Today you are eight and a half, and besides being a great excuse to eat some Ted Drewe’s, it was also a great reason to let you dictate the day (or at least part of it). Thanks for choosing buttermilk pancakes with blackberry maple compote for breakfast. They were delicious, and a yummy way to start off a chilly morning. Thanks for standing up so bravely in front of a crowd and playing your violin so well. There was a time that you wouldn’t have dreamed of standing in front of a crowd doing anything. Now you do – although you still won’t let yourself smile while doing it. That’s okay – I know you give it your best, best effort and the getting up there is harder than the playing. Thanks for hanging out in your room all afternoon, reading ahead on your latest Harry Potter novel and letting me go into work for a few hours and letting your dad pick up around the house and work on the taxes. None of those things are very high on our lists of things we’d like to be doing on a Sunday afternoon, but they have to get done and I wanted to thank you for understanding that. Thanks for still wanting me to start reading aloud tonight where we left off last night on the book. You never mind the repeats, and you know I don’t like skipping ahead to other chapters even when you get ahead of me. You also let me lay down the book occasionally while I’m reading because good grief – the chapters in the HP books take at least forty-five minutes to read and after the first thirty my eyes get so, so, so heavy and I want to just shut my eyes for a brief moment and let the heavy book rest on my stomach and feel the weight of your chin on my shoulder and your arm intertwined with mine. Thanks for bravely climbing each and every day – up big walls of rocks, onto giant ropes and trapeze, through chapter after chapter of book after book, mounting little stages with big audiences, and making it halfway through the great age of eight.
Keep climbing, but since I’m your mom I’ll remind you (too many times) to take your time and be careful. Nine will be here before you I know it. Enjoy eight. I sure am.
I love you sweet girl.
Happy half birthday, E! We love you!
Nana and G’pa