The thing about Nine is that it feels like “childhood” is fading into the dark, like the last little rays of sunshine are dipping low into the water at sunset, soon to be gone.
That’s a rather melancholy analogy. Enough of that nonsense.
(It does feel like that though.)
Our Ellie Bean is now nine and a force to be reckoned with, there’s no doubt about that. She’s brilliant. She’s mercurial. She loves big, feels big, dreams bigs, plans big.
I think I maybe wrote that same sentence when she was four, five, six, seven, and eight.
We have learned so much about this sweet girl as she has grown into herself. We used to think of her as a little comic. She was (and is) hilarious. Don’t you dare laugh though – when it’s not a joke (which is always), she doesn’t appreciate not being taken seriously. And Lord help anyone who gets in her way when she’s got any kind of plan up her sleeve. This will serve her well as she grows.
(It is not really serving me well, per say, but eyes on the prize.)
She has a gorgeous singing voice and loves to cook. She’s been known to take time on the weekend to do a self-directed research project or two. Her Spanish is beautiful and she is way better at math than her dad. She tells us sometimes that she wants to be a teacher when she’s older, but when I tried to get her most recent vision for adulthood, she said it “isn’t time to talk about that right now.”
At nine, she’s 100 feet tall and totally adored by her sisters. She’s every bit the tornado that earned her the nickname. She is never seen without a book or something to write on. She packs a backpack full of supplies for every car trip, even when we’re just going to Target. Once John told her it wasn’t fun to read at a holiday celebration and she reminded him that “we all have different kinds of fun.”
You do you, Tornado Ellie. You are rockin’ it. Happy Ninth Birthday! 🌪❤️
Yo soy La Lay 
Leave a Reply