Some years, when I start to write your birthday blogs, I have so much to say. I have collated lots of photos and anecdotes from the year that has passed. Some cute and funny, some filled with a twinge of sadness, and some that I would rather forget ever happened. But this year the notes and photos are somewhat sparse. There are dates with reminders of what you did or something I witnessed, followed by gaps of weeks and months where I haven’t made any notes at all. In many ways it feels like a cavernous space between 13 and 14 years old, punctuated by glimpses of your life that I have been privy to witness.

I think there are a few reasons for this change in pace. It’s partly because the childhood days of you saying or doing something cute are long gone, but mostly because my window into your world is getting narrower and my mum role becoming more redundant. Nowadays you are making memories through Snapchat and your online world, out with your friends where no adult is allowed to trespass,  or behind many a closed door where you seek out privacy with little desire to share your life with parents.

There are only five more years left of me writing you birthday blogs, as I will might stop after your 18th birthday, once you are officially an adult. These photos and blogs are not just to remind me of the precious memories I have of how you acted, what you wore and what you did….they are also to remind me of how I felt. When I read back on some of these over the years, my mind is transported via an instant time machine to that memory capsule, and I feel exactly what I felt at the time. These birthday blogs allow me to hold onto the time that is mine and yours. A moment in time that will forever stand still. One day I will look back on these posts when these days feel impossibly far away and I will return to them. And I will know, without question that love has always lived there.

Not Your Footy Season

After winning the grand final in 2023, and having an unbelievable footy coach (Jason Kloszynzki), last year your team was pretty average (that’s being polite). Having said that, you and the players formed a great comradery and you finally won the last game of the season. I was hoping this year would be a bit better, but unfortunately you were placed in the bottom East Malvern Knights team again, and so far this season your team has only won a single game. Whilst I know you are not a footy superstar who will make a career out of the sport, you are definitely one of the better players in the team this year. In fact, as of the date of me writing this blog, you have scored the second highest scores so far for the season for the weekly B&F score. I am very interested to see what next year brings…will you stay at east Malvern Knights, perhaps switch to AJAX to play with your mates, or quit footy playing all together and focus instead on umpiring and earning money.

It has been a tough two seasons in a row and I can see the weekly defeat does get to you. It’s hard to keep showing up every week when so many of your team mates don’t bother to come to training and don’t give it a 100% effort on game day. There is a reason that sports have stood the test of time, for it instils in you important lessons that will carry you into future life non-game situations, and learn how to handle both wins and losses in life. It’s learning how to be a good team mate, even when your team mate may not be playing their best. It’s learning about humility, kindness and respect – essential skills necessary for personal success. Whatever you decide to do with footy moving forward, I will look back on these years and never forget the feeling of watching you run out onto that field.

Not Carlton’s Season Either

It’s not exactly a consolation prize, but Carlton’s footy season has been almost as dismal as yours. What started off as a great season for Carlton has gone to the dogs by the time of your birthday. Your Carlton membership you got for your birthday last year has not had much use this year, as watching Carlton has not exactly been the greatest entertainment. A small part of me is happy as it means less sugary doughnuts, fizzy soft drinks and salt-overloaded fries.

Learn a skill, earn better cash

One aspect of your footy experience that is thriving is your umpiring. Last year in September you were selected to be a boundary umpire for a grand final game…a pretty big deal for your first year of umpiring. This year you have continued to do the boundary umpiring for VAFA, which earns you a whopping $88 on average per game and a LOT of running up and down the field. You have also started field umpiring for SMJFL this year, and earlier this year you were given an awesome opportunity to do field umpiring for Auskick during the half time AFL break at the MCG. Of course I am hardly allowed to come watch you umpire, but when I do, it is with immense pride at the commitment and dedication you have for this job, even if you are usually the only umpire without your socks pulled up.

By the end of the season you will have earned around $2,500…..not bad for a 14 year old kid! I think you will have more career opportunities as an umpire rather than a footy player. But either way, the great thing about doing a job that is skill-based, is that you will always earn more cash compared to non skilled teenager jobs like waitressing or babysitting.

Basketball Coaches Award

In April, you received the Malvern Tigers coaches award for the Summer 2024 basketball season (and were recognised for playing over 150 games for the club). After all the years of playing basketball since under 8s, this was the first time you received this reward and my heart may as well have been pinned to the award, that’s how chuffed I was for you.  The coach gave it out after your team fought gallantly and narrowly lost your semi-final by a few points, so that helped to dampen the bitter taste of defeat. What made it even better was your best mate Angus also winning an award at the end of that season. Whilst the award added some shine, having your best mate on your team is the real gold of team sport.

