They go to 11!

Summer 2013: Ethan, off to camp!

Summer 2013: Jacob, waiting for the school bus!

Today my boys officially become Tweens! (Though, truth be told, Ethan has seemed like one for some time now.)

Eleven years ago today, right now, I was being wheeled out of surgical recovery and into my room, groggy but eager to hold my new sons tight and never let go.

I had fallen in love the minute I'd seen them, floored by the fierceness of the lioness awakened, that feeling that I would fight tooth and nail, would die to protect these tiny beings I had just officially met moments before.

Though of course I knew them already, intimately, for months as they swam inside me, tumbling about, tussling for space, occupying my every waking thought and visiting my dreams.

And now, of course, it's time to start letting go. And it has begun.

Ethan is off at summer camp this year. Two whole months.

The strangeness of mornings and evenings without him still shocks. I miss him sharply, and on this day most keenly.

We have visited once, and will again before he comes whirling home, tanner, taller, grown and matured in ways I cannot yet know.

Jacob is once more at his school's Summer Academy, which, joyfully, they make as much like camp as school. They tackle academics in the morning, and then the afternoons are for fun: swimming, art, cooking, playgrounds, plus a weekly all-day field trip.

Jacob keeps asking where Ethan is, even though he knows. And while he is now getting the lion's share of my attention, he would still rather have his brother along for the ride.

And now, today their birthday, it will feel so odd to celebrate with Jacob alone, Ethan phoning it in, as it were, the call from camp scheduled for 7 pm.

But I suppose it's just a shadow of years to come when Ethan has flown the coop while Jake is still here with us, moving ahead at his own pace, tethered by need as well as love.

On birthdays we look back as well as forward, and the years have just whipped by, haven't they?

I documented this last year, with pictures from every birthday leading up to their tenth, in my post: Counting up to TEN! as well as telling you about their Last Day of Nine.

And two years ago, I shared more details of the day of their birth, here: Nine Years and Counting.

And the year before that, I wrote my boys a love letter on their eighth birthday: A Good Day to be Born


So, Happy Birthday, my beautiful Boys!

It's been a wonderful eleven years with you and I can't wait to see what this next year has waiting for us around the bend!