My son turned 18 on Saturday. Our firstborn, our baby boy. This kid. Not a kid anymore. He’s dressed up in this photo because Saturday was also the night of his senior prom. I got a teensy bit emotional as we watched him drive off to meet his friends. The end of an era, as they say. I wanted to do something really special for his birthday. Traditionally I’ll make a cheesecake because he LOVES cheesecake. But, I had a recipe for copycat Crumbl chocolate chip cookies that I had been wanting to try, so I threw that in as an extra. I spent all day Friday baking, which wore me out of course, but it was worth it. The cookies were an instant hit. The cheesecake had to wait to be enjoyed, so we didn’t dig into that until Sunday, after his official birthday dinner (a family tradition). At the time of this writing, it has been less than 24 hours since we cut into that cake, and it’s almost gone! And here I was worried we wouldn’t eat it all before it went bad.

This age, 18, is a strange one. He vacillates between moments of maturity and goofing off. One minute he’s reviewing his work schedule, and almost in the next breath he’s making jokes about cheesecake for breakfast. I both love and hate that he hasn’t grown up too much yet. I think he feels ready to leave the nest, and I’m sure he’ll do great when he does, but I’m thankful that I still have a little more time yet. Four more days of high school, a quick summer, and then he’ll be off to college.

Happy birthday, Luke. Mom and Dad are so proud of you.