My kid? The one with cute the toes up there?

He’s growing up.

Of course, you say.

But with all of the outgrowing of clothes, his developing sense of humor and the rapid-fire knowledge he keeps spewing at me like a geyser, I saw the biggest change this weekend when we spent time in Grand Haven with my cousin and his family. A family made up of adults. Not a single kid in the bunch.

Dev actually hung out happily with everyone. He listened in to the conversations, made a few comments of his own (when encouraged), only asked to play the iPhone 38 times and was very reasonable when he only got an affirmative on that once. He didn’t persist when I told him we weren’t buying stomp rocket refills at the toy store. He didn’t pout when he only had a small window of time to play in the water. And he happily ambled along the pier with me as we chatted about all sorts of stuff. Even during the car rides to and from the lakeshore he never once let loose with, “I’m bored!”

And the next day he asked me, “Mom, did you have fun yesterday?” I said yes and he replied, “Me too!” (Of course you can’t really tell that from his expression in the group photo below, so you’ll have to take my word for it.)