Our 90 day countdown begins

Okay. I have to warn you, Dear Diary...I'm in a mood. I woke up this morning and thought, "Where did July go?" I heard Josh's voice from upstairs talking to Johnny and then I heard the door slam ~ and he was off to Kings Dominion with Rodge to spend the day. I never even saw his face. I thought, "Wow...if July flew by, I'm going to be kissing Josh goodbye and sending him off to boot camp in a flash...NO! NO! NO!"

I'm. Not. Ready.
Period. 

I saw a post on his Facebook and that got me started at looking at the pics he has in his albums of his high school days. I was laughing my butt off at some of them and then crying.... Seriously, today you can just call my Cybil. I'm a mess. Where has the time gone?

Here are some of the images I looked at from Josh's Facebook albums:

My 7 year old insane son on my first date with Johnny at Carlos O'Kelly's....(so Johnny WAS forwarned and knew what he was getting into marrying the two of us, haha. Here's the proof.)
 His 12th birthday party.

 Remember....Johnny was forwarned...

 Turning 13, I think. He loves it when I sing to him.   NOT.
 Gangsta.

 And oh, the football year! One to be exact; 9th grade. Haha, I had forgotten all about that. Then we tried a year of wrestling. Wish I had a picture of that, I'll have to dig around.

 His braces had just come off! His teeth are sparkly new!

 In between moments of wanting to choke him to death slowly and publicly, there were also tender moments.

 The "I'm way too cool for you" years. Even though we drove around in a 1992 mini van.

And how could I ever forget the garage band years? "Sister Darkeness" they were called. Johnny and I sat through countless show performances at schools & clubs never really knowing what the lead singer was saying (er, screaming) ~ I still have packets of earplugs in my closet and I continue to find them in old jackets years later, haha!

My boy's first day of his summer job bagging groceries at Giant. Too cute!

First day of High School. I remember clearly this was a hard day for me. He's making himself some coffee ~ don't judge me. And did I think he was going to take an apple to every single teacher in the building? Hmmm.

11th grade...he was always on the cutting edge of fashion.

A student took this pic in photography class. Josh enjoyed that class and I still have some of his prints. I particularly love this captured expression; it's the same one I get when I tell him to go put his clothes away or to go scrub his bathroom. Love it! Ha-ha!

I want to see him shoot this look to his drill sergent when they tell him to go scrub toilets. Oh, I'm just being mean now {{{wink}}} But I would pay anything to be a fly on that wall....

Aaaww, Senior Prom!

And we are pleading the 5th where that Stop sign is concerned. I'm sure it's a fake.

Adorable!

Josh had very long blonde hair through most of high school (which I love, love, loved. Don't ask me why, I just did. I'm an 80's girl, what can I say?) and one day, just before prom I get a text message:

Josh: "It's gone." 

ME: "What's gone? The car? Your wallet? The house? OMG WHAT IS GONE!?!?!" (I've always been the level headed, calm one in our family).

Josh: "Gawwwd Mom! Chill" (I get that a lot) "My hair. It's all gone."

ME..."WHAT?!?! OMG YOU CUT ALL OF YOUR BEAUTIFUL HAIR OFF?!?!?! NO WAY YOU'RE LYING!"

Josh: "....And this would be why I didn't tell you first."

I'm still mourning the hair. It was so beautiful. Oh well, guess it's for the best. Drill Sergents don't like long, flowing, blonde rocker hair on their Soldiers. It doesn't stuff up under a helmet that great, getting roots done every 6 weeks could be a problem out in the dessert and I don't think they issue "camouflage scrunchies." Do they?

Will someone please tell me how a child can go from all of those images....

...to this...my 20 year old beef cake heading in to the Army. And as of today, we are in a 90 day countdown. I could scream. Cry. Have a fit. Laugh. Cry. Refuse. Deny. Guess I'll just go meet Johnny for coffee somewhere and think about the coming years.

I have been so blessed with an amazing son. He's been sweet, loving, kind, tender, horrible, evil, snotty, generous, deeply caring, hilarious, spirited, smelly, crazy, smart allec, lazy, tenatious, twisted, committed and 1,000 other things I can't even think of right now because, like I said I'M IN A MOOD.

I don't know what this mood is called, but I'm in it. Maybe it's just the mood where I don't really want my son to go but deep, deep down I realize that he needs to go start his own life and live out all of his dreams, and then some. And trust me, he will know that I support him 482%. I'm so proud of him I could burst.

I'm just going to stay off the Facebooks pics for awhile. I've been laughing and crying at the same time and if anyone walked in right now they'd be ordering me a size large straight jacket.

90 days.

Crap.

I warned you, Dear Diary, didn't I? But I'd rather be feeling this than to be feeling nothing at all.