Dear Ellie - Seven Years

My dear Ellie,

Child. You're seven. Who approved this? Who allowed this to happen? Remember when you were smaller than that stuffed alligator you're holding in your yearly photo? You were tiny and squishy and often grumpy, and we spent our days snuggled together trying to figure out the whole mother-daughter thing together. We walked and played and napped and cried and cuddled. And then you went and grew up on me. You're still as special as ever....you're just much bigger.

You are in first grade now and you are KILLING IT. You have two wonderful teachers and you are just thriving. Your reading has taken off and you are now reading at a third grade level. We've started reading chapter books together (Beezus and Ramona - you find Beezus, the sensible older sister to a wild, trouble-making little sibling, very relatable!) and you're really starting to take the initiative to actually read books on your own, instead of just looking at the pictures. You're doing great in math, as well, and math and science continue to be your favorite subjects. As of yesterday, you also have officially been admitted into the gifted program at your school, and I'm really hopeful that it will challenge you and help you grow even more!

I loved sitting in the meeting about your gifted program admission yesterday and hearing the glowing things your teacher had to say about you. I mean, I know all these great things are true, but it really makes me puff up with pride when other people notice them, too. You excel not only academically in school, but also as a leader and a friend. In fact, you were chosen as the very first recipient of your class's "Leader in Action" award in the first two weeks of the school year, and you were recognized at a school-wide assembly. You are well-liked by your peers because you are kind, thoughtful and sweet. You care very much about others and are very affectionate (you ran up and gave the crossing guard a huge hug today, just because). You have a way of making people feel very special.

As you're getting older, your extracurricular activities have continued to increase in number. You're still doing ballet (very beautifully and gracefully, I may add), plus worship dance and choir at church. You're in the Children's Choir now (a bump up from the Littlest Angels), which means you're putting on a musical at the end of this school year (in which you have both a singing feature and a speaking part), and you flawlessly read a Bible verse in front of a jam-packed church on Christmas Eve. You are also still going to running club at school, and this year you've added tee-ball to your resume. You saw E.J. play in the fall, and you decided you wanted to give it a try in the spring. You're on a team with E.J., and Daddy is your coach (Go Indians!). I have loved watching how hard you are working at it! You look great out in the field, and you're always up for practicing at home in your free time.

Speaking of motivation and hard work, when you started this school year you set a goal for yourself to learn how to do the monkey bars on your school playground. I watched with great pride as you kept working at it and working at it (with the blisters to prove it!) until you finally did it! You were so proud, and we were so impressed. Yesterday you also did the other, bigger set of monkey bars for the first time, too. You're really something, kiddo - when you get it in your mind that you're going to do something. YOU DO IT.

This year you also discovered your love for rollercoasters! It was almost exactly a year ago that you went on the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at Disney World for the first time, after much effort to summon your courage. You said you enjoyed it, though your face in the pictures from the ride indicated otherwise. Yet, you asked to go on it again next time, and you were hooked. Recently, we have added a lot more Disney thrill rides to your resume! For some time it was a bit of a process to get you on a new ride: you would be nervous, but we would make you go anyway, which meant dragging you through the line as you dug your heels in and wailed about how unhappy and nervous you were, drawing stares from everyone else in line as we reassured them we really aren't awful parents, you love it. We would get on the ride with you still crying and squeezing your eyes shut. Then by the time the ride was over, you would be gushing about how much you loved it and begging to go on again. And we did this every. time. we tried a new rollercoaster for the better part of a year. But, on our most recent trip, you tried three new rides and DIDN'T CRY ONCE. We crossed a threshold, here! It's a whole new world! You were so brave and confident and AMAZING. And man, do you love those thrill rides. You get such an adrenaline high! And now you finally got your brain on board with the idea, too. Good for you, kiddo.

You and E.J. are still getting along well! I mean, you do bicker a decent bit, but all siblings do, don't they? You love to play together, and after spending almost every night in the early summer having "sleepovers" in each other's rooms, we shifted around our bedrooms to give you and E.J. a room to share, with bunk beds and everything! And speaking of sleepovers, you had your first real one this year! You and E.J. slept at Sophie's house just last month, and are already planning for the next one.

In other big firsts, you had your first Valentine this year. The day he asked you to be his Valentine, you came bounding out of school with such joy on your face, just talking a mile a minute about how happy this made you. You got your first taste of "love" and I got my first taste of terror that someone could possibly break your heart. I spent the next couple of weeks leading up to Valentine's Day just praying that something didn't go awry with the whole arrangement because you would have been devastated. Phew, boy. I'm not ready to do this for real yet, kiddo. My heart can't take it. Has anyone told you yet that boys have cooties? They totally do. Stay clear!

