You live life wide open. You take off your shoes whenever possible. You have no reasonable fear - in fact, the only thing I can figure out that you are afraid of is that there is a bobcat in our neighborhood, which is not reasonable at all. You are the last one to wake up in the morning and always ask if you can eat breakfast on the couch. You try not to hurt my feelings when you don't like supper but you still say things like, "Hmm. This tastes a little bit worse than it looks." You dressed up in your eggs and bacon costume for your school presentation even though your presentation was about the life cycle of a horse. You are super close to mastering your back handspring. You are probably never going to be a foot model because you do things like cut your toe on the deadbolt on the front door.
You are funny and silly in the best way. You love to make people laugh but you are funniest when you don't even try. You still don't really walk - you skip or dance or flip wherever you go. When you tell a joke I can't even understand you because you laugh the whole time. You are like this wonderful mixture of Buddy the Elf and Marcel the Shell and something else altogether.
You are full of compassion and maternal love for anyone smaller than you. You go out of your way to help - in fact, I have never seen someone more naturally wired to be a helper than you. You understand the way things work mechanically, so you are a great helper to Dad on his projects; you still love to help me cook in the kitchen. You find joy in helping. I love that about you. I want to be like you in that way.
You love all things horses and are so excited about learning to play the piano and violin. You can get along with pretty much anyone and I would often call you "the life of the party," but you also crave large quantities of time all by yourself building with your Legos.
Today we went out exploring and you were the only one who was willing to ride off with your Daddy to explore the trails. When we finally found you guys, I asked Dad, "She's going to be a mountain biker, isn't she?" He nodded and said, "Oh yeah."
We call you "The Explainer" because you cannot help but verbally explain everything. Everything you do, everything you see, everything you say. You MUST communicate the "why" or you can't sleep at night. This right here is the face that I probably see the most during our days - in the middle of explaining.
For all your adventures and all your laughter, you have a sweet, serious side as well. You wear your feelings on your sleeve and have a sensitive soul. For all your impulsive ways, you really do feel things deeply and I treasure your sweet, thoughtful heart. You are beautiful on the outside and the inside.
Aves, I tell you this all the time, but I never could have imagined what a joy you would turn out to be. I don't know anyone else like you. What a wonderful Maker we have, to have dreamed up someone like you!
Happy birthday, my sweet almost-seven-year-old!!!
