Douze

Jayzus.
Twelve... Already. 

Each new birthday is an opportunity to stop and take stock, and try to pin down who you are, right now. 

Right now you are still a child. In a great school full of children. In a child-friendly and child-centered environment.
But you know yourself that this important stage of your life is coming to an end. 
This time next year, you'll be in secondary school. Stop protesting my son, for you shall be a Protestant. It's sort of strange the weird choices we have to make sometimes, for your own good. 

Changes are on the way. I could tell. Like that question yesterday afternoon, as we walked through the street of Dun Laoghaire, when you asked me at what age girls start growing boobs. 
It has to be said that the teenage boobs were hard to miss, so intent are their proud owners on maximizing their visual impact, with push-up bras and dangerously low-cut tops (combined with the dangerously high belly tops, it sometimes look like they are wearing horizontal G strings for northerly cover...) 

Or when you innocently declared that you are reading your new dictionary to try and learn new words. The fact that you happened to look up "masturbate" last week may not have been pure coincidence. I guess that your mates and you talk quite a lot in the yard. It is true, as you candidly remarked, that they make the description sound weird. 
I do not doubt that like hordes of teenagers just a year or two ahead of you, you will devote a lot of time and energy to the practice, which is a lot more straightforward and enjoyable than the clinically worded theory. 

You are changing, Bouboudge. 
We will be there to try and guide you through unknown territory.
For now, enjoy the status quo that you cherish so much, the routine that you meticulously follow everyday.

We will be there.