Happy 12th Birthday Lauren!

Magoo,
I wonder how long you'll let me call you Magoo?  Every time I call you Magoo I think, "Oh please don't get so big that you're far too grown up for me to call you Lauren Magoo!" I love your smile Lauren, I love how bright and shiny you are.  I love how deeply you feel empathy for others and for the way you make sure no one ever hurts around you.

You have a "How to Train Your Dragon" phase going on right now, not entirely sure how long this is going to last, but right now...it's all about that movie.  You are VERY excited for orchestra this year.  I hope you stick with it...we'll either look back on this letter and say, "Hey, remember when you use to play the violin?" or "Hey, remember when it all started??"  I hope its the latter, I love music and I want so much for you to find something that makes your heart sing.  To find your niche, your "thing".

You somewhat recently acquired some geckos....gotta hand it to you Lauren, you are one persistent little thing and in an attempt to sway you from wanting it, I made a deal with you that if you successfully took care of the critters (sugar gliders) for an undisclosed length of time, that I would indeed get you some geckos.  In my mind I thought, "The novelty will certainly wear off and you'll move on to the next better thing....or you'll soon get SUPER sick of taking care of them and realize how hard it is to exclusively care for an animal...but no, you proved to be just as stubborn as your mother and completely proved me wrong. 

So....geckos it is.  We went to my friend Cheryl's without you knowing the reason why and I thought for sure you were actually going to pee your pants when you put two and two together and realizing that you were in fact getting the geckos, you were SOOOOOOOO excited and while I wasn't overly thrilled about adding yet ONE MORE trio to our circle of family pets, I couldn't help but love the delight on your sweet face.

A few months ago, speaking of our ever expanding number of critters, Lilly and I went to Cal-Ranch to get an air pump and while we failed to find a pump, Lilly was tricky enough to catch me in a moment of weakness and talk me into bringing two bunnies they had in this trough looking thing and I caved.  We named them Wilma (one eyed willy since she was blind in one eye due to an infection) and the other Tess.  Unfortunately, we were also babysitting a friend's dog Molly who decided to play a little too rough with Tess and 3 days was all we were able to spend with Tess before she went to the Happy Hunting Ground in the sky.  I was on a mini bike ride with Connor when you called me hysterically screaming that Tess was gone and to hurry home.  I raced home to find some very distraught children holding a dead bunny and my heart absolutely broke, especially for you sweet Magoo.  You were the one that found Tess and you were absolutely heart broken.  We found a large shoe box, filled it with flowers and Curtis buried it in the -WORST place to dig in the yard-spot . Mercy I swear the dirt was made of straight cement.   Every few days, you'd add another note that you wrote and while I smiled at how sweet and tender hearted you are, it just broke my heart to see you hurt so much.  (Note....bunny pictured is not Tess, thats Wilma...but since we only had her for 3 days, I didn't have a picture...lol)

One of your big accomplishments this year was your patriot award.  Oh mercy, that was a doozy for you.  It caused you so much stress and anxiety and while you may have finished at the last minute and spent some serious hours the night before with Connor, frantically finishing up memorizing the Gettysburg address and I can't tell you how many times you wanted to give up.  But wow was it awesome to see the light in your eyes and the immense feeling of accomplishment as you got called up as one of the few to accomplish and receive your patriot award at the end of the year.

Right now, your best friend is Abby and you are DELIGHTED that she and her family built a house in our neighborhood, just in time for you to start middle school together.  I'm not entirely sure how I feel about all of that yet to be honest.  It's both fun and hard to see you grow up... you are almost taller than me, you have bigger feet than me, and yesterday I couldn't find a shirt I wanted to wear, so I went to your closet for one and realized....oh my goodness, we're at THAT stage of life where we can share clothes and it just boggled me....wondering where my cute, snuggly, chubby, big brown eye'd baby girl went...?

Buuuuutttt...then you pull out one of these fancy tricks and I remember EXACTLY where my little girl is.....

For the record, it takes takes talent to clear a room, but you my dear, in your ability to clear the GREAT OUTDOORS, is nothing short of incredible talent.  I quickly elbowed the photographer and asked her to capture this incredible accomplishment, one day....we'll be SO thankful I did.

You and Lilly are still really close, along with Sarah you three made quite the trio of amigos.  However this is the first year you'll be on your own without her and it makes me wonder how it will all pan out.  You two are kind of inseparable and while I think it will be so good for you to step out on your own and be your own person outside of your two sisters, my heart aches just a little bit wondering how it will be.  You are so smart Lauren.  You are kind.  You are funny and couldn't care less about name brand clothes or whether they're even matching lol.  You just need them to be "soft" and the rest frankly doesn't matter. 

In that regard, you are very different from Lilly who is in a HUGE hurry to grow up, shave legs, and wear makeup just like you.  I have to fight to kindly remind her that she's 10 turning 11, in her mind she's ready to be 16 and I'm pretty sure I'll be in trouble when that happens.  Gah.  Let's not think about it.

Have a good day Magoo.  I love you.  I'm so proud of you.

Love,
Mom