Harry at 11, on the day he turns 12: HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRY!

Harrison and the blog I started to chronicle him are both turning 12.  T W E L V E.  

I just spent the last way too long combing through my photos to find pictures from this year to commemorate it, and 2 things happened: 1.  I am no longer even a little bit sad about my baby growing up because according to these pics, June 14, 2017-June 14 2018 treated us all very well, probably better than we deserve. What a fun year!  And also 2. FREAKING BLOGGER uploaded these pictures in COMPLETELY random order, so there is no narrative thread here AT ALL.

The second thing really made me mad until I realized that it was the perfect present from Blogger to Harry because out-of-order picture uploads plagued my early blogging days, especially before Blogger had an HTML editor and I used to have to type in the picture code.

Harry at 11 is a joy.  He is happy and sunny and funny.  He loves to play outside and hang with his friends.  He plays all of the sports, and like a labrador, he needs someone to throw a ball to him for a couple of hours so he doesn't chew up the furniture.  We generally left him alone about school this year, and he did great!  It was the first year he had a different teacher for each class, the first year he had to study for tests (I mean, there was an EXPECTATION that he study, but I am pretty sure he didn't), the first year he got real grades, the first year he officially had an AP math class, etc.  He finished the year strong, and we are so relieved (ha!) and proud.

Harry, the kid so great we had 3 more, in 50-ish randomly uploaded pictures:

Cheers to the big 1-2.  Our last year without a teenager in the house before we face like 14 straight years of life with teens.  I wonder if we will always look back on these first 12 as the simple years?  Gulp.

 Onward and upward, my friends.