To My Daughter on her 7th birthday

Each year, I write a letter to my daughter on her birthday.  I plan to share these with her when she’s 18, so she can see herself through my eyes.  This is the letter I wrote this year when she turned 7.

Dear Em,

You are seven now.  It’s hard to reconcile the beautiful, talkative, sweetheart of a little girl you are with the baby I held in my arms seven years ago.  But with each passing year, I grow more in love with your little soul and personality.

Your birthday was spent enjoying an art class and celebrating with Nana, Aunt Sandy, Uncle Kyle, Daddy and I at home.  We at brats and fruit salad and enjoyed a strawberry cake with electric blue icing and Lego Friends décor, all per your request.  Your favorite present was the tubes for Star the Hamster’s cage.  I lost track of how many times you thanked me for them, on behalf of your hamster.  Leave it to you to love a gift designed for your animals the most.

Animals continue to be a big theme in your life.  You love helping herd the pheasant chicks in at night and have become a dutiful caretaker of Star.  Some of your favorite new shows are “The Zoo,” and “The Vet Life” and Jeremy Wades “Dark Waters.”  Last week, we watched a vet remove an obstruction from the intestine of a dog.  It made your Aunt Sandy gag a little and bury her nose in a book, but you were transfixed with the entire thing.

Right now, you tell us that you want to be a zoo keeper of a vet when you grow up.  Or maybe a dancer.  I am not sure where the dancing fits in, but I have no doubt your future will include animals in some way, shape or form.   You desperately want a cat, but settled for a hamster.  We made you save your money and use it to buy the cage and Star.  I hope she’s a little more special because you earned her yourself.  And I hope that she lives to see your 8^th birthday.  We’ve only had the fluff nugget a few weeks, but you are completely in love.

You soared through first grade with flying colors.  One of your favorite games to play in the car is “the adding game” where I give you two or three two-digit numbers to add together in your head.  That apparently got too easy for you, so you wanted to start learning multiplication facts.  You love to figure out how much change I’ll get back at the gas station or grocery store.  I love that you got Daddy’s love of numbers.  And I love that the idea of “girls aren’t good at math” has never entered your little brain.  We plan to keep it that way.

You love just about everything about school and might kick me and daddy to the curb if Mrs. Logsdon or Mr. Fullmer offered to be your mom or dad.  You aren’t the reader I am, but that’s okay.  I love seeing you snuggle into a chapter book or tackle new words.  You love the Junie B. Jones books right now.  Another favorite was “President Taft Got Stuck in the Bath.”  You will occasionally jump into the middle of a conversation with a random fact you learned at school or gleaned from one of the crazy PBS shows we all watch together.  You also brought home lots of non-fiction books this year.  We spent two or three weeks with a book on rocks and gems, so maybe you’ll ditch the animals and become a geologist one day.  You do love collecting pretty rocks.

I’m starting to see a competitive side grow in you.  You like to win and we are working on teaching you that true honor is about winning, and losing, with honesty and compassion.  We spent several days over Christmas vacation playing Monopoly.  You love to serve as the banker.  We also started playing Clue.  You haven’t quite mastered the technique of narrowing down suspects and the like but I’ll play it simply to hear you say “I propose it’s Mr. Green in the library with the lead pipe,” in your cute, proper little voice.

You loved being a part of the soccer championship this spring with all your friends.  You love soccer and being with your friends.  And you have some natural speed and athleticism.  What we worked on this spring was working hard at practice and playing hard in games.  I hope that Daddy and I can teach you that we really don’t care what the score is, we just want to see you give it everything you have and that you’re a good teammate.  My favorite part was watching you get excited for your teammates any time they would score a goal or how you’d run over to check on them if they fell down and were hurt.  And seeing the smile on your face when you scored your first goal this year about did my momma heart in completely.  You were so stinking proud of yourself, it was awesome.

Emily Catherine, you continue to amaze and humble me with your kindness of spirit and sweetness of soul.  You are one of the most self-less humans I know.  You are generous with compliments, hugs and words of encouragement.  You share willingly because I think it makes you happy to see other people as happy as you.  You used your own money to buy something at the book fair this spring, and instead of picking your own free gift, you let Kaycee pick something she had been looking at, because you are really just that kind.  I’m a hoarder and penny pincher, so your generosity gives me something to aspire to.

You are fun, warm and social.  Miss Brandy and Miss Renee in the office joke that if they want to know where someone is, they’ll just ask you.  You definitely keep tabs on everyone and like to know what’s going on in any given moment.  One of your favorite things to do in the winter is go to the basketball games at Southeast.  I don’t think you really like basketball at all, but you do like watching the big girls play and sitting with them during the boys games.  It seems like if I meet a high schooler, they know me as “Emily’s mom” first and foremost.

You have a beautiful, kind and loving nature.  It is the very best part about you and I hope that it survives the coming years in tact.  This world needs more of your sweetness and light, my love.  We’d all be a lot better off with your positive attitude and grace of spirit.

Happy seventh birthday, sweet daughter.  I am, and always will be, grateful, proud and blessed to be your mom.

Love,

Mama