For the past few months you have been an assistant coach for the winter season. Unfortunately you were initially assigned to a coach who is introverted like yourself and it was not a good match at all. You were moved to a much better role as assistant coach for the U12 Green boys team, with Danny Martin who is a very experienced coach. Whilst this was a much better fit, you have decided (at least for now) that coaching is not for you. In many ways I think this is the right choice. It is not a negative aspect but your personality is not aligned to uplifting and motivating others to achieve their best, which is the essence of what coaching requires. I hope you will take up basketball reffing once you turn 14 (the minimum age to be eligible) as you enjoy (and are good at) footy umpiring and you love the game of basketball.

Teenage Boy Fashion

This year we welcomed jorts to your fashion wardrobe. Your sense of style is changing and becoming more relevant to your teenage sense of self-worth. This includes brand name T-shirts from Fast Times and insisting I shlep you to Elsternwick barbers for a very specific type of haircut that involves detailed instructions with a combo of medium buzz cuts, fade to blow and other teenage-boy-hair style terms that I have no idea what they actually mean.

Cologne Dispensary

The shelves in your bathroom cabinet look like a cologne dispensary, filled with rows and rows of samples that have been precured every time you go into David Jones, Myer or the airport. Even in the Dubai markets you managed to spot the cologne store.

The 80:20 Rule of Helping Around the House

The 80:20 rule usually refers to something that one should do 80% of the time. When it comes to helping around the house and with requests that dad and I make on you, you generally follow this rule in reverse. But in fairness, I think helping even 20% of the time is pretty good, considering most teenagers are more self-centred than toddlers.

But sometimes you are very eager to help. Whether that be for the lure of extra pocket money (the world’s oldest incentive) or because something looks cool, like helping dad hammer in the nails for the fence garden lights, or pushing the lawnmower and smelling the sweet aroma of freshly-cut grass. My favourite way you help is in the kitchen with me. And it’s not really because of the reduced work load for me (although the folding of pastry triangles does ease the burden of time), but rather for the moment it gives you and I together, with unspoken bonding taking place over the mundane act of making a salad. These moments dont happen that often, but when they do I dial up my gratitude muscle as high as it will go and never take for granted the privilege of simply having you by my side, slicing and dicing one cucumber at a time.

Tzedakah….and the Gift of Time with Your Mum

Speaking of time with your mum, we discussed ways you would donate to tzedakah from barmitzvah gifts you received. You chose to make a donation to C-care, a charity that uses donated left over food and prepares food packages for those in the Jewish community who need it. This was not the first time you have donated time or money to C-care. Last year, you and dad delivered meals around the community, and another time you and your mate Judah baked cookies. On a day in the summer holidays, you and I spent a few hours at the centre, peeling and chopping left over fruit to make into fruit smoothies. Similar to the time spent in the kitchen, it was the simple joy of doing an everyday act side by side, with no devices and no distractions, that filled me with a sense of proud satisfaction.

You also chose to donate some of your barmitzvah money to Pantry Packers in Israel, a similar organisation that prepares food to be delivered all over Israel. After spending a fun-filled day there with your cousins and family, you volunteered to give more than your time by donating from your own bank account. I am proud of you Jakey, you have always been generous with your time, your money and all your heart.

Your Generous Spirit

A few weeks before dad’s birthday, you were out with your friend Judah at Malvern Central. I still have access to your bank account (only until you are 18) and noticed you had spent about $25 at Woolworths, after you had bought lunch out. When I asked you what you bought, you told me it was lollies and I berated you for wasting your hard-earned money on excessive lollies. You kept telling me it doesn’t matter and to leave the matter alone.

On the day of dad’s birthday, completely unbeknownst to the rest of us, you gave dad a gift all wrapped up – a really nice hair gel. You told us that this is what you had bought that day at Woolworths and wanted to keep it a secret, so you pretended you had spent the money on lollies, despite your mum giving you shit for doing that.

Jake, you are without a doubt the one in our family that puts other’s needs before yours in countless ways. It’s not just with physical gifts, it’s the way your heart and mind automatically think of others and you go out of your way to consider what someone else wants, many times before your own wants. I see this in the way you share your Yo Chi vouchers with your friends and your zero hesitation in lending them money when their Spriggy cards aren’t working. When I asked you if your cousin could sleep in your room during the July holidays when they were visiting, your response was simply “wherever they feel comfortable sleeping”, and  the moment you saw pops when you got home from school you asked him if he wanted a drink as you got yourself an after school snack.

You have a generous nature in all tangible and intangible ways. It’s your overall temperament to be in tune to the needs and feeling of those around you, and this emotional intelligence far exceeds expectations at your age and will be a great asset to your success in life.

