Welcome to fifteen years of Jake. The kid who not so long ago would ask me to ‘knock nosie’s’ when I kissed him goodnight and whose head would fit snugly into the crook of my neck. Now you’re the kid with the closed bedroom door that I require permission to enter and who has to bend over to give his mum a (reluctant) hug.

Now you’re growing limbs and body hair and a life that doesn’t include much space for me. You’re a kid but not a kid. You’re an adult but not an adult. You are branching out of my reach, reaching for places that I can only visit in my dreams.

I love this new boy man as much as I did yesterday and as much as I will tomorrow.

Here is your birthday memory capsule of the 14 years of Jake that is no longer, but will always be my memories.

Bye Bye Parents

If parenting is building a safe and secure scaffolding to help your child navigate life, then every day this scaffolding is starting to fall down as you pull away more and more. Whilst previously you would go with dad to every footy game, as you turned 14 you went to your first footy game with your mates, no parents allowed! I anticipate that this time next year, there may only be a few leftover nuts and bolts from the parenting scaffold support and these will be relegated to dust.

Strava Laughs

You have recently discovered Strava and your entries are just so Jake-like and make me giggle every time. This most recent entry even included a penis shape. Perhaps this is Jake-style Strava art.

Holes in the Wall Take Two

Jake, you not the only one who can make holes in walls form fits of anger. Soon after your 14th birthday, you and I were having a fight in your room. I cant even remember what it was about (like most stupid fights) but I tried to throw your phone at you. Fortunately, (or unfortunately) you ducked, which led to an i-phone shaped hole in your wall. Whilst I was very frustrated with myself, in true Jake style you shrugged it off as you dont sweat the small stuff.

14 Year Old Jake Likes To….

Go by the nickname Kuj when with his friends. Eat challah with cinnamon and butter. Only eat the middle of the corn cob and leave the side bits, despite insisting he eats the whole thing.

He leaves his towels on the floor and his socks balled up in his laundry basket despite promising me almost daily that he wont do it.

14 year old Jake is a kid who likes routine, eating the same school lunch every day (wrap with chicken shnitzel, cucumbers, cut fruit, packet of Mini Bites, cheese stick, muesli bar and raisins), followed by anywhere from 1-5 packets of apple cinnamon oats when he gets home from school and as a second supper after a big dinner.

First and Last Fantasy Football League

Your first and only foray into the world of fantasy football was not your most successful.
Most weeks you landed up at the bottom of the ladder and as a result had to fulfil a forfeit that your friends devised. Some of them were embaressing (getting dressed in womens clothes), some were ridiculously funny (covering yourself in Nutella and acting like the Easter bunny) and the final one was quite brutal when you had to have your hair shaved off…although it did save us quite a bit on your 6-weekly haircuts.

Fishing

After a term of fishing as part of Duke of Edinburg program at school (where you ‘caught’ a trout), you took up this new hobby with gusto. From catching trains to Springvale to buy bait (you assured me this bait was really good and hence why you had to venture so far) to waking up in the middle of the night and catching trains and buses to the edge of Melbourne for the perfect timing of the tides to bring in the fish, this fishing craze shows no signs up letting up anytime soon. So far you have caught a poisonous eel, a star fish and some snapper that you gutted in our laundry sink (stinking up the house in the process) and cooked it yourself, relishing every bite. I had to shlep two fishing rods for you back from Sydney and you told me you get great fishing tips from the homeless guy at Frankston Pier (A tip for you – some things are better for your mum not to know).

Your early birthday gift this year was a fishing backpack and you are about to go on a fishing weekend with your friend Ilay Joichman.

As much as this is a smelly hobby and I find small hooks lying all over your bedroom floor, I think it is beyond wonderful. You are spending hours in the great outdoors (off a device), watching exquisite sunrises, hanging out with your mates and learning a skill for life…although it may be a while before I can replace buying dinner ingredients with your freshly-caught seafood.

New Friendships

Since you were a young preppie starting school, you have been best friends with Angus Sommervile, and part of a close friendship group with Nate, Riley, Judah, Leo and a few other boys. This past year you have started hanging out with a whole new group of friends including Zac, Rom, Tal and Ilay. A few times I have asked you if you and Angus have had a falling out as you haven’t hung out with him outside of school and you have assured me that it’s not the case. I know part of the reason for the friendship change is your fishing expeditions that don’t include Angus and buddies as they are not keen fisherman. I guess it’s also just a changing of season. Angus now has a girlfriend and you have started naturally gravitating towards a new group. I think you are right when you assure me there is no bad blood, it’s just how your life is evolving. Maccabi carnival was a turning point for the transition between these old and new friendships

You have started attending Tzofim (Israeli scouts) as most of these new friends are born to Israeli parents and you have been to Tzofim camp and Sunday meetings. It’s quite ironic as you dropped Hebrew at the end of last year and yet Hebrew is the predominant language at most of the camps and meetings!

