{"id":255,"date":"2010-03-03T16:41:05","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T16:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/?p=255"},"modified":"2010-03-03T16:41:05","modified_gmt":"2010-03-03T16:41:05","slug":"a-decade-with-shade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/?p=255","title":{"rendered":"A Decade with Shade"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhy does the TAKS test have to be on March 3rd?\u201d<\/em> \u2013 Shade Canon Mashburn, my son<\/font><\/p>\n

It may seem a random question to you, and I didn\u2019t have an educated answer. But I know it matters to him because March 3rd is Shade\u2019s birthday. And today, on his 10th, he\u2019s not thrilled that he has to spend about 8 hours of it on a test. All I could say was \u201cI guess it has to be on someone\u2019s birthday, buddy.\u201d <\/p>\n

He asked this past Monday, and you have to know that Shade takes the TAKS test really seriously (he didn\u2019t get that from me, I can assure you). So I guess as a way of uplifting his spirits, he asked if we could sit down and make some decorations for him to put around the house for his birthday. So I took some pipe cleaners and a piece of paper, Callie took some popsicle sticks, paper and glue, and Shade himself took an old wrapping paper tube, some pipe cleaners and some tape and we created and then spread these around the dining room.  <\/p>\n

\"Callie's<\/a>\"Callie's<\/a>\"Callie's<\/a><\/p>\n

Well buddy, I hope this self-medication did it\u2019s magic and lifted your spirits this morning as you passed them and went out the door for school! <\/p>\n

Last night as I prayed with Shade before bed, I sort of got lost in reflection about the last 10 years of my life. Now, I\u2019ve got a pretty decent imagination most of the time, but I could not<\/em> imagine the last 10 years without this fun, passionate, sincere, energetic, ready-to-go, thoughtful, power-packed fireball of a kid in my life! And knowing him, who would want to? <\/p>\n

I prayed and thanked God for the whole decade that I have had with this guy. He has been a source of joy, challenge, adventure, sacrifice, selflessness, introspection, transformation, and love in my life. I will never be the same. Because of him, I don\u2019t know how to explain it really, but I am much more real.<\/p>\n

\"Callie's<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an iPhone photo of he and I in Lubbock trying to look tough.<\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Callie's<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how we look when we are being real. <\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Happy Birthday, Shade. Here\u2019s to the life-long journey of becoming much more real.<\/p>\n

I love you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhy does the TAKS test have to be on March 3rd?\u201d \u2013 Shade Canon Mashburn, my son It may seem a random question to you, and I didn\u2019t have an educated answer. But I know it matters to him because March 3rd is Shade\u2019s birthday. And today, on his 10th, he\u2019s not thrilled that he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-family"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pO6nf-47","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}