You, my darling Lu, could not be more fun, could not be more individual, could not be more you.
You are seven today, and I know the speed at which you are growing ought to make me sad, but you just have this way of being unchangeably yourself, even while changing in so many ways. I feel like I still have my sweet, carefree, Mommy-loving, snuggle baby, even though she’s all blended into this smart, creative, reading and writing school girl. You still dance like no one’s watching. You still laugh with your whole body. You still can’t wait to tell me every-dang-thing that happened in your day. And I’m starting to have the delightful feeling that you always will.
I hope so.
Your grandpa always says you are the happiest person he’s ever met. It’s true. No one laughs like you do. You trip delightedly through the world, confident in everyone’s love for you, certain that there are new fun things waiting in every day, and fully prepared to invent a world of your own if this one doesn’t satisfy. Sure, you have your moods and your bad days, but those can mostly be fixed with Mommy snuggles. (And when that’s not quite enough, there’s always a bowl of ice cream or a pretty scarf.)
Fashion does make you happy. You put your outfits together with style and purpose. Just the other day you were in the middle of telling me a story when you suddenly stopped and ran out of the room saying, “I just got an idea for an outfit and I need to go see how it looks!” I knew when you told me all you really wanted for your seventh birthday was clothes, that we were in for it. Your style is like you: decisive, confident, and beautiful. It tells me so much about how you see the world. You want everything to be pretty. You want it to be distinctly girly but without sacrificing any comfort. You want everything to match, from head to toe, to be complete in every way, but matching to you doesn’t mean being the same, just coordinating to make a pleasing whole. Somehow you pull this off even though shopping is seldom on our schedule. You even make your school uniforms look stylish, layering up sweaters and boots and cute little hairstyles in a way that makes the same clothes everyone has to wear look somehow unique. That’s about the best representation of Lucy I can think of.
You got around this year. You took Chicago by storm and hiked the trails of Clifty Falls and conquered the beaches of Florida and even drank butter beer at Hogwarts. For someone who has always loved home, you have taken to adventures like a pro. You are learning to be adaptable and to overcome your fears and this means we get to have So. Much. Fun.
And just think of all you learned this year. You learned to play in the water and be unafraid. You even learned to jump right in! You learned how to operate the remote control and how to walk Toby all by yourself. You learned how to read! Like really read. You went from struggling through sounding out each word to plowing through books made for third graders in the blink of an eye. Now you can pull stories from pages all by yourself, and your love for stories is only growing. It has been so amazing to watch you take on each new challenge and conquer it. You aren’t always sure you want to try hard things, but once you do all that energy and life inside of you takes off like a rocket.
You are full of life. It bursts out of you in weird and wonderful ways, and we can’t get enough of it. I often wonder where that vibrancy is going to take you. I often imagine what crazy amazing things you are going to put out in the world some day. You are already doing it. Already drawing and writing and making up stories and telling jokes. Already mashing together all the things you’ve watched and heard and read and seen to make weird new ideas. Life with you is never going to be boring. (I’m glad. Boredom is what I hate most.) Life with you will never be easy, either. (That’s okay. Easy is overrated.) We’ll blast through it with lots of words and emotions and ideas and movement. We’ll accept that sitting still is not on the program. We’ll be thankful that “normal” is not for us.
Girl, you are always dancing, and you’re doing it to your own beat. You dance with your friends and you dance alone. You dance when it makes us all laugh, and you dance when your brother and sister are mortified. You went to the school dance and wouldn’t leave my side, but that didn’t stop you from dancing the entire time, all your own moves in a circle right around me. You dance like you are unafraid because you are. You have every reason to be unafraid. Your Papi and I are always right here, protecting you and loving you. Your friends and family surround you everywhere you turn. Your life is a whirl of fun.
It won’t always be that way. Someday hard things are going to come into your life. Someday you’ll have to face loss and pain, and the joy that has always characterized you is going to be sorely tested. I look at your beautiful, eager face, and I pray for that day. I pray that you will be as brave in the face of true danger as you have been in conquering your little girl fears. I pray that you will be as hopeful in grief as you have been in the expectation of a bright future. I pray that you will always be as secure in God’s love as you have been in Papi’s and in mine.
I pray that you will keep on dancing, no matter what. You can’t even know how much joy it brings to the rest of us.
And however it goes, whether we’re laughing over the good times or blurry-eyed waking when we should be asleep, I’ll be there, okay? There’s no way I’m going to miss a moment of this.
I love you.
Mommy
True Story 