Anthony Growing Up: the Tipping Point
NOTE: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.
Tipping Point 7 years, 5 months, 13 days old -- Sunainosato -- Otsu, Shiga, Japan -- Copyright 2010 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/1250 sec, f/2, ISO 200 — map & image datanearby photos
Tipping Point
7 years, 5 months, 13 days old

I was suddenly struck today by a profound realization that Anthony's “young man” factor has started to encroach on his cuteness as a kid. Until today, I would see his mental and social advances (such as taking the city bus to school all by himself a year ago) as a cute kid doing big-boy things, which makes the kid in him all the more cute.

Today we had an event where he dressed a bit nicer than normal, after which we went to a park for lunch, and I kept doing double takes at how good he looked. Yes he's my kid, and yes I think he looks good all the time, but even within that biased world he stood out today, and while looking at the many pictures after we got home, I realized it's because a true young man has just started to emerge.

Make no mistake, he's still cute and still himself thinks “cute” to be a desirable characteristic to aspire to, at this point on par with “cool”, but the reality that neither will last forever hit home.

Continued here...


All 8 comments so far, oldest first...

That is a great photo of A. He looks rakishly handsome.

(Where does he get it? Is his mom’s dad handsome?)

Probably both granddads… it’s one of those skips-a-generation things, I guess. —Jeffrey

— comment by Zak on April 5th, 2010 at 11:25pm JST (14 years ago) comment permalink

Great picture! Coincidentally, I just read this post moments after sewing a button onto Gregory’s first dress shirt, the one that goes with his first suit (not counting school uniform here). His elementary school entrance ceremony is tomorrow morning. Yes, he was able to rip a button loose just trying on the suit in the department store.

— comment by nils on April 6th, 2010 at 12:15am JST (14 years ago) comment permalink

Hello, I love your site and have been reading it for a while now. Just to let you know — your stylesheet does not seem to be loading for Firefox 3.6.3 — I tried it on both my laptop and my desktop machines. It works fine in IE8.

Not that I’m complaining since I can view it in IE8 — didn’t know if you knew since you’re a Mac / Safari browser user.

Anna M. in Michigan

FF is my main browser anywhere I go, but yes, I’m mostly on a Mac. I just tried on WIn7/FF3.6.3 and it seemed okay… perhaps there was a temporary hiccup when you tried? If it’s still broken, could you let me know more details? Thanks for taking the time to let me know. —Jeffrey

— comment by Anna M on April 6th, 2010 at 6:14am JST (14 years ago) comment permalink

His checked-blue-full-sleeves shirt, his hair-style, the pose, looks cool.
His rosy-little-cheeks, reminds me that he is *still* a cute little boy 😉

— comment by Britto on April 6th, 2010 at 9:54am JST (14 years ago) comment permalink

Fantastic photo. Fantastic kid.

I’m not sure how it happens, but I find that at the same time that I delight in the way my children are growing and what they achieve, I also grieve a bit for the loss of the stages they have left behind. I LOVE that Jena is in the adorable toddler stage – but where did my little infant go? And I couldn’t be happier with the fine little boy Josh has become, but I’ll forever miss the sweet little toddler he will never be again.

Like you do with Anthony, I just savor every moment of what they are now, because it’ll be gone so soon. And I also take *lots* of photos 🙂

— comment by Marcina, USA on April 6th, 2010 at 10:35pm JST (14 years ago) comment permalink

Argh, the 85mm f/1.4, so good…

Yeah it is…. but the photographer and the subject are not so bad, either… —Jeffrey

— comment by luc on April 7th, 2010 at 3:36am JST (14 years ago) comment permalink

That’s an awesome photo and he IS very good looking. 🙂

— comment by Michelle on April 7th, 2010 at 1:36pm JST (14 years ago) comment permalink

What a fine display of photo stories: The slow motion effects of the cherry blossoms
The shakuhachi concert
The image of the moment which will be a memory for a lifetime
Anthony growing up….what a great shot

— comment by Father Mac on April 8th, 2010 at 6:28pm JST (14 years ago) comment permalink
Leave a comment...


All comments are invisible to others until Jeffrey approves them.

Please mention what part of the world you're writing from, if you don't mind. It's always interesting to see where people are visiting from.

IMPORTANT:I'm mostly retired, so I don't check comments often anymore, sorry.


You can use basic HTML; be sure to close tags properly.

Subscribe without commenting