A letter to my {first} daughter: Seven!

Gianna!

This is a slightly delayed (and by slightly, I mean by 3 months) letter to you for your birthday. I wrote you one in our letter journal (albeight it last month) and somehow never got around to putting anything here. Life, as has been the case for the longest time and will probably for the next many years, passes by without me being able to take a few moments to put all the things swirling around in my head down in writing.

Enough about that – let’s talk about you!

The past year, the age of six (now the beginning of seven), was one that was FULL of changes in your life.

We moved twice, you went to a new school, changed dance studios, lost a lot of teeth, made a lot of new friends and your confidence is growing by leaps and bounds. Little babies grow rapidly as they develop, but big kids it seems, grow just as rapidly but differently. For example, I realized sometime in the spring that i hadn’t tied your shoe in weeks – because you learned how to do it yourself! Sometimes Idon’t even realize how much you’ve grown and learned until I’m doing something for one of your sisters and it hits me that I don’t need to do the same for you.

There was so much that happened it is really hard to capture it all, as is typically the case.

You are such a little girl, who sometimes wishes she wasn’t so little (and that’s okay), but I think you also don’t want to grow up so fast (I appreciate that!). There was a moment a few months ago, you and your sister were getting ready for bed and I was brushing your hair – I forget now what was so funny, but you were CRACKING UP – all I could see in the mirror was a little girl in the middle of a giggle fest – I tried so hard to burn that image into my head: an image of innocence, sweetness and laughter – it was perfect.

It amazes me how helpful you can be – how much (at times) you want to help your sisters, to help me, to have responsibility of your own. I’m greatful for your kind spirit and your big emotions. You’ve always felt everything with such magnitude and the only thing that has changed about that is how you recognize it too. You’ll often say to me when you are upset about something “I just have a lot of feelings!” to which I tell you it’s okay to have a lot of feelings!

One thing you REALLY REALLY wanted for your birthday was an ipad. We debated and finally got you a new-to-you ipad – you would have thought we bought you a pony! You were so so happy! Technology isn’t something I always put a lot of emphasis on, but the world does, so we need to embrace that a little here with boundaries and responsibility/responsible use. So far, so good. (Also, facetime and iMessaging are her favorite things to do!)

Confidence growth, I think, will be the name of the game going foward. Confidence in your ability to do anything you want (practice and work hard!), confidence that you CAN, confidence that you can learn anything. You’ve shown this in the way you’ve learned to read even when it was really really hard, in the way you’ve made new friends when you were shy, in all the new things you have tried this year, in the way you’ve grown in dance and just in life. I’m so proud of you and I am really loving all of the big kid firsts happening in your life!

 

Love you much, my little G!

Mommy