never saw Jurassic Park (still haven't, and ironically haven't seen Jaws either) but a friend told me everything and it obviously terrified my subconscious.
Oh degu-smuggling, Sherlock. I (and I expect a few other people) are disappointed in you.
Hope your birthday weekend is lovely, Mycroft, it looks like we're finally getting some nice weather in Blighty!
RR, I don't know if I'm not explaining or just not understanding.
He knows we were upset because he did something we explicitly told him not to. I don't really know what else to say.
Thanks for the good wishes - he ended up with an xray that showed blood in the sinus and then a CT Scan after that because of fear of a fractured orbital floor, and he's now asleep and his father and I are sitting on the couch like shock victims and wondering what comes next. We've not heard back what the results are yet. Tomorrow, perhaps.
RR - I think I get what you're trying to say, but seriously, even genius 6yos just don't have the full capacity to understand adult decisions, even when explained. I hate it, I hated it when I had it done to me, but the old, hoary "Because I said so" really is used for a reason sometimes. Sometimes theirs is not to understand why, but to obey.
I have plenty of those "But they didn't understand!" sorts of things stored up behind my teeth, too, but now I realize that while there are a few instances of true injustice from my parents, there were quite a few where I couldn't have understood the circumstances surrounding my life if you'd sent me to a tutor about it. I look back on it now and wonder how I was ever able to navigate it and become relatively normal!
Good morning badgers :-)
SH I hope the weather is good and the wedding goes well :-)
Mycroft, John, Greg and Sherlock I hope the weather's good for you aswell :-) how many fun things and adventures do you have planned for today?
If there is anyone who was hoping for rain today I hope you've got it but I'm quite pleased to see the Sun for a change!
Anonybob
Oh no, Maz. I hope it all works out okay. :( Hopefully, you've made it home and are asleep and not reading this at some godawful hour of the morning (I can't remember if you're in the US, but "baseball" makes me think you are). Either way let us know?
I can't beleieve *I'm* the one who messed up the comment numbers.
Oh, well. There's always Lestrade's blog...
Hope your son is going to be okay, Maz. Glad he's not too unhappy, at least, even if he's looking rather dramatic.
The weather here is lovely, the kids are all wearing themselves and the dogs out on the grass whilst we lazy adults lie about in the sun.
Maz - I'm so sorry your son was hurt. Best of luck to all of you, and let us know if there's anything we can do, all right? I hope you got some sleep eventually.
So, what does one get for one's doctor who stayed up until midnight on a Friday night waiting for test results for your son, then gave you a call on Saturday when he finally got them to tell you everything is okay?
Because I need to send him something for that bit of good news this morning.
Thanks to all for your good wishes, and hope you guys are having a wonderful day together with Nicky and hers.
And best of luck with the wedding, SH! Enjoy your day!
Maz - that's wonderful news! I hear baked goods are usually welcome... ;)
SH - I hope the wedding's going well. :)
Sorry, Maz, but I think all my suggestions for what I would do for my doctor would be inappropriate for yours...
Very glad your son is okay though.
Quiet blogs on a sunny day are such a good thing :-)
I hope it means lots of fun and adventures, laughing and smiling, good food (and possibly good beer)
Enjoy your evening all of you :-)
Anonybob
It was indeed all of the things you hoped. Brilliant day!
Tomorrow morning John and I are going to see mum.
great news :-) and good luck tomorrow :-)
Hope you have a great rest of evening :-)
Anonybob
Thank you. Nicky plied us with wine. And I'm hoping everyone has a lie in tomorrow.... I can hope, right??
That's great news, Maz, and such a relief! I vote with John--baked goods are always my mother's medical thank you of choice, and it's always well-received. :). (And thank you, it's nice to know I wasn't completely incoherent....)
Here's hoping your visit with your mother is calm and pleasant, L!
Excellent news, Maz!
Lestrade, John - hope the visit is calm and uneventful :-)
I hope your visit with your mum is positive and builds on the progress you seem to have made in the last few weeks :-)
Mycroft and Sherlock is it sunny again? More fun and adventures for you today? I hope you have a lovely day :-)
Wishing good days for all:-)
Anonybob
Thanks AnonyBob. It was...okay, yeah. Not bad. And the boys had a good morning too. Apparently Mycroft even joined in an impromptu game of football.
"Not bad" sounds like an improvement, anyway--small steps can be okay. Yeah?
Do you have any plans for the afternoon (before heading home, that is)?
I hope its ok to be smiling a little at 'okay yeah not bad' :-)
I'm glad the boys had a fun morning and seriously mycroft you make me smile so much when you give different things a go :-) life is about experiencing as many things as possible after all :-)
Enjoy your afternoon
Anonybob
So sorry this is so belated, Mycroft, but happy birthday and my best wishes for a fantastic year. I hope I can continue to learn from your good example.
Thank you, Innie. It was a very nice birthday. I hope you had a good weekend as well.
I've had a very busy weekend, actually, and I need another day of it to finish everything I started!
Do you have plans for your week off in June? You always pick such fantastic places to go, but sometimes staying at home and enjoying your free time can be the best kind of vacation.
No plans at the moment, but I think that's when the motorcycle race Lestrade wants to see is, and if they're going, I'd really like to go as well.
Well, that sounds properly exciting! I hope it's in the cards for you.
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