Top 10 Posts of 2016: #10 11 Is the Old Age of Childhood

by ParentCo. December 26, 2016

number ten in dark cyan and light blue color

11 year old boy

11 Is the Old Age of Childhood

by Laura Hudgens

Oh, the wonder of four!

Can there be a more adorable, a more precious age? At the same time they're becoming “big boys” and “big girls," these little ones still say and do the most delightful things.

They wear cowboy hats and fairy wings to birthday parties and play in the backyard wearing just their underwear and a superhero cape. They find bugs and oceans and refrigerator magnets utterly fascinating. And they delight in their parents attention.

It's a magical, enchanting, and bittersweet age. When my babies were four, I remember being acutely aware that this was the old age of littleness. This was the beginning of the end of these precious days – the beginning of the end of such heartbreaking sweetness. Sure five and six and seven are still little and cute, but at four, I began to realize that our days of footie pajamas, sticky kisses, tiny toes, and playing dress-up were numbered.

It's been seven years since I had a four-year-old. My last child is 11. And for me, 11 is the new four...

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