nine!

Nine years ago today I was the happiest person on earth!  For years I had longed to be a mother, for months I had anticipated your arrival, and all night long we knew you were on your way, but you took your sweet old time in coming.  Finally, on a gorgeous, sunny Palm Sunday morning, you made your appearance, you were healthy, and you were ours!  The first words out of my mouth: "Is she really a girl?"  And you were, of course!  What a happy day!

And in the nine years since then you've continued to fill our lives with happiness.  You live life with enthusiasm and "sparkle."  Even at nine years old you still jump up and down in excitement when you talk about something you can't wait to tell us.  You run off the bus to tell me the latest news, you love parties, celebrations, and anything deemed "special" or out of the ordinary.  I love this about you, and know that as you get older it will probably fade, but I hope that deep down, you will never lose your enthusiasm and zest for life.

Every day when you get off the bus, I ask you how school was that day and your answer is always, "Great!"  Although you march to the beat of your own drum a bit, and still prefer to play by yourself many days, you get along with everyone in your class and like everyone, and everyone seems to like you.  But you are your own person, aren't really swayed by what other people want or like, and while sometimes it worries me, I know that in the long run, it's good that you're confident in who you are and don't go along with the crowd.  I'll be thankful for that when you get older!  

You are passionate about the things that interest you.  Those things change from time to time, but right now they are minecraft (though that interest seems to be fading a bit), American Girl, science and social studies (you've been so excited about every topic you've studied this year--local government, Japanese culture, geography, energy, geology.....you name it, and you've poured yourself into it!), and the app flavor of the day (you go through phases with the apps that you enjoy playing--right now it's Subway Surfers and Bear Valley).  You still have a very vivid imagination and love to play outside and pretend all sorts of things with your sister.  You still love the monkey bars, swings, and riding your bike (without training wheels now--woo hoo!).  You love to get muddy and explore outside, too, as the laundry will attest, since I'm constantly scrubbing mud out of your pants after you've come inside!  

You had trouble choosing your birthday cake this year--there was no clear cut favorite for a theme like in the past, and this bothered you a bit, but you had also decided long ago that you wanted this little girl figurine on your cake when you turned nine, just like it was on my cake when I turned nine.  

You've seen it on my dresser for years and dreamed of the day you turned nine and could have it.  So now it's yours, sweet girl.  I can hardly believe that you're really nine.  I'm sure the time has crawled by for you, but for me they have gone by in the blink of the eye.  

Oh, sweet Rachel, how I love you.  I love watching you grow and develop into your own person.  It's scary and unsettling a lot of the time, but so exciting, too, to watch you grow up and change and think and question and have opinions about things.  I love watching you unfold into whoever Rachel Anne is going to be.

Happy, happy birthday, sweetie.  

Love, Mommy