Awkward Mom vs. Color Capturing

Something about the first day of school throws everything into sharp relief; the colors are blinding and you're desperate to capture them. You try. Oh, how you try. But you can't. You can only gaze into the backseat and dream.

You are in the middle of the middle; singing along with Moana, when you aren’t fielding needs from a van full of siblings. Your position was chosen with care; you can monitor your seamless seat-dancing in the rearview mirror, but perhaps more importantly, you can periodically pause your emoting to break up a fight, correct someone’s math, or reposition the baby’s pacifier. I can’t reach the backseat and you become a parent-extension; the lot of the oldest, and you are a lot of the oldest. Patiently calm with the peripheral vision of James Bond, you steer the ship with a world view that is equal parts hopeful and wary.

You will be a leader; there has never been a conclusion more foregone. You will be a no man left behind, down with the ship, not on my watch, slow and steady wins the race, it's all gonna be OK leader, and the world will come to rely on your warm gentle guidance.

Super Oldest

You are in the back left, as far as we let you; you’d much rather ride on the roof. As it is, you are leaning as far toward the window as you can, mostly to avoid your sister’s relentless monologue, but also to hear the secrets the wind tells only you. You seem to exist in a technicolor bubble, untouched by anything except magic, and that magic draws so many to you, at least as many as your tornado hair does; inexplicably pulled to run their fingers through all that uncombed freedom. You let them, for you are mostly good-natured resistance. Ambition and wealth are mere trinkets; you are an adventurer for the pure love of speed and noise.

You will be a visionary; the secrets to the universe are written in your eyes. You will be ahead of your time, misunderstood, quixotic, slightly wild and wonky, knee deep in trouble of your own making, a grin away from getting out of it, and you'll always be right in the end.

Super 1st Grader

You are in the back right, but you might as well be in the driver’s seat; so strong is your voice and so firm is your direction. Your soul is a force of nature so large that it basically exists outside your body, in a whirl of blonde tendrils, loud opinions, and lightening laughter. You can not be tamed. Many will try; your adorable face dares them on, but all they will do is try to meet your eyes and fail. You simply will not be contained, for one does not reason with a hurricane. You are who they wrote about, who they sing about, who they will try to capture on film; they grab pieces but you are too fast and liquescent for any medium on earth.

You will be a captain of industry, ships, rockets; it all remains to be seen and you aren't telling. You will be a fireball who mysteriously possesses a font of mutinous knowledge, a ghost with a laugh like breaking glass ceilings, a racecar driver, a surgeon, a CEO, and Helen of Troy piloting her own ship of audacious hope and reckless confidence.

Super Kindergardener

You are to the right of your biggest brother, nearly his twin and technically in his shadow, and yet, somehow the sun curves just for you. Someone else’s face, borrowed pants, an explosion of hair longer but gentler than your brother’s, wearing a hat that’s far too big, clutching a hand-me-down truck, and repeating a story you heard your sister tell, and yet it’s all new. It’s all you. You seem to be the architect, the mastermind, the true power behind the throne; none of which makes sense except in the quiet assurance of your smile.

You will be scientist; mad or otherwise. You will be a kind genius who's always early and excited and ready to share, a warm firecracker, an enigmatic expert, a perfect paradox, and the voice of a generation.

Super Preschooler

You are directly behind me and your silence is deafening. All irises, you watch everything with an intensity that threatens to burn a hole through the sun itself. You give nothing away, except your rare wry smiles that reveal you have been here before and know all the secret passages. You’re not sure you trust us yet with the plots you’ve spun in eyes the size of Texas. Time will tell, but I’m not sure you will; cards close to your chest and probably up your sleeves.

You will be a revolutionary; the Rebel Alliance rises and falls under your steely gaze. You will be fierce and free, an undercover insurgent whose quiet poise will silence bars and boardrooms, no one will see you coming until it is too late and then they will see nothing else. Because you aren't here to make friends, you are here to save us all from ourselves.

Super Baby 

And even though I can't quite capture the colors, I'm gonna keep trying.
Same Awkward Time, Same Awkward Channel. 
See you next week!