In some sad news, this year we said goodbye to Achilles. He passed away in November and you and I probably took it the hardest. It happened unexpectedly and I wasn't prepared for how to handle it with you, but we had a nice memorial service for him and I think you're doing okay. You mention missing him sometimes and still pray for him every night, but for the most part, you're okay. I love to see pictures of him with baby you and remember those times; those memories are very dear to me.

As for other notable things about seven-year-old Ellie, you still love music and dancing, and often turn on music yourself with our Amazon Echo so you can dance around the family room. Your favorite TV shows this year have been Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, The Who Was Show, Bill Nye the Science Guy and Ms. Julie's Greenroom. You still say Moana is your favorite movie, but you've been on a huge Mary Poppins kick lately! You love to play outside, and are showing some interest in learning to bike, roller-skate and swim, so maybe this will be a big outdoorsy year for you! You love to do crafty and artistic things, and you love stationery - you will write and mail cards to family without prompting (and it just makes their day to get mail from you!). You still love bunnies and space (you still want to be an astronaut!), the color pink, ziti and meatballs and dates with Daddy. You like to read books in bed with a flashlight before going to sleep. You have lost six teeth so far, with one or two more loose right now. You close your eyes when Alexa turns off the light in your bedroom because it scares you a little. You love to point out the constellation Orion. When we kiss you goodnight you take the kiss off your face and put it on your pillow for safe-keeping (the actual pillow, not the pillowcase, so it won't get washed off). You love to explain things, to figure out how things work, and to operate with a predictable routine. You have precious freckles on your nose, which you crinkle up when you give a big smile (just like you did as a baby!). I'd say all around, you're a pretty awesome kid.

As we kick off this new year of your life, I feel like you're really starting to dip your toes into the water of official Big Kid status, which is both really cool to watch and a little bit heartbreaking. For instance, in last year's letter, I wrote about how I love walking to and from school with you, because you always reach for my hand and tell me all about your day. I still love our walks together, but the hand-holding is becoming less frequent and you often head into school in the mornings without pausing for a hug or kiss for me. Sometimes you don't even remember to wave before you go in the door. I wonder if by next year's letter, you'll be holding my hand on the walk at all? I hate to think of it. Regardless, my hand will always be here if you want it, love.

Some of the less-pretty parts of growing up are starting to peek into your world, too. For example, a month or so ago we were getting to go somewhere and for the first time ever, you opted to change out of the cool (on-theme) costume you had planned to wear because you were scared people would stare at you. I can so vividly picture you standing there in your costume, tears in your eyes, verbalizing that fear to me and as I watched you sadly take it off, my heart broke into a million pieces. I have so loved all these years where you just wore what you wanted and did what made you happy and it never even occurred to you that other people might have opinions about it. I understand how you feel, and I knew it would come, and it still is only a glimmer of something - you still very much love costumes at Disney, or themed dress-up days at school, or what have you - but I know where we're headed and my heart aches that you will feel insecure sometimes, or self-conscious, or like you have to censor yourself. Ellie, you are the only you in the whole world and you are so special. I know it will be increasingly harder to proudly embrace that uniqueness, but I hope you will always remember that God made you perfectly you. I only wish I could make it easier for you to go through all that normal growing-up stuff. I just want to put you in a bubble and protect you from any possible heartache.

You know, Bug, I feel like you and I are partners, in a way - teammates. Seven years ago, you were thrust into a world that was entirely new to you, and so was I. I had never been somebody's mother before, and I only hoped you would afford me the grace I needed as I figured it out. We started out on a journey together, you and me, walking side by side and trying to find our way.

Seven years later, I'm still figuring it out. I'm not sure that will ever stop, really. Between you and E.J., I know that I make countless mistakes every day. Each night I go to bed praying that both you and God will forgive me for my shortcomings and that He will mold me into the mother you need. I think of all the ways I can be better and vow to do exactly that the next day. Yet, each morning I wake up as human and flawed as ever and the cycle repeats. I know what a blessing it is that at this point, my mistakes aren't even a blip on your radar and every day you offer me nothing but unfaltering adoration. I know those days are numbered, and as you get older my flaws will be more and more obvious to you. When that happens I only hope that my efforts will be as visible as my mistakes, that you will not only see my flaws but also how much I love you and how badly I want to be perfect for you. I'm trying, baby. I'm really trying.

