My Brown-Eyed Girl

Look who got to bring home the class pet for the long weekend! :) I am happy (and quite relieved) to announce that Hermie the hermit crab survived several days and nights at our home. KLD did a great job taking care of him.

KLD, you are making me so happy and proud these days. I'm so glad for you that you are loving school so much, and you have so much peace with your friends and your sweet teacher. For you, above all, school was a much better choice than homeschooling. I know you sometimes tell me that you want to homeschool again, but your cheerful smile, lack of morning tummyaches, and enthusiastic stories about your days speak louder than your words.
Everyone laments the middle-child spot, but you know what? I think you've got this all figured out. You get to be a big kid for the good stuff, like staying up late, and a little kid when chores and other undesirables are being handed out. Those older two "blue-eyes" blaze the trails around here while Mom's still strict and uptight, then you follow along when Mom's a bit more relaxed for such things as--oh, I don't know--enforcing bedtime, the allowable age to read Harry Potter, or whether you can ride your bike to the pool. It's not such a bad deal, right?

I wish you could see how amazing you are. I know it's hard to do so when your benchmark is your two several-years-older siblings. But you're incredible, sweetie--good at everything you've ever tried (okay, keeping your room tidy, maybe not so much--but everything else) and so beautiful, clever, strong, and wise. Even though those two little brown-eyed brothers drive you nuts sometimes with all their mischief, JPD is your own special buddy, and MPD adores you and loves it so much when you play with him.
I am so proud of your hard work on your multiplication tables, your enthusiasm for soccer, your love of books, your progress with your piano lessons, your ambition for the school Christmas pageant auditions, your adventurous spirit, and your fierce individualism right in the middle of it all, to name a few things. You are often quiet (and sometimes very un-quiet!), and when I look into the depths of your dark chocolate-colored eyes, I wonder what you are thinking. No doubt, it's something wise.

All I want to know is, where have the past few years gone? How can you already be eight years old? Just yesterday, we were going to toddler story time at the library, or meeting your Dad for lunch in the middle of the workday, or you were widely renowned as "the cutest two-year-old I ever saw" by one of your babysitters, or smokin' the other preschoolers in swimming lessons or preschool snowski class (my favorite!). Just yesterday, we had to drive back two hours to retrieve your precious "nummy" from that hotel in Cleveland, because you would not sleep without it when we got to Philadelphia. Just yesterday, you were sleeping in the pack&play all summer in our apartment while we waited for our house to be renovated unexpectedly. Just yesterday, we had your 2-year-old Elmo birthday party on the floor of our new house because we had no furniture moved in yet. Just yesterday, you were in the Baby Bjorn at the Lincoln Park Zoo, sleeping the day away because you were only about 2 weeks old.

Just yesterday, I took this picture:And you're just as cute as always, year after year. I love you so much, KLD, my sweet "Tootch"!