Dear Sofa, Sofa-dofa, Lopins, Mamsie,
What a year for you! You've changed before our very eyes from a little kid into this confident, tall (!) girl who is comfortable in her own skin. I think the coolest thing to watch this year is your appetite for everything that life will give you. For example, you spent your fall doing archery, soccer, piano and horse back riding (yes it was as crazy after school as it sounds!) and then switched to basketball in the winter and Girls On The Run in the spring. In your own words, you like to be busy (but you also love to lounge around the house with your brother and the chickens!) and you've somehow inherited my energy levels to keep going through a full school day to all of these after school activities.
You've also got a great appetite for learning. In piano, you've finished the "primer" level books and have progressed to level 1, which you're very proud of. You have moved to in person lessons with Miss Mary which is a much better fit for you instead of Zoom, and Momma sends videos of the two of you playing these complex duets together with a big smile on your face. You've been enjoying horse riding with Savannah, and again Momma (who knows more about these things!) says you're doing great. When we get back from our trip to England, you'll be starting to canter, and we'll support you for as long as you want to ride. In school, you decided for yourself that you wanted to be the first to learn all the states and their capitals, and you finished the official test (with 100% accuracy!) before anyone in the class even started it. It's been incredible to watch your brain absorb all this stuff like a sponge, and listening to you piecing together your world and coming out with little nuggets of information that you heard and remembered from months before continues to put a massive smile on my face.
You've got a tricky decision coming up for your sporting life. You absolutely fell in love with girls only basketball (and it was cool watching you use your strength and game vision as the season progressed) and this was continued with Girls On The Run. Running the 5K through Concord with you was an absolute highlight of my year; just spending time with you, chatting and running and making little goals for ourselves made me so proud to be your dad. So now we're talking about fall sports and you've told me you want to do soccer again (though there's also an email about archery just popped in my inbox!). Originally, you've talked about wanting to do girls soccer with Rochester, but then your best bud Harlynn isn't sure about it, so I don't know if you'll end up back in Strafford for the fall season. Maybe we'll come back to girls soccer in the spring, but as always, the choice will be yours.
Speaking of best buds, you've got a lovely group of friends around you. Your birthday party this year was a sleepover with Harlynn, Nacora and Norah and you guys had a blast. We used the bouncy house for a while, went over to Nana and Papa's to play with the go-karts and put the tent up in the living room for some fun, as well as playing pie face and eating yourselves silly on chips and candy from your treasure hunt. It was lovely to see you calm and relaxed with your friends, and there was no drama and a lot of giggles for the whole time. You also like to hang out with Anne, and her parents described you as sweet, polite and easy when you went for a sleepover party at her house. You're still naturally friendly with everyone you meet (you're currently pestering us to meet up with kids you met at Jim and Claire's wedding last year!) and your goofy side helps you make friends easily.
It's been another year of watching you become your own person while maintaining your strong relationship with your brother. You asked for a Switch for Christmas to be like him, but have a different taste in games (and to be honest, you rarely use it in favor of your tablet or watching stuff on the TV). You've developed a good strategic brain which you use to get better at Clue (though apparently it's still all about the vibes) and to beat me and Jake at Everbutt more times than not. For your birthday, you had no particlar wishes beyond have $100 in $1 bills so you could make it rain, and even then there was no real thought of what you wanted to buy with it. You're a content kinda kid, and I hope that you stay that way.
Above all, you're just fun to be around, whether it's endlessly wrestling (with your glasses stored somewhere safe), throwing you around in the lake or trying to outwit you over a board or card game. I can't wait for another summer of hanging out with you, and another year of watching you grow and change some more.
All my love,
Dadda