Favourite Cuisine – Anything Ultra Processed or Laden with Sugar

McDonalds, Chobani Flip, Coca Cola,Burgers….these are some of your favourite foods. Whilst you do have a few ‘healthy favourites’ that I make for dinner (lamb pies, Japanese tofu bowls), you will gladly choose processed sugar any time of the day.

You prefer catching the bus home from school even when I offer you a lift. It’s partly because you go with your mates to Coles after school and spend  a big chunk of your hard-earned footy umpire money buying lollies from Coles . This past year I helped you make a budget and you set yourself a goal of only buying after school Coles snacks every second week, although some weeks you subcumed to the temptation even if it was an “off week”.

Last week you spend $6.50 in one day, You told me you bought a giant roll of gum and you had to make up for the spending as you had been away all week at zio camp!

First School Exams

At the end of year 8, you had your first set of school exams. I was really impressed with your ‘bum power’ and your willingness to dedicate the time to revise. Jake, the school psychologist described you so perfectly a few years ago, you have a ‘Ferarri brain that operates with one flat tyre’. Your ability is exceptional. You exel in Math (you got over 90% in the mid year exams that have just passed), and I am intrigued to see where your high school subject choices take you and what you gravitate towards (at this stage you have chosen visual design as our unit 1 and 2 subject for year 10).

I sometimes worry at your self confidence as you are hard on yourself when you get a mark that in your mind is poor. The nature of being at a school like Bialik means there is a lot of academic competition. This can be a good and a bad thing at the same time. You are slowly accepting that the point of being in school is to NOT know things and make mistakes and then apply new knowledge. You are learning that it takes time and many many attempts to perfect a skill. At the same time you are finding out what are your strengths (very much math and science) and what are your weaker areas (English which is a challenge as it’s essay writing and deep thought analysis).

I have no doubt you will find your way. You have a quiet unspoken self awareness and a confidence to forge your own path. Whilst there will be comparisons to your peers, and your sister Evie who makes it quite obvious when she does well at something, you have the very rare character trait of not letting these external forces change your sense of self. And that is an extremely rare gift, especially for someone of your age.

I was really impressed how you planned a study timetable for your mid year exams and used post it notes and speech cards. I know it doesn’t come easy to you, as your brain works more like a mind map as opposed to a structured straight and narrow. This is evident by how you spread out your revision notes when it comes to exam studying, or maybe that’s just called ‘being a teenage boy’.

Footy Umpiring

You have been umpiring now for three years. You started as a boundary umpire for SMJFL, then proceeded to add VAFA to the mix, followed by field umpiring for SMJFL and now goal umpiring for VAFA. And for the second time this year you got to do umpiring for half time AusKick at The MCG.

Besides the really really good money you get paid for a 14 year old (up to $100 per VAFA game), the leadership, responsibility and commitment this has taught you is next to nothing. I have seen you wake up early on a weekend morning to get to a game, turn down catch ups with friends when you were already committed to a game, and make some tough on field decisions, as well as move on from when you realised you made a wrong call. Occassionally I have been able to capture a moment in time when I pick you up from games (hidden behind the crowds so that you are not distracted by your embarrassing mum) and my heart bursts with pride at you standing there, smartly attired in your uniform and I just want to run onto the field shouting “that’s my amazing kid!”….can you imagine!

Whilst the money is great and you have been buying shares (when you havent spent it all at Coles), what you dont realise now is how valuable these skills are that you are developing at such a young age including responsibility, quick decision making, confidence to own your decisions and negating criticism. You will rely on these skills for the rest of your life and they will be  invaluable in years to come.

Your Final Footy Hurrah

At the end of the 2025 footy season, you decided it was time to hang up your playing boots. It has been a tough two seasons for you with your team barely winning any games. But week after week you showed up in the rain and the mud and put your heart and your kick into the game. You were well awarded for your efforts and at the end of the season you won the Best and Fairest Runner Up trophy.

You may not land up running on the MCG as a career (unless you decide to take up professional umpiring) but you have had some great fun playing footy over the years for East Malvern Knights. I can’t say I am unhappy not to stand in the howling wind on freezing Sunday mornings, but I will always remember the way you grew from a timid kid who would not go very near the ball, to a young man who tackled with gusto, jumpers for the marks and put as much power as you could muster into those kicks

Jake Acronyms

I have learned a whole new language from you, with acronyms involving as few letters as possible:

DW – don’t worry

mid – average

alr – all  right

nvm – never mind

I have also learned that your plans can change faster than the bullet trains we caught in Japan and as your personal uber driver, I need to be able to keep up and ensure that I drive to the right place at the right time and reconfirm at least three times.