Heartfelt Cards

When it comes to writing birthday cards, you really wear your heart on your sleeve…or should I say inside the card. You write exactly what you feel for the lucky recipient and it’s always got a touch of Jake humour, which is the best part! I don’t get to read many of your cards anymore, as you ensure they are tightly sealed away from your mum’s prying eyes. But luckily you shared with me the card you wrote for Papa this year for his 84th birthday.

Skiing

I have started writing your birthday blog during the week that you have attended your one and only school ski camp. You begged us to go this year as Bialik only allows students in years 6,7 and 8 to attend and so this is the last year you could go. Dad was not keen due to the expense ($2,000 for the week), but you and I persuaded him and from the few one-word text message responses and 30 second phone calls I have managed to squeeze out of you, it sounds like you are having the time of your life. I mean who wouldn’t…..hanging out with your mates, skiing down a mountain and no school!

Skiing Nickname

One of the teachers at ski camp gave all the kids a nickname. Yours was “onomatopoeia” , which is a figure of speech where words imitate the sounds they represent. I don’t think you have ever received a more appropriate nickname, for you are well known for responding to questions and discussions with nonsense cant-be-arsed type of words like meh and ehh. That is if the recipient is even lucky enough to get more than a one word response from you. Case in point below when I was texting you during ski camp and getting info from you was harder than squeezing water out of a rock!

Fantasy Forfeit League

Your first ever AFL fantasy league competition with your mates…..and as you have confirmed a number of times during the season, it will be your last! You did not know the importance of researching your players before you picked your team and most weeks during the season, you have come last and as a result had to do a forfeit. There were some silly and embarrassing forfeits, like when you had to dress up in my dress and high heels and pretend you were a woman of the world. But by far the craziest forfeit you had to do, was covering yourself with Nutella (over every inch of your body), draping long socks over your ears and pretending to be the Easter Bunny! No wonder you don’t want to do the Fantasy League next year….you never want to have to be a chocolate Easter Bunny ever again!  You have told me that as you are guaranteed the loser spot for the season, your forfeit will be bleaching and shaving your hair. I have agreed to the shaving part, but certainly no bleaching!

Bestest Friends

Whilst your friends may make you pretend to be the Easter Bunny, they truly are a very very special bunch and you are damn lucky to have such a tight group of buddies. They are like minded fun boys who mean the world to you and I have a feeling this is going to be a tight knit group for years to come.

From Barmitzvah to Beyond

We celebrated your barmitzvah in December. It was the most perfect celebration of you…fun, relaxed, understated, meaningful and beautiful. I could write so much about your speech that came from the heart, the way you carried yourself with poise and your flawless reading from the Torah. And whilst everyone talks about a barmitzvah being the moment you become a man, I know you will always be the type of man who doesnt take life too seriously and will still happily get a piggy back and never be too proud to be carried by love.

Another year, Another Jake Injury

I think the past few birthday blogs have been free of injury stories. But just in case I was missing them they are back in the blog! Luckily none that would set off my PTSD from all your previous injuries or give you an abundance of hospital icy poles. In March, during your school camp, I received a call from Gary Brandt with the opening line of “Hi Teri, it’s Gary Brandt from Bialik. Jake is fine….but…..!” It was merely a cut by your eye brow, thanks to the dangerous sport of teenage boys goofing around. Gary was obliged to call me as it was an injury on your head, but when he explained that it was a teeny cut by your eye brow, I laughed it off as that is child’s play compared to some of your previous head injuries.

Still a boy, Just in Bigger Shoes

As you nudge your way to 14 years, you may look like a tall growing teenager on the outside, but beneath the bigger shoe size and elongated limbs, is a curious, mischievous and real boy at heart, with a fantastic sense of humour. Whether its getting dressed up as Bananas in Pyjamas for Purim,  “hanging” up your swim shorts to dry like a twisted burrito, or  buying your best mate funny undies in Israel, your boyhood and silliness fills me with more happiness than you will ever know.

Your First Visit to the Holy Land

In December 2024 we went on a family holiday to Israel, your first ever visit. We ticked all the usual boxes of floating in the Dead Sea, climbing up Masada, countless visits to the Kotel and sampling the best pastries at the markets. When you look back on these holiday photos in years to come, I hope you will remember the visit we made to the sites of the atrocities of the Oct 7 attack. You got to bear witness to something that will probably, and unfortunately, always affect your Jewish life forever; the hatred of you and all Jews in the world, simply because you are Jewish.When you recall the memories from the day I hope you remember mostly the positives, such as the Shuva junction refuge, where volunteers feed thousands of IDF soldiers fighting in Gaza, the sensitive and incredible memorial created where the Sederot police station once stood, and the honour your received in having a letter written  in your name in a Torah scroll ad the site of the Nova festival where so many young victims were murdered as they tried to run away.

