Dear Kelly,

After a full year of counting down (and next year’s countdown to 8 has begun in earnest), you finally turned 7 on Saturday. I swore it would be low-key, but you don’t DO low-key these days. You do things Kelly-style, which means stuffed animals, family fun…and more stuffed animals. There is nothing low key about your stuffed animal collection, that much I know. I think we spend an hour every day discussing your “stuffed animal bedroom”, and how we’re going to organize your wild collection. We may go into litigation on this topic before the summer is over.

7 is tough in so many ways, and you are taking it on like a true?…7 year old. When you’re not crying about being the baby in the family and the youngest in your class, you’re usually curled up in my lap, begging to stay my baby forever. You have zero interest in big girl things, but I see you peering around the corner, investigating your sister’s movies, games, and unfortunately…her diary. Let’s just try to forget the day Sara opened her locked diary and found the words, “You are the WORST sister in the entire world!” scrawled right through the middle. While I was livid, I found it hard to blame you. Sara was being horrid to you that day, and I did the same thing to Aunt Jenny’s diary when she got a brand new bedroom decorated in butterflies. You and I are really good at finding things, like big sisters’ diary keys. The youngest member of any family develops certain survival skills.

That being said, I’m going to be serious here and tell you the same thing I told Sara in her 7th year of life: Every single day, we must choose between using our skills for evil or for good. It’s astonishing how easy it is to choose evil, because usually, it’s a fast and dirty way to get what we want. But in the LONG RUN, it’s devastating. At 7, you’ll start figuring out friendships in a different way than you did before. You’ll start looking at game strategy, homework, and TV-time negotiating differently. Like I said, 7 is tricky. You’re turning into a full-fledged KID. And for clever kids in particular, they must choose wisely how to use their powers. Light or dark. Evil or good. High road or low road. There is nothing babyish about it, my little bunny.

You might get the impression on reading this letter that you’re a little bit of a stinker at 7. Why, yes my darling, yes you are. I wouldn’t want to know a child at 7 who isn’t a squirt. It’s unhealthy to face 7 without the rites of passage of breaking your sister’s toys, crying at least once per day, refusing to do your math, and lying about putting away your laundry. If you DIDN’T do these things, I’d have your head checked. Before this family, I have a long past with 7 year olds. Someday I’ll share stories with you about the Girls’ Book Club I hosted in my neighborhood, and of the many 7 year old girls I mentored before I married and had children of my own. In fact, looking back, 7 may be the ONLY age of child with which I have any experience whatsoever. Lordy. No wonder I waited to have kids. Embrace it Kel-Belle. BE seven. Own it. It’s a rich age, so full of change and possibility. It’s such a microcosm of the entire elementary years spectrum. I love its brilliance as much as its strife.

To finish off your birthday, after the rock climbing, stuffed animal showering, the 3 “Mommy meals” you requested (I was both flattered and little disappointed I would be cooking all day), cookie cake, and the pawning off of your sister to Avery’s house so you could have a sleepover with just you and your gal-pal, a thunderstorm came. You and your friend equally despise thunderstorms, and you both asked me to sleep in the room with you. Of course! Daddy accused me of wanting to be 7. Oh heaven’s no. Not for me. I’m a little bit enamored with 42. But he wasn’t totally wrong in that I don’t want to miss a single second of you being 7. There is too much to witness to get distracted. And it takes experience in the 7-year-old genre to know that little girls big enough for slumber parties may still be small enough to fear thunder.

I think you suspect the same sentiment regarding this pull-and-tug game between baby and big kid, because the night before your birthday, you whispered to me:

Kelly: Mommy, I’m not sure I want to turn 7.

Mommy: Why, Baby Bunny?

Kelly: Well, I think…maybe…every time I turn one year older, my stuffed animals turn one year younger.

Mommy: Ah. There is some truth in that. Are you afraid you will outgrow them someday?

Kelly: Um? Well? I’ll just have to figure something out. I KNOW! When they turn zero, I’ll just turn the clock and make their birthdays go back up!

Mommy: If only Mommies could turn the clocks. We’d do it. I’d keep you my Baby forever.

Kelly: Don’t be silly Mommy. I’m going to live with you forever and ever! I’ll always be your baby. I’m your baby bunny!

Mommy: Deal.

Happy Birthday Miss Kelly Eleanor Wallen Brave Boo Boo Chicken Baby Bunny. Daddy and I are enamored with your passion, your resilience, and your cunning observational skills. As Daddy is the poster child for being the “oldest child”, he is occasionally perplexed by the seemingly oppositional skill set of the baby of the family. Why doesn’t she want to grow up? Why does she negotiate with the furor of a thousand men? Why is she pretending to not understand anything around her one second, and beating us all at board games the next? Because she is the baby, and that’s the MO of being the youngest. Be in awe of how one carries so much emotion in such a small package. Mommy knows, Mommy knows.

Love and Kisses and Cuddles,

Momma