This has been the single most difficult year of parenting yet in my son’s 12 years. This last year made the first years look like a fricken cake walk. Spit up, nursing, poopy diapers and never a full night of sleep are nothing compared to preteen drama.

This year, the Kid decided that he wasn’t going to do homework, ever. He discovered how to lie. He discovered the silent, sulky eyerolling thing. He has driven me to the edge of crazy with worry over his academics. But he has also shown real thoughtfulness when it comes to issues of fairness and justice and a willingness so rarely found in grown-up boys to listen to the stories of people with less privilege than him.

He is curious about how the world works and how to make it work better. He gets that you don’t get extra credit for being a boy who will do his own fair share of the work instead of pawning it off on the girls. He is coming to an age where girls are going to be very important to him (he came out as straight when he was 8 years old- so I’m not pushing him into heteronormativity) and is learning about consent and all that goes with it.

He is reading Hothead Paisan, Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist and loving it (ah, Chicken, what would we do without you). He is interested in books and movies where the main character is a strong and capable girl or women instead of defaulting onto the idea that those are “chick flix” or “chick lit” that are beneath him.

He sees homophobic graffiti written in bathroom stalls and wants a sharpi to fix it. He gets that all those people screaming about being pro-life aren’t out there adopting kids who need parents.

He is managing to grow up in a tough neighborhood with some serious race issues without losing the sweet, sensitive bits that make him awesome. It would be easy for him to grow little racist thoughts since the only conflicts he has had with other kids (he was nearly robbed twice but had nothing of value to be taken) have been with kids who are black, but I think he gets that it’s not the kids’ race that caused it but they were assholes regardless of race.

Because I am sure that with how hard this last year has been he hasn’t heard enough of how proud I am of him for being a thoughtful human being, I want him to know, and everyone else too that I think he is the best kid ever. But he still has to do his homework and his chores.

I love you monkey boy,

Your mama and the Queen of the Universe