8th Birthday Moments

On Thursday, Fiona turned eight. EIGHT. She's a delightful blend of young heart and old soul. The same few minutes will find her sweetly taking care of Yogi and pushing every button to aggravate her sister. She's full-on sass and we are working on some back-talk issues (ugh!). But it is so much fun talking about bigger issues with her and discovering the world through her eyes. She has a heart for social justice in the world and will do big things.

We've been bugging Fiona for a few weeks to decide what she wanted for her birthday. She's really been struggling to think of something. I offered up getting her ears pierced. She asked if it hurt. I told her it did. She decided to wait on that. And somehow trumped what I thought was my ace. Foiled.

The day before her birthday, I asked her (yet again) what she wanted. She smiled sweetly and told me she knew. Then she said, "I want you to surprise me, mama. I know it will be great." DANG IT! And less than 24 hours to be great. I was feeling foiled again. I wracked my brain all day at work and finally had a light bulb. She's been bugging me for a robe. Thanks to Google, I found a beautiful soft blue and purple fair isle print robe in her size. I wouldn't have it on her birthday, but I could show her a picture. It was perfect.

I was just about to hit the purchase button when I remembered that Q and D have also been asking for robes. So I figured I may as well order robes for them too. I could give them the robes at Christmas. Then my brain decided that it seemed weird to give F a robe for her special birthday gift and then give her sibs the same gift at Christmas. I overthought on that for a few hours. Long story long, I bought three robes. For Christmas presents. And still had no.birthday.present.

I was honestly about to give up and admit to Fiona that I had nothing spectacular up my sleeve. Then I remembered that I was holding another ace. Quinn. I asked Quinn what Fiona wanted. She didn't hesitate and said "the Barbie ambulance." I asked why F didn't tell me that. Q said "because she knows we already have a ton of Barbie stuff. But she really wants it." Good enough for me. A quick look on my Target app, a couple clicks, and one Barbie ambulance was waiting for me to pick up at the EP store next to my office. When I told Mike what we got her, he said "oh yeah. She's been telling me she wants that for over a month." No, I didn't hit him. Yes, I really wanted to. [The squeals of delight when she opened it tell me that I did, in fact, "do great." Amen for Quinn!]

There was quite a to-do at school for her birthday. She pretended to hate it and clearly loved every single bit of it. She wore a birthday hat all day that her teacher made her; her name was on the morning announcements (and Q got to tell her class that it was her sister); and F's class made her a "birthday star" book. It was actually super cute. Each classmate wrote her a little birthday message and drew a picture and her teacher put it together in a book.

As the girls were looking over it, Fiona proudly showed Quinn what her friend Liam had written. Quinn assessed both the message and the picture carefully. Her verdict: "Liam loves you." Fiona got all red-faced and giggly and then their voices dropped into some super secret sister conversation and I couldn't hear them. I'm trying my very best to ignore that particular piece of the turning eight puzzle!

As a family, we've been watching the revival of Double Dare on Nickelodeon. Mike and I were huge Double Dare fans growing up, so we thoroughly enjoy watching it now with our kids. We all think that being a contestant would be about the best thing ever. Fiona has told me that she would love to be my partner and that our team name would be "Super V Girlpower." She asked me very seriously if I would be okay getting messy and full of slime. I told her I would enjoy every minute of it. She liked that answer! Of all the kids, she enjoys the trivia part of the show the most - and is starting to get a few questions right. She also really likes that the host is short - and owns it. A good role model for her.

When Fiona has free time, odds are that she is playing Barbies or reading. The basement is a constant state of Barbie disaster and she has a minimum of four books going at all times (I currently count five in the living room. Who know how many are in her room). My cousins gave her a bag of books at her birthday party and she had finished five of them in under a week. I told her that she needs to move away from graphic novels - simply because we can't afford how fast she reads them.

Her very favorite is Babysitter's Club. She reads the graphic novel version, but I may try to find a couple used copies of the originals - to give her a bit more of a challenge and to see if it takes her a little longer to read it. While she hates her math homework every night, she does not fight us on the 20 minutes of reading that she is supposed to do!

And that, my friends, is eight. It is all the things big and little mixed together into an incredibly fun, sweet, and sassy package.

Finally, it's not a birthday post without answers to the annual questions:

Favorite color: Blue
Favorite friend: Evelyn
Favorite show: Newsies
Favorite book: Babysitter's Club
Favorite food: Macaroni and cheese (not mac and cheese. she very specifically said macaroni)
Favorite thing to do: Art projects
Be when you grow up: Vet