Julia's 8th Birthday!

Julia. Our Julia. 

Jules. Julesy. JJ. 

Today you are 8 years old!!!

You have grown into such an amazing young woman. You started out amazing, and got even more amazing!:

You are silly, and fun. You are caring and sensitive. You are bold and brave, and sometimes you remind yourself that you're just 8 and you allow yourself to be.. .well 8!

You excel at schoolwork, and fun, and physical activies, and social interactions. 

You are a driving-force: determined, self-motivated, capable, and positive. If you want to do something; you try your hardest to do it. You CARE about the world, and are quite the entrepreneur (with your Drawings Stand, and your "Free Leaves with Faces" business ideas)

You are a joy to be around, even as you're exploring your naughty/cheeky side, which we call "turd behavior."

Your laugh can light up a room. You are crazed, crazed with the desire to leave the house (cabin fever!) You are a wonderfully caring sister, even if you punch your brother in the penis occasionally. You are a sweet daughter, even when you tell me point blank that I need to shave my back. You are a fiercely loyal friend to Toby (Tobinsa, Simmers, Miller, Piller, etc); you contributed so much to Toby's recovery after the loss of his best friend. You love ALL animals, including our newest family members Splinter and Graham Cracker, and ALL of the neighborhood cats...which you've named (or whose names you've learned), and know exactly which ones like to be picked up or petted.

You believe! in Santa, the tooth fairy, cupid... you bet you believe!

You, me, Mama, and Aidan have rocked this pandemic so hard; growing closer together through challenging times. 

You have been exploring digital tools to communicate with friends and grandparents; and you're quite dedicated to all of the above!

This year you learned to ride a bike without training wheels, you learned to jump rope, you learned to focus and self-sooth (our "grounding exercises")...which helped you successfully 100% sleep in your new room in your own bed!

You made new friends at school since all of your BFFs and you were separated into different pods because of pandemic logic, you have been rocking the socks off of piano lessons...doing both hands, sight reading, and self-motivated practice! You're a reading machine ("Phoebe and Her Unicorn" is something you've read entirely on your own in the mornings), a note-writing machine, a planner and dreamer, and (a little bit after your birthday) you learned to edit videos!

You are amazing, and I'm so glad you're one of us! 

Happy Birthday, our darling Julia!

We love you to a million, billion, trillion pieces! See how we celebrated in this bizarre, closeness-maximized year of 2020!

The return of ... The Chintuplets!

You guys wanted to get the old band back together, so we put on your make-up, turned you upside down, and let you loose!

Enjoy the musical stylings of... the Chintuplets! 

Bird/Fairy Houses, and Kindness to Fairies

 Julia, on a beautiful holiday Monday afternoon, while Aidan and Mommy were reading to each other, you wanted to do something special with me.

We came up with an idea to paint the old birdhouse that used to rest on the eave of our front porch. But, Mommy humbly requested that we not paint it.

So you and I came up with an idea... what if we MADE our own bird house and THEN painted it.

You loved the idea...but were pretty insistent that it also be a Fairy house, as needed. So, you know, any fairies that were passing through would have a place to sit and chill for a moment before carrying on their way.

We gathered scrap wood and loose supplies and came up with a plan. You and I brainstormed, and drilled and tried things out in the warm, golden sun.

And  we worked and laughed and giggled and worked somemore...

And then, it was time to paint!

The sun dried the paint before our very eyes (you couldn't believe it!), and before you knew it... we had finished our Bird/Fairy House!

I still wasn't sure where the fairies entered the equation, but I was pleased with your ingenuity and sticktoitiveness. We had made a pretty, functional, rocking bird house.

And Fairy House, you reminded me.

You came with me to pick up the groceries and brought a piece of paper and a pen. On the way you asked for my help to spell a couple of words. Then, when we got home, I read the note you had written, and I understood how this whole plan had come together in your mind:

Aha! You wanted to make sure the Tooth Fairy had a place to rest, in case she came to visit you when you placed this planned-out note under your pillow.

It was such a good note and good plan, in fact, that you inspired some brother-type people named Aidan to embark on a similar plan!

So, sweet dreams and big plans inspired a day of hard work with great payoff!

We hung the house, even found some bird seed...hopefully fairies also enjoy bird seed... and we ate dinner, swam, read, and tucked you guys in.

I don't know if you can see, but it looks like you can almost see some fairy dust in the bird/fairy house. She did visit each of you that night and even gave you each a dollar for your kindness and ingenuity. 

I had so much fun making a Fairy House with you, today, my daughter. You are an amazing, strong, kind, inspiring spirit. You believe in fairies...and I believe in you.

love, 

Dad

Fistful of...

Since you've been back at school, and I've been working from home, I've been able to pcik you guys up from school way more frequently than the "extremely rare" occurence of it when I was working from the office. Another silver lining of this whole thing. 

At any rate, y'all got in the car, we pulled over to buckle up and hand sanitize, and I say "Okay kids, give me your hands to I can put in hand sanitizer."

Aidan, you had your fist closed and looked at me reluctantly.

I said, "Okay, buddy, you can put down whatever's in your hand so I can give you hand sanitizer."

You looked at me reluctantly again, but then slowly complied. You turned your fist over, hovered it over the door handle/arm rest, and released....a fistful of WORMS!

You, me, and Julia looked at eachother in shock. And then...you said "Dad, These are the Worms I DIDN'T want to feed to the chickens!"

And the three of us erupted in laughter.

Gut busting, tear-inducing laughter. 

It was a GREAT afternoon, and an Epic Story. And I'm happy to report that all of the worms were released into the wild in our front yard, and lived happily ever after.