all grown up (or wanting to be)

There is such a huge difference between your oldest child and your youngest child in terms of "growing up".  The oldest can stay a bit sheltered and naive but the youngest pushes to do everything the older ones are doing and to the listen to the music and so forth.

Case in point, Brakston did not even realize girls existed until he was 15 1/2 years old.  Sure, he had lots of friends who were girls but he thought they were great to play soccer with or to take fishing.  I'm not sure he realized they were of the opposite sex.

Then there's Chandler.  He's now all of 11 years and 5 months and what did he say to me the other night?  Well, we were at Cold Stone getting him an ice cream.  We were waiting in line and he turned to me and said, "When I can date, I'm bringing a date here.  We'll wait til night so the temperature is perfect and we can eat outside."

Yikes!  My 11-year-old is already planning dates.  It is scary and pretty dang cute all at the same time.