Wow, we're getting old!

I cannot believe that tomorrow is Dominick's 11th birthday! 2 more years and we will have a teenager on our hands! It seemed not that long ago that we were changing those diapers, cleaning his messy hands, and teaching him how to tie his shoes. Now, we're playing chauffeur to drive him to and from gymnastics, baseball and robotics, teaching him how to clean toilets and to cook. Our biggest challenge, though, is trying to get him to make good decisions so that we can trust him since he'll be heading off to middle school this next year. He has mentioned being allowed to have a cell phone and I still think he's on crack but Ryan is thinking about it more and more. I know I didn't have a cell phone until I was in college and yes, times are changing but good golly, if he can't get anywhere on his own and he's for the most part around adults, why does he need to run up our already ridiculously expensive Verizon bill any further? I'm sure though that the first couple times I can't get ahold of him and his new "tweeny bopper" friends, I'll be wishing we had gotten him that darn phone. However, we had a long conversation about how he would never need that phone if we couldn't trust him to be off by himself with his friends. He's working on making good decisions this week so his birthday party doesn't get taken away from him and he knows we're serious because he had no birthday party a couple of years ago for the same reason. The consequence that would go along with no birthday party is no playing outside with friends without parental supervision and don't think for a minute that this mom and dad have any qualms about following our 11 year around and letting his friends know why we're there. He's terrified of that consequence so most of his decisions have been good so far this week. We've had a couple bad choices here and there but they're minimal so we're happy to see improvement. Realizing that teaching these things to our children is in our future instead of ABC's and 123's is making me feel that we are getting up there in years. I'm realizing that it's been 15 years since we graduated, 12 of which we've been married and 11 of which we've been parents. We're growing up and by golly so are our children! Thanks Dominick for making us feel "OLD on your special day. We love you and are proud of the person you are becoming.

Mom and Dad