My Baby is an Adult

Dan turned 18 last week!  My "baby" is an adult and that is a little hard to wrap my head around.  Dan is great but things have changed since he was little!  He used to love to have his picture taken.  It was almost impossible to take one without him being in a dramatic pose!  Now I'm lucky if I get one that isn't of his back or with his hands covering his face.  This one is from this year, but not from his birthday.

Sadly, This is the most recent picture I have of Dan.

I had to put at least one picture of my little Dan!

There are things that are the same about Dan and yet still different.  Dan has always been incredibly creative!  Years ago he liked to occasionally be Police Officer Dan.  We got him a police outfit and he had a voice he used when in character saying "police officer Dan here!"  He was always creating stories where he was some character or another and we could hear him making explosion noises in the other room as he moved around acting them out.  He was "twirly", hardly ever sitting or standing still even while we talked to him.

He is still creative but he is creative on the computer, or ipad, or drawing tablet.  He still creates characters and stories but he does it online with his friends.  He has done some animating that is clever and entertaining.  He has learned a lot about drawing, animating, and games and is quite good at talking about things that go over my head because I don't know all of the vocabulary that goes along with his interests.  

One of the things that hasn't changed about Dan is that he is a good, kind person who is really good at loving his Mom.  We have done a lot together over the years and I am thankful for his encouraging words and hugs.  I enjoy our trips to the library, and our snack runs, and finding places to walk around for a change of scenery.  Happy birthday to my baby turned adult.  I love him!