Happy Birthday, Daniela!

Can you believe it? She’s thirteen today. I had to double check with her when she woke up, because I could have sworn she was just barely turning eight. However, she confirmed it: we now have a second teenager in our house.

What will we be doing to celebrate? Strangely enough, our lives are pretty busy at the moment. You’d think with the pandemic still raging that we’d be holed up at home more than we are, but Tomas and Daniela and MC are all doing nordic skiing (cross country), which involves a ton of practices and races. There are two races this evening, and Denisa wants to get some downhill skiing in as well. (Yes, it was -7 F when we woke up this morning, but I think there are some definite advantages to living in a place where there’s plenty to do outside in the winter. True, I suppose if it were more like 60 degrees, then we could just have outdoor parties, but whatever. I like snow, and I love that my kids still have some school sports going on.)

So they’ve got all that going, but later this evening we should all be back together for some good old fashioned cake. Yay for cake.

These days, Daniela is getting more and more into the trappings of teendom. She’s on her iPad a fair bit, chatting with her friends. She loves Taylor Swift songs and decided to listen to every single Swift recording, just so she could be up to date on all of them. She loves movies, and is a big fan of older classics like His Girl Friday or The Philadelphia Story. She’s Ferris’s favorite human, and she loves to draw, typically using the iPad and Apple pencil. She’s getting very talented at the cello and practices often without prompting, and she’s branching out into cooking as well.

It’s fun watching her try out all these different things, and while I do miss the girl who was absolutely obsessed with all things Lord of the Rings, it’s great to see her growing into her own personality. Maybe she’ll even come on Facebook one of these days. Who knows?

In any case, if you see her today, wish her a big happy birthday. It’s tough to be a middle schooler during a pandemic, so we all need all the cheerfulness we can get. I love you Daniela!

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