Tori the Teen!

It’s a brave new world at our house. We have a teenager!  Things have not changed overnight. She still swims and reads. But the swim meets are further and further afield (next month she has a swim meet in London at the Olympic pool complex!) and the books are thicker and thicker. So far, we are still turning off the lights on Tori as she sneaks in extra reading time and not extra computer time. Suffice to say, she is going easy on us and we need it!

We celebrated Tori’s  13th birthday with multiple parties and multiple cakes and a visit from a traveling godmother. On her actual birthday, we had morning swim practice. Tori was pretty good about swimming early and hard on her birthday. We tried to make it fun with a breakfast buffet (and some old pictures of Tori swimming through the years). Next, she carried cupcakes into her homeroom for an early sugar fix. Tori was serenaded with the happy birthday song all day, and then taken out to dinner at her favorite Mexican restaurant in Munich. Tori confided that she did in fact feel thirteen years old all day.

Over the weekend, we had a big silly-themed party at our place. We tie dyed shirts, we had a silly string fight, we dressed up in costumes for a photo booth and we decorated cupcakes. All of it made possible by the aforementioned godmother! It was a big party with 13 girls but it gave us a chance to meet some of Tori’s friends who we don’t see much of. Gone are the days when we met all the kids’ friends at local playgrounds or orchestrated play dates or even in the classroom when I was a room parent.

While the teenager continues with her seventh grade life, the rest of us are a bit emotional. I’ve been crying on and off all week as I flip through Tori’s baby scrapbook. We always put up old photos as part of birthday decorations. The twins and I pour over these photos, asking how old Tori was then or where Tori was in that one. Back when the twins were in first grade, I remember going to one of their publishing parties at school. I discovered both had written “books” about Tori’s birthday. This year, flipping through their study books, I saw that both had marked Tori’s birthday down where they normally write homework assignments. As Tori grows up and expands her routine, it’s good to know that her fan base remains steadfast and loyal.