Sweet girl,
You loved turning 10 because you were double-digits. Then at 11, you were all, “I’m a tween now!” And last year, it was “I’m officially a preteen!”. And now here we are. Great googly-moogly, you’re a teenager.
Top 10 Things You Love
- Reading (specifically the Keeper of the Lost Cities series)
- Singing
- Performing on stage
- Drawing
- Moriah Elizabeth YouTube videos
- Your friends
- Your family
- Your youth group at church
- Spaghetti, sushi, and ice cream
- Leanna Crawford songs
Top 10 Things You Don’t Love
- When someone gets hurt
- Not being included in adult conversations (pretty sure this has made its appearance on every Top 10 Things You Do Don’t Love list)
- Going somewhere without a book and/or notebook
- Sports that involve a ball (you’re happier when you do stuff like swimming or wall climbing)
- Watching engineering videos on YouTube with Daddy (but that would absolutely be on his list of Top 10 Things He Loves)
- Being corrected (you’re in good company, sweet face)
- Math (but check out #7 of the next list)
- How ridiculous clothes are for girls your age (the crop tops and “Follow Your Heart” messaging make us both roll our eyes)
- When Charlie knows something you don’t
- Bugs
Top 10 Things You’re Good At
- Songwriting and storywriting (you’re in two different writing classes this year and they’ve both improved your ability to spin a yarn)
- Singing
- Being responsible - you’re incredibly self-motivated for a 13-year-old
- Trying any food at least once
- Being funny and/or sarcastic (this continues to be a work in progress, as it’s tricky to learn which situations call for humor and/or sarcasm and which situations most assuredly do not)
- Decluttering (you’re fairly heartless when it comes to throwing things away; on more than one occasion, I’ve had to rescue something from the trash that I had given you from when I was little)
- Math
- Making cards for people
- Engaging with adults (you’ve loved adult conversation since the moment you learned to talk)
- Ripstik-ing
Top 10 Things You’re Not Good At
- Remaining calm, cool, and collected when you know adults are talking about something that you don’t know about
- Being OK with not mastering a subject within the first five minutes of attempting it
- Pitching a no-hitter in a MLB game
- Having the strength of a four-year-old (I liked wrestling with you a lot more when you were little and four; it’s less fun now that you’re all strong and stuff)
- Being tall (just you wait, my love - your time’s coming …)
- Swallowing pills (you may be taking chewable pills until you're an adult …)
- Ice carving
- Writing certain letters correctly (you don’t do the downstroke on a lowercase ‘d’ or ‘p’ and it makes your mother cringe)
- Doing chores with a smile on your face and joy in your heart
- Swordsmithing
You had two drama performances this year. In the spring, you were a toilet (yes, a toilet) in a remake of Beauty and the Beast. And a few weeks ago, you were a lizard in a retelling of Alice in Wonderland. One of my favorite things about watching you on stage is that you go all in with every role you have, regardless of how major or minor the part is. I mean, who would ever want to be a toilet? My kid, that’s who. You saw the potential in that part to make it a really funny character - and you absolutely did. And you (along with the rest of your class) were asked to create a backstory for your character in the retelling of Alice in Wonderland. And you thought the lizard should be a southern lizard (I mean, obviously, right?), complete with a southern drawl.
You got your first phone this summer (and you may or may not have had the same laughing-crying reaction as you did when we bought Frozen on DVD when you were but a wee thing). This phone lets you do exactly what you need to do - call, text, take pictures, and listen to the radio - and practically nothing else. And that’s the point. This phone is actually more of a convenience for Dad and me than it was a necessity for a 12-year-old. We like being able to get in touch with you at all times and we like you to have the same access to us. But my favorite part of you having a phone? Your sense of humor. Your texting game is s-t-r-o-n-g and your ability to showcase your humor in a text message is impeccable.
And we know you’d like a phone that took better pictures or a phone with internet access so you could listen to Spotify. And that’ll happen eventually (your first smartphone would be a great college graduation gift!) but for right now, we can’t see any reason to give you access to a device that could easily make harder an already hard season of growth and development.
You transitioned to secondary classes in our homeschool group this year. Which means way more homework and responsibility - and Dad and I are so proud of you for how you’ve handled this new responsibility. You’ve had a few bumps along the way but this has given you practice in the important art of recovering well.
The only subject I’m teaching you at home is history; everything else is being taught by other teachers. This has been a great experience for you. You’re learning to be accountable to someone other than me and you’re taking ownership of your schedule and organization.
I’ve seen your faith increase this year. I loved seeing you worship so openly and freely on Sundays, and it’s been encouraging to my own faith to see you read your Bible in the mornings. You ask thoughtful questions and I can see the Lord working in your heart in a beautiful way. I pray you’ll always know that you are His masterpiece, that He has an inexhaustible amount of love for you, that He is your Good Father.
I know it’s pretty typical to hear parents bemoan the teenage years. But I refuse to accept that this season has to be bad, has to be trying, has to be rebellious. Could it? Of course. And will there be tough parts? Of course; that’s practically a guarantee being sinners in a fallen world. But I don’t want to walk into these years expecting the worst; that’s not fair to any of us.
I have loved each age more than the previous age. That doesn’t mean that each age or season of growth has been drama-free and struggle-free, but it does mean that I’ve loved watching you turn into such an amazing 13-year-old. And I have no doubt that I’ll love this year more than the last - all the while lamenting that you don’t have the strength of a four-year-old and it’s much harder to pin you down when we wrestle …
Hugs and smooches,
Mommy & Daddy
