I don’t usually post pictures of my family. I’m fairly easy to find, should you choose to find me, but I choose to be open about my life and share it on my blog. I feel protective of the kids, and feel like I’m crossing a line when I post  a picture of them. So I usually don’t.

But it’s Gillian’s 10th birthday today.  This is a picture from our trip to Florida earlier in the month.

Last night was interesting. Gillian wanted to be cradled like a baby in her Daddys’ arms with her eyes closed. She wanted to be carried everywhere. This was actually a drawn-out state for her in her life, because she was 35 pounds at 7 years old, very sickly, and we carried her everywhere (she was diagnosed with Celiac Disease, and she’s still tiny, but at least *on* the growth chart instead of being in the negative 5th percentile). It occurred to me that on some level she was intellectualizing the fact that she was turning 10, and there’s a right of passage involved in that. She’s moving to double digits. I think she was acting out her babyhood, as a way to remember it and leave it behind as a memory. I think that’s really neat.

Today she is a tween, and she was testing that role out, with an occasional “Oh-my-GAWD” here and there. The real kicker is that her grandmothers and great aunt joined us for dinner. When I asked Gillian where she wanted to go, I was expecting a steak house or Italian restaurant that served gluten-free food (she’s been gluten free since her diagnosis, which is why she’s healthy now). Gillian scrunched up her little face in thought, and then said “I want sushi” (she tried it for the first time this summer, took a few months to think about the experience, and has spent the last week begging for it. So sushi it was. So strange to watch my baby grow up.