Dodecagon!

We were anxious about eleven. It was the start of middle school in the middle of a Pandemic and a continuation of remote learning, only now most of Nora's friends were at different schools. There were bad thoughts and trouble sleeping and a lot of worrying.

But eleven ended up being amazing. Having received a new phone for their birthday, Nora and their friends from fifth grade organized numerous group chats, teams meetings and socially distant meet-ups.  Nora joined the drama club (and was cast as Little Red Riding Hood and Puss-N-Boots in Virtually Ever After), was promoted to seventh grade math, received a general award for "Excellence," and occasionally got to attend school in person. They published their first book. They met their friends at Eastern Market for lunch and picked up dinner at Whole Foods. They made butter. 

Nora gathered in tents to perform Dvorak, tricked us all into cat-sitting (but not cat-adopting!), rode their first roller-coaster, went a whole week without devices at sleep-away camp, and bested the entire family in pursuit of the Pelican Cup.

But mostly, Nora figured out who they are this year, and in the spring shared with the family that they're non-binary (they'd told their friends, who were incredibly supportive, earlier). It's been a bit of a learning curve for us as we navigate proper pronouns and try to come up with catchy alternatives to gendered nouns (our most radical suggestion is "nile" for "niece"), but Nora has has been an incredible resource and guide along the way.

So yeah, eleven was pretty amazing. We watched our baby become an incredibly mature and self-aware person – while still not being eligible to be vaccinated (an oversight which should be at least partially corrected today...).  Happy birthday, little one, we love you so much and are so proud of who you are and who you are becoming. Here's hoping twelve is even better.

1. You never want to be the person throwing cold water on something, unless it's your father.
2. It's not easy, being a tween...
3. "What the heck?"
4. Why be negative when you can be Positive Pineapple Paul?
5. Fake your way through, strum along, and everything's ok.
6. Sometimes a hike isn't a hike so much as a death march.
7. It's not nice to fool Mother Nature.
8. Mrs. White is not amused.
9. Well isn't that just ducky.
10. And in the immortal words of Michael Cunningham, I was not ladylike, nor was I manly. I was something else altogether. There are so many different ways to be beautiful.