Peter is 30!

(I made these masks of Peter at various ages - they are sort of creepy and sort of funny)

Peter was an active and creative little boy and most of our families’ most famous stories involve some crazy thing he did. Like the time we were camping and I was trying to get him ready for bed and he keep screaming, “I’m not tired I’m just nervous.” Or as a first grader he was late walking home from school and although we literally lived around the corner from the school, I of course panicked and ran to school only to meet Peter half way, walking toward me with tiny, shuffling steps. When I reached him I realized his shoes were tied together with several tight knots. It seems two older boys talked him into letting them tie his laces together – I’m sort of fuzzy on the details of why that seemed like a good idea to him. Once he handcuffed himself to the neighbor’s boat to impress a little girl who was visiting and I had to call the sheriff’s office to have an officer help me remove the cuffs. I guess that was foreshadowing and thank goodness he’s a cop not a criminal!

Peter’s most famous story involves a movie we watched as a family titled, “Wildcats” with Goldie Hawn who played an inner city football coach to a rag-tag bunch of hoodlums. Behind Goldie’s’ unorthodox coaching the team wins enough games to play in the championship game. Playing the Wildcats Goldie gives a rousing speech and the players burst through the locker room doors onto the field yelling, “Let’s eat pussy.” Oops – Peter turns to me and asks me what that means and I quickly and calmly explain that cats are often called “pussy cats” and since they were playing the Wildcats it was a way to convey they intended to beat the opposing team. Who knew I should added, “that is something we don’t say because it means something else too.”

Several weeks later found us at church waiting with a large group of parents for our children to leave their kindergarten Sunday school class. Peter was the first one out the door and proudly yelling at the top of his lungs, “Let’s eat pussy!” I have no idea what the other parents did because I grabbed his arm with one of those ‘your mother is truly angry with you’ grips and high-tailed it out of there and then gave Peter the explanation I should have begun with.

Peter turned 30 this past week and I am so grateful for the wonderful man he has become. He is brave and strong, kind and funny, loving and generous. I have always said God gives you one to keep you humble – well I thank God for the humility and every day for Peter!