Screenshot

Skiing

A year ago you went skiing with school and you waited patiently for nearly another year to go skiing with dad in Queenstown in July. Like everything sport related, you have picked it up really quickly and now you are probably wishing that you were born into a much richer family than ours, as you came home from Queenstown asking if we could go on a family holiday skiing in Switzerland next year.

Tenderness and Kindness in Excess

You are kindness through and through with your extended family. Whether it’s playing endless of rounds of Uno with your pops or playing with your younger cousins, you have always been so soft and gentle when it matters most. You write the most thoughtful messages to Nanny when you can’t make it for Shabbat and you write the sincerest and most heart warming birthday cards I have every read.

The grown up who is still a kid

Jake, every year when I write your birthday blog post, I inevitably reminisce on the previous year where you still continue to act like a big goofy happy-go-lucky kid. Every year I write with a poignant lump in my throat thinking this is the last time you are going to be a big kid and the last time I will witness you not taking life so seriously. But here we are, another 365 days around the sun, and whilst your limbs are longer and your voice is a bit deeper, the Jake who doesn’t sweat the small stuff in life is as prevalent as you turn fifteen.

There has been an increase in those moody teenager hormones that I remember oh so well from your older sister. And whilst there are many days where your only form of communication is grunts and exasperated sighs, what has not changed is your ability to shrug off the oh-so-silly stuff that gets most people bogged down. You have an uncanny knack to find the lighter side of absolutely everything and you never ever give up the chance to have a go at a bit of fun. If you keep laughing your way through life, boy are you going to go places and have an absolute ball doing it.

I know my voice is no longer the background sound in your head. It’s been replaced with your friends, your screens, your life outside our home and your world without me. But as much as I miss my little boy, I am glad that biology is working exactly as it should. I see glimpses of your new world, your new passions and your new sense of self. You are pushing me out of your centre so you can stand on your own and be your own sun. So I will be your moon, always connected to you and providing light. Some times I will be a little sliver and whenever you need me I will be there in full brightness showing you the light.

And will always and forever love you. Happy birthday Jakey.

A Fifteen Year Old Interview

  1. Who is your best friend? Tal and Ilay
  2. What is your favourite subject at school? Sport
  3. What is your biggest challenge at school? English
  4. What career do you think you want to have when you finish school? Architecture maybe
  5. What’s something you used to be into that you’ve grown out of? I used to like to play golf
  6. What job would you like to get as a 15 year old who can now work? Bounce
  7. Why do you love fishing so much? The feeling when you hook onto a fish and fighting the fish – it’s the best part
  8. What is your favourite colour? Green
  9. What is your favourite food? Maccas
  10. What’s your worst food? Avocado
  11. Who is your favourite musician or band you like listening to? Red Hot Chili Peppers
  12. What is your favourite brand of clothing? Factorie
  13. If you could have a training session with any sports player in the world, who would you choose? Eddie Betz (Carlton)
  14. Who will win the AFL this year? Hawks
  15. what is a rule you disagree with? Screen time
  16. What famous person would you like to meet and what would you ask them?  Warren Buffet. How does he know what to invest in
  17. What makes you happy? When I get a good result in school
  18. What makes you sad? When I lose a basketball game
  19. If you could have three wishes in the world what would they be?
  • 1. Be better at English
  • 2. Be rich
  • 3. Be taller
  1. What is something you are really good at? Making money
  2. What is the best part of your birthday?  Opening presents 
  3. If you could change one thing in the world what would it be? Everything is tax free
  4. What are you grateful for in life? Money
  5. What is something you would like to change to make the world a better place? Cure cancer or something
  6. What is something you appreciate about your mum? dad? Evie?
    1. Mum – dinners
    2. Dad – helps me with homework and always has time for me
    3. Evie – she brings home food from Rozzi
  1. What is something you appreciate about your grandparents? Pops always wants to play Uno with me, Nanny is always interested in my life, Pappa is interested about my investments
  2. What were your favourite foods we ate during our holiday to Japan? Ramen at the muslim restaurant we ate at just before Yom Kippur.  Fluffy pancakes and the smoothies from 7/11
  3. What was the best part of your ski trip to Queenstown? The terrain park at the Remarkables
  4. If you could tell the future, what is something you would like to know? What is the career I have in the future
  5. What is something you have done in your life that you are proud of? I won Best and Fairest last footy season with East Malvern Knights
  6. If you were an animal, what would it be? A dingo
  7. What is something about you that many people don’t know? I don’t like avocado
  8. If I gave you $100 now what would you buy? I would invest it
  9. What is one goal that you would like to achieve when you are 15 years old? How will you do it? Become stronger by working out more
  10. If you could get any birthday present in the world, what would you want? A private jet
  11. What do you think has changed most about yourself from being 14 to turning 15 ? My interests (I like lego now) and I am more school focussed now
  12. what advice would you like to give to your past 10 year old self? Don’t listen to anyone who tries to stop you. just do it anyway and trust yourself