With Children Like You...

Dear Bella,

You are growing so big and tall, well relatively speaking.  I don't think you'll ever actually be tall.  Next year you will be ten and it reminds me of my mortality because if you are getting older I am getting older too.  But for this year I will savor the fact that you are still a girl.  Sure you may be starting the tween years.  You might not want toys anymore for your presents, but still you'd probably prefer something besides clothes.  You may roll your eyes occasionally, stomp up to your room in a huff, and offer me a tone of voice I previously haven't heard from you, but knowing there are children like you in the world gives me hope for the future.

You are kind and extraordinary in so many ways.  As I read a book this past week, there was a chapter about teaching your kids to be ordinary through living 6 principles.  And I thought of you and how you lived those principles of generosity, discipline, patience, diligence, concentration, and wisdom and how that by being those things it seemed to make you anything but ordinary.  You are so smart and I don't know where you get it from but even more you are hard working and I know that will take you wherever you want to go in life.  You already have many roles in life that of daughter, sister, but my favorite is to be able to count you as friend.  Between us a bond was started with birth, but with each year that bond is further forged and refined providing us with a friendship that will last forever. 

Always be true to the inner you.  You are a daughter of God and within you resides his goodness.  Live up to that goodness and you will never do anything to disappoint me or Him.  I love you, Boo.  Happy Birthday.

Love, Mom