11:11

 ... 

Lucy. YOU ARE 11!! Like that is on the way to truly becoming big and I have to ask... are all your dreams coming true?

From the minute you came in this world, it is like you knew the plan and we all just had to get on board or get out of the way. That plan has ALWAYS included being big.

God forbid, you encounter limits (which you did --- because hello, you have parents!), and boundaries and social rules and inferred rules... or anything that ever took you from your master plan because there has ALWAYS BEEN A MASTER PLAN in that little busy brain and we just can't keep up. Good thing you were born super short or anything because that would have really stunk to keep a kid like you off roller coasters and the likes extra long... oh... wait. I bet you had nothing to say about that and the fact that your little sister will likely pass you in height this year too... 

Dang.

Eleven years and still our fireball of a Lubird. Sister, you just burn so brightly. WHITE HOT BRIGHT. Sure you no longer have Tiny Lu voice that sounds like she smokes a pack or two a day. You have finally started to grasp what we have been mandating you ask yourself out-loud all the time since you could talk ... " How much is too much?" and I have to say... you are really starting to get it. Sure the emotions, the volume, the intensity, the need to be the expert leader of ALL THE THINGS is still in fact too much at times,  but it is getting less and less extreme and much more manageable. We are so so proud of you. Your passion, heart for justice, advocacy for the underdog, inability to cease leading those around you--- even when you are trying really hard not too --- continues to burn just as bright as it always has and I have to say... I hope that never changes. 

This next year will be the year when all that confidence you have always known and carried so strongly within, will be challenged more than ever before. Honestly, the crumbling of confidence is the worst part of middle school years. Give me all the awkward growth spurts, raging acne and body odor... just let me keep the confidence. It is hard to see someone so great, individual, unique and AWESOME... come to doubt that. If anything, I am hopeful it is a short season of a muted pastel (lovely in its own way but still just a softer, quieter version of its former self... ready to burn brightly again soon...) Because what is our world without a little fireball of Lucy to keep it aglow?

On to 11! Oh, heavenly day!

Mom