Heavenly Seven!

Maddie is seven.

What a weird, wonderful, wild age!

And what a weird, wonderful, wild, intelligent, beautiful, and funny child you are, little Maddie!

How I love when you help me prepare Thanksgiving dinner!

And your excitement at the first few flakes of the year’s first snow.

And your absolute, unmitigated love of the month of December.

The house is bedecked with flags and balloons and “Happy Birthday” signage, and you will have French toast for breakfast, and you will hand out boller and brunkager to your classmates at school, and we will have a big festive family birthday dinner at your favorite restaurant in the world, and you will be seven.

Seven!

The Thanksgiving turkey we ate this year weighed four times what you did on this date seven short years ago.  But that turkey couldn’t play handball or build libraries in Minecraft or bust a jam to On the Floor — not today, not seven years from today, not one hundred years from today.

Years pass quickly and you will surely forget, but the day before your seventh birthday you came home sad and teary and hurting because you felt like you’d done something mean and unfriendly at school to one of your best friends.  You were inconsolable until Mor helped you call Emma and apologize — and she didn’t even remember or understand what you were apologizing for, but the apology itself made you feel good and happy and bouncy again.  Your concern for other people’s feelings is wonderful, and I’m sure it’s something that will enrich your life even though it may sometimes cause you pain.

You are a remarkable girl and we love you and could not be prouder of the person you are becoming.

All our love, today and forever,
— Mor and Daddy