Eleven?

I was very glad that I was too lazy this weekend to wipe off and rip down birthday decorations. Sully celebrated his eleventh over the break and we had his best bud over for a sleepover. 

I smiled at the window marker and streamers in our windows on this very dark morning.

His little brother and sister had cut and sewed them all.

Then we taped them up just right.

They still hang in the dinning room. I am not sure I am ready to take them down. 

Then, I will really be admitting he is another year older. This one little year, minute by minute, pushed my first born closer to a teenager than a child. I am frightened by that. But also excited by the glimpses I get of who this young man is.

  

He got some big time fishing gear that will take him well into his teens. He is a real life, serious fisherman now. No denying it. He needed the real thing. The right tools. 

Here he is at ten. Just one year ago. He was teaching himself how to tie flies and use a fly rod. He became seriously interested in music. He believed in the tooth fairy.

And now, eleven. He sells his flies. He officially out-fished his dad this season. He has dedicated himself to the saxophone. He pulled me aside one night a while back when his younger siblings were asleep and asked me the truth about the tooth fairy. We have talked honestly about many other big, scary, embarrassing, important things since. 

I know that one day eleven will seem so little. Tiny. Young. 

Right now it is so very big.