Boys getting bigger, but they're still my babies

Published March 10, 2011 in the Commercial Appeal

"Measure me!" my 8-year-old commands every evening when we pull in front of the house.

"You forgot to measure me!" he laments each morning when we pile into the car for school and work.

Six weeks shy of his 9th birthday, he has decided that he is too big for a booster seat. I've explained that the child restraint laws in Tennessee require that he be over 4-foot-9 to ride without his booster. When I finally remembered to measure him, he came in at 4-foot-6.

"Measure me!" he continues to beg each day, sure that he has grown in his sleep.

We are standing on the precipice of him not being "my baby," or being what they now call a pre-tween. Whatever it's technically called, it is way different from him being my baby...(Read more).