I’m there.

I have always loved this picture. We were at my grandmother, Betsy’s apartment. The sofa was shiny and slippery. She always had M&M’s in a candy dish on the coffee table.

It wasn’t a kid-friendly place really. She had a teacup collection, an ashtray collection from around the world, and other very breakable things. She also had an 8-track player and lots of big band music. I always liked it there. I still can conjure up that distinct smell in my head…

But I digress.

What I was thinking when I saw this photo today was that all my kids are older than my brother, sister and I were in this photo. (If you were guessing that I was thinking about the remarkable resemblance between my mother and Marge Simpson, you’d be wrong.) And I was thinking that Andrew and I are quite a bit older than my parents were here! I thought we were pretty big and pretty grown up that day. I remember it well. But we weren’t.

As my second kid starts middle school, I feel different. I am no longer of mom of young boys. I have medium-sized boys. Teens.

When you have little kids, you see families with kids the size of mine and think you’ll never be there.

I did.

But I’m here.

I’m not saying I don’t like it. I do. It’s just different. They have very distinct thoughts. They know things they didn’t learn from home. Or school. They challenge thoughts and ideas. They are trying out who to be.

It’s exciting and scary.

And quite an adjustment.