One decade

It's freaking me out a little bit, but I have been the mother of a person who is AN ENTIRE DECADE OLD for two weeks now. That's right. William turned ten years old two weeks ago.

TEN.

MY BABY IS TEN.

Which means there's another big piece of news. This blog that you're reading--the story of our lives--is now ten years old, too. My very first post that launched this blog was dated May 6, 2006. I had no idea what I was doing, either. I emailed a couple of friends who had blogs, asked them a few questions, and then got online and just...well, started writing. (That's what you do when you're a professional writer. You don't dither around. You just start typing and figure that you can come back and pretty things up later.)

And here we are, a decade later.

I sometimes marvel at my ten-year-old son. He's about as tall as my chin. He's wearing a size 5 shoe. He continues reading his way through countless books, including J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Two Towers." He can play "Fur Elise" and "The Entertainer" on the piano--okay, and the "Star Wars" theme, too. He can ride a bike, swim the length of the pool, play soccer, write essays, do a load of laundry, and all sorts of other things. He'll start middle school in just a few more months.

Ten years ago, however, I was looking at my two-week-old baby and thinking, "Oh my God, I love him so much. But what have we done?" David and I were sleep-deprived, still a little in shock. I was post-partum and sometimes a little hysterical from it all. I adored my new baby boy, but I didn't really know what I was doing, and it seemed like I was often just improvising as I went along. It did get easier when William started sleeping through the night. I felt better, steadier, when I was finally able to get more sleep, too. Even if I didn't always know exactly what I was doing, I didn't feel as desperate from the lack of sleep.

Fortunately, it all turned out okay. Not that I haven't made mistakes along the way, but overall, so far, so good.

Here are a few photos from the birthday boy's birthday dinner!

Notice that William has a big old grin AND a few smears of barbecue sauce on his face. He asked for his own ribs from Jim 'n' Nick's for his birthday dinner. He's definitely his daddy's boy, that's for sure!