Today she's 7.

Today she is seven. This means a lot of things, like I am about to turn thirty-four, and Annie is about to turn three and Campbell ( the dog) is already 8, and Chad feels like he's 75.

As I sat down to write her annual Birth Day letter, for the first time I didn't cry. I wrote and scribbled and scratched desperately of all the trials and tribulations she and I have gone through this year as mama/daughter. Surely this has been my toughest year ever...emotionally/mentally/spiritually/business/marriage/socially, and it has all trickled onto my energy sucking sponge of a daughter. That is not a derogative comment, but a comment so real as this child picks up on any ounce of energy around here and it becomes hers, which then becomes mine to work with...nice how it all comes full circle, right? So I said that for the first time I didn't cry, I really rejoiced in the new day that is hers today. She starts First Grade. Sunny, today, starts first grade.

(fuzzy self portrait...she better thank her lucky stars I didn't include the music video she shot with my camera which had me in hysterical tears and that followed this photo)

She will assert her independence with someone other than me, if only until 3pm five days per week. I will welcome the break to build up my energy so as to greet her fully at pick up and meet her more than halfway until 7pm each evening. As it goes in Waldorf schools, this is her year to read. As I've shared here before, this child nearly eats books for meals and has this intense innate ability to pick out words and put together their sounds and an uncanny knack for just spelling words she's never seen before...and I've never "worked" with her on reading or writing specifically. We have read to her and read to her and read to her and she has developed this love for letters and has developed an intense relationship with the words on a page, and "reads" to our dog every night after we tuck her in, from chapter books, as if she has a photographic memory, which wouldn't surprise me. When I ask her what she wants to learn in first grade, I all but get that spit out before she is right there with her answer: "to read and knit". Though it's funny, she has been itching to read for a couple of years and every time I meet her with a mini lesson that lasts no more than five days before she's bored with it...which tells me she really isn't as ready as she thinks....until now, that is. She is ready for Ms. Bene to teach her reading by storytelling and by creating her very own textbooks from her beautiful wooden desk in First Grade.

This strong and able leader, this high spirited girl of mine is so very ready for this next change. I do believe there will be tears sometime throughout the day, but so far I find myself in meditative reflection about what she will experience today and how she'll translate it to me when I pick her up.

This 7 year old, who has grown a deep love for good food and mostly for preparing, baking, cooking and being around the kitchen when anything food-like is going on (hm, apple doesn't fall far from the tree, right?), has taken to making breakfast of overeasy eggs and toast on the weekends with a smidgeon of supervision.

This child right here, who insists on holding full fledged birthday parties for all critters turning four this summer (sorry, Cheetah...I still can't get past your gaudiness, let alone realize you had a birthday), and who steals into my room after kindly reminding me to give her some privacy, and who minutes later, comes out dressed as Miss Hannigan from Annie...one of six movies she has seen in her entire life.

This child who so badly wants to live on a small hobby farm and who planted, has maintained and grown her own garden this summer...this seven year old child came from me and is of me and I am feeling very ready to let her out into the big world of First Grade wholeheartedly.