Evan is Nine!

Officially a tween. Actually I think he was a tween at eight, but we are seeing more of the behavioral evidence of it now, at nine. I read an article just yesterday about what it means to parent a tween - no longer operating on "cruise control." It was from a blogger I've been following off and on since Evan was a baby. Sure, there's a huge element of freedom - he can do a lot all on his own now, but the questions, the curiosity, and the brain of a nine year old is very different from how a kid just a year or two younger operates.





Evan questions everything with a bigger degree of skepticism, at the same time he hasn't yet figured out that not everything on the internet is true (and don't even get me started on how to police that as a parent while trying to create some critical thinking skills so he knows how to discern these things).



I could see the real conflict in him this year at Christmas, when he told me Santa wasn't real, but I could also sense the desperation to not let go of the magic just yet.



There's no stopping it though, or slowing it down, though we are trying desperately to appreciate what we have right now, before the teen years. Like the way Evan and Connor play together at night, after dinner, before bedtime. Running around in costumes, with imagination levels at their peak.



I know soon enough Evan will be "too old" for kid stuff. I hope the fun and funny part of him never goes away though.