Top 10 Things You Love:
- All things artistic (drawing, coloring, painting, etc)
- Singing
- Gymnastics
- Writing stories
- Reading
- Playing basketball
- America's Funniest Home Videos, Phineas and Ferb, and Road Runner
- Church
- Lauren Daigle, MercyMe, Francesca Battestelli
- Folding towels for $0.50
- Avocados, sweet potatoes, beans, nuts, Cheez-Its, Larabars
- Waiting your turn to talk. The moment you have a thought, it immediately comes out of your mouth.
- Sleeping in. You're not an early riser but you're not a sleeper-inner either
- Jeans
- Being sweaty
- Being aggravated by Charlie (which is unfortunate, because aggravating you is one of his most favorite things ever)
- Getting something wrong. You're ridiculously hard on yourself, you give yourself zero grace, and you feel like you should master all new concepts within two minutes. And if you don't? Well clearly you'll never get it and you should totally cry and pitch lots of fits. Cuz that always works.
- Unkindness. You have an enormously sensitive heart.
- Automatic toilets. You love going to the bathroom in a stall by yourself but nothing makes you turn around on your heels faster than seeing a handle-less toilet. You practically hyperventilate the entire time you're on an automatic toilet, convinced the toilet paper I'm using to cover the sensor will not do its job and the toilet will spontaneously flush.
- Untwirly dresses
- Math
- Emptying the dishwasher
- Ordering folks around (whether or not people listen is another thing, but you do a bang up job at the ordering around thing)
- Singing. You can carry a tune fairly well.
- Drawing. I know you're only seven, but you're a pretty good little ar-teest.
- Going across the monkey bars
- Making cards and signs for people (you love making anything from birthday cards to "I'm Sorry Your Head Hurts, Mommy" to Yay, "It's Pizza Friday!" signs to put on the front door for Daddy to see when he comes home from work)
- Keeping secrets about gifts. You really enjoyed knowing what Charlie was getting for his birthday and for Christmas. I think it made you feel grown up. So I happily obliged and took you shopping with me for his presents. You never once spilled the beans. (Charlie, on the other hand, makes it his life's mission to spoil surprises.)
- Doing a backwards roll. (I only include this because you tried for months to do one in gymnastics and you just couldn't get your brain and your legs to work together. Then, lo and behold, a few days ago, you did it. And now, you do a backwards roll like a boss.)
- Talking to adults.
- Brushing your entire head of hair. You're a pro at about 70%. And that 70% is smoooooth. But the other 30%? A family of squirrels could happily make their home in those tangles.
- Minding your own beeswax. If Mommy and Daddy are talking, you demand to know every detail of said conversation.
- Speaking Spanish. It's been many years since I took Spanish in high school, but I do remember distinctly that "Fleeb flop floob" is not Spanish for 'I love you', despite your insistence.
- Deviating from your bedtime routine. Let's just say that Charlie has the nerve to brush his teeth first (I know, right?). Instead of doing something productive and bedtime-related (like going to the bathroom or getting your jammies on), you'll sit on the edge of the tub and wait for him to finish brushing his teeth. You can't budge from your brushing-your-teeth-going-to-the-bathroom-getting-jammies-on pattern without a serious breakdown. Most of the time, it's not a big deal. Charlie the Flexible doesn't care in what order he does his stuff, but there are those times where he gets to the sink first and I walk you through the process of deviating from your routine. I have a 100% success rate and you have a 100% crying rate.
- Speaking in a normal volume. I worry you feel everyone has a hearing problem.
- Reading directions on a worksheet and not immediately declaring that "I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT THIS SAYS." Reading instructions two times (or three, four, or twelve) times is not something you prefer. You prefer to read them once then promptly have a meltdown. It's so cute. *eyeroll*
- Coming up with ideas for what to draw or what to write about. This has been on your Top 10 Things You're Not Good At for several years and it continues to be hard for you. What's funny (aggravating?) is that you want to be fed ideas but you rarely like the ideas I come up with. I'm just going to start suggesting really awful things to force you to come up with something better.
- Differential Equations
- Sitting still on the couch. You are the squirmiest and flippy-floppiest child I've ever seen. "Snuggling" with you isn't so much as "snuggling" as it is "the five-second respite in between position changes"
- Sleeping gracefully. Arms spread out. Feet hanging off the bed. Mouth wide open.
It's also hard to see the qualities I'm most self-conscious about be front and center in my child's personality. I guess I had these notions of grandeur that you'd somehow luck out and be everything I didn't think I was when I was younger - cool, confident, and easy-going. But God knew better than to bless me with that kind of child. He knew I needed to be changed and molded so he blessed me with a child who mirrored myself so clearly. So the only thing I could do - can do - is turn to Him and ask for heaps and loads of grace and mercy.
Please don't misunderstand that paragraph, my precious girl. You are exactly what I need and everything I want. You are made perfectly and wonderfully in His image. However, I need to be challenged so I don't get lazy. I need to be humbled so I don't get proud. I need to be weak so I won't count on my own strength.
I needed a girl who wants so desperately to understand and master new concepts the first time. Because that kind of bananas mentality is the exact same time of bananas mentality her momma possesses. So one of my many prayers is that the Lord softens my heart to your ill-fated desire towards Mastery of All The Things and simultaneously strips away my similar desire.
I needed a girl who had big, confusing emotions because it made my big, confusing emotions have a partner-in-crime.
I needed a girl who would be enormously responsible at a young age because there have been numerous days where headaches have left me all but incapacitated. I'm able to take a nap and you take on the maturity of someone twice your age by turning off the TV after watching one more show with Charlie. Then you let Charlie spend Quiet Time in your room while I sleep and you two play quietly for a few hours. When I wake up, I can count on a beautifully drawn Get Well Soon, Momma card to be the first thing I see. My headaches cause me so much frustration, but it's only a fraction of the frustration I would feel if you weren't able to be trusted to watch over Charlie while I slept. Even as I type this, the tears are falling because God is so good. He's so GOOD, baby girl.
I pray you feel His goodness and His unending love for you, because every time I look at you, I'm reminded of His unending love for me. And His epic sense of humor.
Hugs and smooches,
Mommy & Daddy
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