My oldest son, Kristofer, was a pretty shy kid.

He spent his only year of preschool being a lurker in the background.

His teachers were a little concerned that he never spoke in class.

Like literally never.

He was the same in kindergarten and first grade.

Very quiet, very shy, and very easily intimidated.

He was the one kid I KNEW would NEVER get in trouble at school.

I’d never get an email or call about his behavior.

Which was good because if you were around in the early days you know that I could never say this about Ingrid (the infamous Number 4).

I knew the teachers were gonna be in contact about her.

But not with Kristofer.

No way.

Then I don’t know what the heck happened, but in second grade he was like, OKAY I GUESS THIS SCHOOL STUFF ISN’T GOING TO KILL ME. TIME TO BREAK OUT OF THIS SHELL.

And I got an email from his teacher.

We’ll call her Mrs. Green.

Kristofer has been a little disruptive in class recently.

WUT?

Kristofer?

No way. Impossible.

It was not impossible.

In fact, the following year Kristofer entered his third grade classroom and proclaimed to his teacher that he was the Class Clown and I was like DUDE you gotta earn that shit you can’t just self-appoint yourself the class clown.

I guess he took me seriously because for the next couple years he was very consistent, and there wasn’t a year that went by where I didn’t get some kind of correspondence from one of his teachers. And not the good kind of correspondence.

As an aside, Mrs. Green’s son is the same age as my youngest daughter, and they were in the same preschool class when they were three.

So Mrs. Green and I were still connected.

Fast forward a couple years and Mrs. Green now had three sons.

Her oldest had joined the swim team, and he loved the water.

Her middle son was maybe three years old when she messaged me about giving him swim lessons, which I happily agreed to.

Mrs. Green’s little guy, Johnny, was not nearly as enthusiastic about being in the pool as his older brother.

In fact, he was kind of like THIS IS BULLSHIT, in a super-cute, three-year-old kind of way.

He was definitely psyched when his lessons were finished. He was totally over it.

I mean he wasn’t kicking and screaming and refusing to get in the pool, but he was definitely happy when 30 minutes was up.

Okay so now fast forward another couple years.

My kids participate in the Race4Chase Triathlon program in the summers.

You age out of the program once you turn 12, so this year, only Kasen and Marit are campers.

Gretchen turned 13 this year so she can’t participate as a camper, but she’s working as a CIT.

And Kristofer is working for Race4Chase this year and he’s one of the coaches.

And you know who else is doing Race4Chase?

Mrs. Green’s two oldest sons!

Ten years later and now Kristofer is coaching his second grade teacher’s kids.

Awwwww.

So Kristofer hasn’t ever done anything like this before and he is LOVING it.

And he’s also pretty good at it.

Yesterday he came home from work and he said to me, “MOM. Mrs. Green’s son is SO CUTE. Her kids are two of my absolute favorite campers.”

Sidenote:

The 14 – 16 year-old period of Kristofer’s life was a challenge for both of us.

We butted heads a lot.

And I’m not gonna lie. I kinda started to freak out.

I remembered back to a time a friend of mine (who has a son who’s about seven years older than Kristofer) completely lost it after a yoga class and just burst into tears as she was leaving. She was going through some really hard stuff with her son.

She may have referred to him as an asshole, and well, as we entered the teenage years, I found myself being able to relate.

About a year ago I messaged her.

Please tell me it got better. I’m FREAKING out, I told her.

We are best friends, now, she told me.

Oh Thank God. I had some hope.

I wasn’t convinced, but at least there was hope.

In the last year Kristofer has started working as a lifeguard.

This summer he’s actualy got three jobs.

And he’s really risen to the occasion.

After a really frustrating year of being in chronic pain and not knowing what the heck was going on, he was finally correctly diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis last December.

Once we got him on some medication and stopped the pain, that’s when he really started to transform from troublemaker to leader.

He’s like a completely different kid.

He’s responsible and dependable and he’s really, really surprised me. In a good way.

He’s still a teenage boy. He’s not perfect, but I am just so proud of him.

Okay so anyway, yesterday Kristofer came home from work talking about how cute Mrs. Green’s sons were again.

Especially her middle son, Johnny. The one I gave swim lessons too.

The one who was like Bruh this lady and these lessons are bullshit.

Kristofer said to me, “Mom, I taught Johnny how to swim today. He got it! I dumbed it down for him and it clicked and he swam all by himself.”

I know that feeling, and it feels really, really good. I mean, helping somebody have success at something always feels good.

I had forgotten that Mrs. Green messaged me a couple days ago.

I told Kristofer what she had said.

I just have to tell you that everyday Johnny comes home and it’s, Kris this and Kris that and Kris helped me. He just adores him!

YES! Redemption from second grade! 😂

That made Kristofer feel pretty good. It made me feel pretty good, too.

Because it’s been kind of a long road. For both of us. And I know Kristofer gets it.

Because he looked right at me and he smiled.

And then he said, “Well Mom… I guess I’ve come full circle.”

My friend was right.

It’s darkest before the dawn, but it gets better.

Sometimes my teenage son still pisses me off and does things that make me wonder how he’s actually still alive.

But most of the time now he really just makes me super proud to be his mom.