The Sweetest of Sweet Tooth

In the past 13 years, I think you have eaten every type of lolly and sugary soft drink ever invented. From giant refillable soft drink cups you purchased at Luna Park , to over filling your plate with as many pancakes as possible at the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffets.  14 years later I still have no idea where all this sugar goes as it certainly is not turning you into an obese kid!

14 Years of Loving You

Watching you grow up is saying goodbyes all the time. For every passing year some of these character traits and personality features of who you are may not be there next time I write a birthday blog. And much of what and who you are at 13 years old will be long forgotten if it wasn’t for this memory documentation.

The goodbyes used to be harder for you, when you would hold my hand tightly and not want to let go as the kinder day started. And now it’s my turn for the harder goodbyes. Whether it’s leaving you at the door of a friends house or watching you from the car as you go through the glass doors to basketball practise. Each of these goodbyes tears at my heart little by little. For even though I am grateful that you are exactly who you are meant to be at 14 years of age, my heart hasn’t yet learned to say goodbye and let go.

This is my record of the goodbyes to 13 year old Jake. I hope you keep dreaming big as you venture off into being 14. And I am so grateful to be here to record and bear witness. Happy birthday Jakey, I love you lots.

A 14 Year Old Birthday Interview

  1. Who is your best friend? Angus, Riley and Judah
  2. What is your favourite subject at school? Sport
  3. What is your favourite colour? Green
  4. What is your favourite food? Depends how I feel – burgers, pizza or pasta
  5. What’s your worst food? Avocado
  6. Who is your favourite musician or band you like listening to? Kanye West
  7. If you could have a training session with any AFL player, who would you choose? Jaxon Binns (Carlton)
  8. Will you ever do a fantasy league with your friends again? Yeah, I am doing a soccer one. What kind of question is that?!
  9. What famous person would you like to meet and what would you ask them?  Warren Buffet. I would ask him “how do you know what shares to buy?”
  10. What makes you happy? My birthday
  11. What makes you sad? When I dont get to play play station
  12. If you could have three wishes in the world what would they be?
    1. To fly
    2. To have super speed
    3. To have Infinite money
  13. What is something you are really good at? Fifa
  14. What is the best part of your birthday? Breakfast crepes
  15. If you could change one thing in the world what would it be? Stop the Israel-Gaza war
  16. What are you grateful for in life? For you mum
  17. What is something you would like to change to make the world a better place?  To make it illegal to have wars
  18. What has been the most challenging part of year 8 at school?  English
  19. What is something you appreciate about your mum? dad? Evie?
    1. Mum – a very good cook
    2. Dad – he plays fifa with me
    3. Evie – she is thoughtful and asks me about my day
  1. What is something you appreciate about your grandparents? They would all do a favour for me without hesitating
  2. What is a favourite memory from our holiday to Israel? In Jerusalem, when we went to a chanukah concert and me and Binny were watching the soccer
  3. What was the best part of your barmitzvah this past year?  When me and my friends were just chilling in the garage
  4. What is a bad memory of the past year of being 13?  Losing my semi-final in the last summer season
  5. What was the best part ofBialik ski camp?  When Zac fell on a green run (easiest run), because it was really funny
  6. What are you most looking forward to when we go to Japan?  7-11
  7. If you could tell the future, what is something you would like to know? I would like to know future share prices in the market and sports bet wins , like horse races
  8. What is something you have done in your life that you are proud of?  I am proud of getting the coaches award in basketball for the summer season
  9. If you were an animal, what would it be? A dog. It seems so easy as you get pats all day, you can poo and pee wherever you want and you don’t have to go to school
  10. What is something about you that many people don’t know?  That I like to play “steal a brain rot” on Roblox
  11. If I gave you $100 now what would you buy? FC26 The Ultimate version, not the boring standard edition
  12. What is one goal that you would like to achieve when you are 14 years old? How will you do it? Getting a C+ in English this semester. I am going to study really hard, even before my teacher tells me to study, and take on the feedback I get from essays.
  13. Who will win the grand final this year? Adelaide
  14. If you could get any birthday present in the world, what would you want? Electric scooter
  15. What do you think has changed most about yourself from being 13 to turning 14?  How much I like skiing. I like it a LOT more now.
  16. What school subject do you think you will enjoy the most in year 9?  I think I will enjoy LEAP (legal studies and economics)