Jumping For Joy!

My 13-year-old son Nick is taking weekly trampoline lessons. His good buddy Anthony goes too. Driving the boys to the cold spacious warehouse building in a risky part of Oakland takes about a half hour. Class is 90 minutes and then another half hour to drive home. Yet I keep turning down offers from Anthony’s mother to alternate driving duties.
I like watching Nick jump with abandon and try new moves each week. Nick has never embraced physical activity so it’s great to see him finding pleasure in the trampoline. Doing mid air somersaults is a thrill for both of us.
But last week, watching his unbridled joy, his big smile packed with braces, I realized what I really like is seeing my little boy again. The boy who smiled easily, laughed joyfully and moved through his world with ease. My 13 year old son is nearly expressionless, his face vacant at best. More often than not, his lips form a tight straight line, and his eyes narrow a bit, looking like anger sits behind those grey-blue ovals, ready to pounce on whatever might strike him as unfair. He catches me staring at him often as I try to figure out what’s going on behind his teenager mask. Is he happy? Upset about something? Just a normal teenager? What’s going on back there?
But at trampoline, the smiles shine through. He looks at me to make sure I’m watching, that I’m in this with him. A couple of hours a week of driving and sitting bundled up on an old couch watching him are no issue. He’s my little guy, who wants me there, and I’m not going to miss a minute. Or a jump, twist, sit and turn.