Sixteen

Time sure has a way of telling you that you are getting old.

Matthew is now sixteen years old. I am happy to say that he has grown up quite a bit. But he still has a long way to go. I sometimes have those flashbacks when my dad would tell me: “Mackie, what else am I going to teach my grandchild?”. This, when he is referring to having to teach me a lesson in life. I’ll admit, it was really annoying when I was told off like that. But if it hadn’t been for that, I wouldn’t have learned anything in life. And I wouldn’t have anything to teach Jack-Jack.

Jack-Jack. Somehow, that nickname sounds a bit childish now. Matthew had always been Matthew ever since he started school. Not many people actually know him by his nickname. Come to think of it, only family friends know that we call him Jack-Jack at home. There is a story to this, of course as where would the nickname Jack-Jack have come from the name Matthew. He actually had the nickname Jack-Jack long before he had his proper name. One night while pregnant with the little boy, Judy woke up with a start and mumbled the name Jack-Jack – referring to the baby in the movie, The Incredibles. There was no other meaning to it and no other reason for us to name him Jack-Jack. When he was born though, we had named him Matthew. His full first name is Matthew Jaeger. If only to have a name to link Jack-Jack to.

While the younger generation may associate the name Jaeger to the giant robots in the movie Pacific Rim, I should point out that Matthew was born in 2005 – a good 8 years before the movie came out. So, no, I did not name him after those giant robots. Nor was he named after the German digestif, Jägermeister. The name was in fact inspired by a giant robot, but not from Pacific Rim. The Liger Zero Jager. I will leave that for you guys to look into.

I guess I always knew that raising a child would have its ups and downs. I just didn’t think that it would go up and down so much. I would be lying if I said that it was easy raising up a child. Even though I had always believed that I would be a dad, it didn’t really occur to me how much I mattered until recently. Jack-Jack had been especially mature the past few days leading to his sixteenth birthday. He wasn’t as serious as I was when I was that age, but there was a sudden maturity in the way that he talked that wasn’t there before. And in the bits and pieces of our conversation, I would appreciate the words that would come from his mouth. I really felt like I was a dad. It hasn’t been easy but it has been worth it. And it’s not over yet.

I hope that my dad realizes that he had played a big role in this because he had been an inspiration to me. I had a good foundation, and I know that I would have a bigger and brighter tomorrow. And I am also hopeful that I instill the same drive and ambition onto Jack-Jack.