6.5 Years of Quinn

The day after Valentine's Day was Q's half birthday. She spent her actual half birthday at home with Gpa V ... as it was (yet another) no school day. But the day before was a big day at school - she had her name read on the morning announcements and got a book from the principal, her class had their Valentine's party, and the first grade went on a field trip to Stage Theater to see The Three Snow Bears. She was not sad about any of those things.

On this auspicious occasion of a half birthday, I have a story that fully captures all that is our Quinn. Friday night, Mike was volunteering at the rink to run the timeclock for a 12U girls tournament game. We asked Q if she wanted to go with (one-on-one time continues to be her love language) and not surprisingly, she did. But the bonus was that she got to watch some of the big girls play (this was our secret plan). They had a great time and even though it went significantly longer than expected, she hung in there like a champ.

Saturday morning, Mike got an email from Dec's team manager letting us know that there was another "try hockey" session Saturday afternoon. Mike didn't even get the question out before Quinn answered that she wanted to do it. It was conveniently scheduled for right after Dec's practice, so I got D out of his gear while Mike helped Q into hers. Earlier in the day, Dec had offered Q his jersey and she was excited to wear it. One of D's coaches was helping out in the Try Hockey session and did a double-take at the new human wearing red #6.

She skated hard for over an hour and had a huge grin on her face when she finished. She was a proud, sweaty mess. She also gave me a complete recap of the game she went to with Mike on Friday night, including the score, several play-by-plays, and the exact number of penalties. I asked her later in the day if she thought she'd want to play hockey next year ... and she remains unwilling to commit.

Stay tuned for any developments on that front. Mike and I are tuned as well. But your takeaways from the story should be that Quinn loves one-on-one time, can hang with the best of them, remains incredibly athletic, has commitment issues, does not miss a detail, and will do things when she is good and ready and not a second before.