Ellie, I love you. You are so precious to me and I am so honored and humbled that God chose me for you. What a blessing it is to be your mother! It's unlike anything I ever could have imagined.

I love you all the much, sweet girl. Happy birthday.

All my love,
Mama

Dear Ellie,

Happy birthday!!! For some reason, this one feels like another of those with the weird parenting time contradiction where your sixth birthday seems like forever ago, when you were so much younger, yet it hardly seems possible that the year passed by so quickly and you are actually seven! I don't even want to think about how old you'll be when you actually read this letter. Actually, seven-year old you just asked me what I was doing while I am typing this and it occurs to me that you have grown so much this year that you could probably read this letter right now. Honestly, first grade has really agreed with you. You've only missed a handful of points total on a 3 quarters of assignments and tests and you actually asked your math teacher for harder problems. Your reading teacher recommended you be screened for gifted and you passed! You will soon begin attending one day per week classes that will continue through at least 5th grade. But doing well in school is not new for you. What is new this year is climbing monkey bars and working through a fear of scary rides - roller coasters are now your favorite! (If Mama's letter doesn't tell this story in more detail, I'll add a footnote later because it's a good one!)

On your beginning of school "About me" poster, you wrote that your two goals were to "get on" all the monkey bars and to be an astronaut. It took some time, but you are doing great with the first goal, though the second one is going take a bit longer. That said, as of this writing, you still want to be an astronaut! You're also interested in being a doctor and sometimes a Mama, but science/math and space are still your primary loves. You read and ask questions about space all the time and you were even Dr. Mae Jemison for your school Halloween book character parade. You've taken an interest in constellations and have gotten very good at spotting Orion and Mars when they are in the sky. This passion helped me justify the cost of a three-foot tall Lego Saturn V rocket set because we built the entire thing together. Recently, we say an Apollo 11 documentary in the theater and you came home and wrote a letter to Buzz Aldrin. During your space unit in school, you actually caught your teacher oversimplifying things. She told the class that there was no gravity in space, and we ended up talking about orbits and underwater. Amazing.

Speaking of amazing, I have to mention how great of a bond we have right now. Goodness, we are buds. I know enough about the world to know that you have to grow up someday and this it means we won't get to spend as much time together, that I won't necessarily be the first person you share good or bad news with, and I definitely won't still be your top choice for a date. Heck, you already had a Valentine who wasn't me. But for now, we are still super close, and I have loved every second of our dates, whether we are running, golfing, going to the movies, or having dinner and dancing (even the one time the power went out in the restaurant). We also play catch now (!) and spend most days playing in the front yard or at playground with EJ, and every night reading and cuddling. Ellie, I can't explain how much I love you, but it's also pretty cool to know that you love me, too. The enthusiasm in your voice when I come downstairs every day is so genuine and so, so precious.

I know I've said it before, but writing these letters can be tricky because I don't exactly know who you'll be when you read (or re-read) them or what you might want or need to hear from me. A lot of things can be true at the same time, and certainly more than will fit into a letter, but as much as I hope they all fit together to tell a meaningful story when you read (or, lets be honest, skim) them all, there isn't any intentional coordination from letter to letter. I don't re-read old ones before writing the new one (so as not to bias my thinking) and I don't even really spread out the writing across multiple days. I also don't do nearly as good of a job keeping track of the whole year as I always hope to because there's just too much good stuff and I never know when you'll grow out of something until it's too late. Even with all those pseudo-short cuts, writing still takes time because, as you will find, life has a way of filling itself with stuff. Every year feels like it is especially busy, and it always actually is, so it would be really easy not to write anything at all. But parenting is the coolest thing in the world and you matter as much as something possibly can, so I'm glad your Mama and I have been able to find time to do this for you. Along those lines, I hope you will be intentional about setting priorities and keeping them clear so you will find a way to make time for the things that matter to you.

Anyway, whatever message(s) you happen to take from these letters, I need you to know that I couldn't possibly love you any more than I do and there isn't a single thing I would change about you. Every single trait, interest and experience of yours combines in just such a way to make you exactly who you are, and that is someone who is perfect and for whom God has a plan. I really hope you understand that, but I also know that, sometimes, it takes a bit more faith than other times, and that it never hurts to be reminded.

Before I go, I am happy to note some of the things I haven't mentioned yet that you dislike: having your foot fall asleep, being cold, the dark and not knowing how to do something really well the first time you do it; and some other things you like: ice cream, pasta, bunnies, ketchup, grilled cheese, explaining things, writing and drawing. See? You're perfect!

All my love,
Daddy