The eleven year old.

Sierra turned 11, which means, of course, that we have now been parents for more that 11 years. All those annoying people who tell you how "it goes by so fast" (which has pretty much been neck and neck with "wow, you have your hands full" over the years) are right. I have found myself sneaking in her room at night quite a bit lately, just to marvel at how her limbs fill the whole bed. The way she sleeps, with blankets strewn everywhere but on top of her, has always been the same. When she was in a crib, she would completely rotate every night, so her head was where her feet were supposed to be. It's funny, my memories of her as a baby are the strongest. The moment she was pulled from my abdomen and whisked away to the NICU. Limping out of the hospital three weeks later with our four pound baby, Brian on crutches, me stooped over with a slowly healing c-section scar. Bringing her home to our so not sterile home after weeks of her being attached to tubes and wires and beeping monitors. How the house smelled soft, like clean wood, after the soap and alcohol smells of the hospital. How an apple was bigger than her head. Pumping for months until she was strong enough to nurse. Pacing the little narrow hallway in our Robinson house for hours in the middle of the night. The daily long walks we took through the French Place neighborhood with the airedale puppies. Sophie and Carla next door the only other baby and mama I knew in the universe. She was so intense from the very beginning. Talking in sentences and singing the alphabet before she could walk, or even crawl. So attached to me, and I was even more attached to her. I could truly never imagine the day when she would be out of my sight for more than a moment. And now she is 11. As I (lovingly) refer to her, "my surly tween". She has an entire life outside of my gaze, school and friends and books and a world all of her own. She will start sixth grade in the fall, and we've applied to the magnet schools. Sierra is an awesome defender in soccer and is in gymnastics. She plays the piano, ukelele, and African drums. Sierra is brilliant, beautiful, funny, sarcastic, messy, loud, and strong. She still is an obsessive reader, loves making things, puzzles, riding her bike, swimming, surfing and paddleboarding, babies, all types of art and sketching. She and Brian also became scuba certified right after she turned 11. She is becoming more and more social, her closest friends are Mia, Lily, Aydan, Ally, Juliet, Caroline, and Skylar. I can't wait to see what the next 11 years bring, just please don't tell me how fast it goes - I already know.