Somehow these birthdays just keep coming!  I haven’t even posted about Sam’s 10th birthday party yet, and here we are celebrating number 11.  It was hard enough last year when he hit double digits, but 11 sounds so old.  I remember the day he was born so vividly that it surely can’t be over a decade ago!

On the morning of his 11th birthday I dug out an old family scrapbook that included his birth story, and he enjoyed reading all the gory details.

I’m not sure what’s more baffling to me:  how big his foot has grown in 11 years, or that I actually used to make family scrapbooks!  (I figure I can catch up when the kids go to college, right?)

Now that he’s 11, he asked to bake his own birthday cupcakes.  Let the independence begin!

Clearly supervision is still required:

All he wanted for his birthday was a family golf outing and dinner at Romano’s, a local Italian restaurant we all love.  He was certainly surprised when he opened his own set of golf clubs at the course!

But wait!  There’s more!  Tess got him a box of balls and tees, and Maggie got him a perfect golf shirt:

It took a few hours for all four of us to play nine holes at Russian Jack (golfers we are not), but it was a nice evening and no one was in a hurry.

Watching him turn 11 feels monumental.  Something has shifted.  I think he’s officially a tweenager now?  It’s time to buckle up and bring our A Game to this parenting scene.  Are we ready for the ride?

We can fill his head and heart with our family’s values, but before long he’ll be the one in the driver’s seat.  I hope he always senses our presence, like faithful guides riding next to him in the passenger seat.  I hope he knows he can steer his own course, but that we’ll always be here to welcome him when the road turns back home.

So here we go.  Let the journey begin!