Eight Years Old: Lucie

Passionate, daring, smart, contemplative, silly, tough, and so very loyal to her family and friends -- our Lucie turns eight years old today.

As I look back at our writings about Lucie over the years, I notice that there are some consistent themes -- her interest and skill at creating beautiful things, a love of reading and her comfort in the water. These traits have always been an integral part of our Lucie, characteristics that seem to be in her core being.

Lucie continues to love creating art and stories. She most recently dreamed up a Star Wars puppet show from popsicle sticks and bits of paper, with an incredible amount of detail and recalled story lines. When Lucie is hard at work, there are pens, pieces of yarn, repurposed doll clothes and rolls of tape littered across her bedroom floor. We hope to get her a craft table this year to give a proper home to all her bits of inspiration.

She read like a mad woman this summer, whizzing through chapter books that she once could only listen to and look at the drawings. Halfway through our Capitola visit, Gigi took her to the bookstore to get new reading material as she had blown through everything she brought. We encouraged  her to get the longest chapter book possible so it could stand a chance of making it through the end of our trip.

One of her greatest loves has always been the water. When Lucie is in the ocean/pool/bathtub, she is happy (and often singing). She spent many mornings on her boogie board at the beach this summer, coming in only for a quick snack or sip of water, and getting right back out there.

She did an incredible job with lake swimming while visiting family in Minnesota. She swam with confidence and skill to a raft/floating trampoline 100 feet from shore, impressing the family with her comfort around the water (even if she did fall off a pier while fishing, but that's another story that Grandma and Grandpa tell much better than I do). She also had a blast out "tubing" off the back of a speedboat.

Other things about Lucie have changed and grown this year. She surprised us all by declaring that she no longer wanted to wear a cotton dress each day, preferring shorts and tank tops instead. This may not seem like a noteworthy event, but for a girl who had refused to wear anything with a waistband since 2009, it caught us off guard. That's one of the many things we love about Lucie, she always keeps us on our toes.

Another new development is Lucie's love of knitting and crocheting. She picked both up with very little help. The next thing we knew, she was creating scarves that ran halfway down the hallway. She has really enjoyed working with Gigi, cousin Maggie and Aunt Rach on knitting, and has inherited all sorts of beautiful yarns and kid-sized knitting needles. If you ever need a knitted pom-pom or dollhouse rug, she's you're girl!

We all know Lucie loves to read, and if not eating, sleeping or playing, she can be found relaxing with her nose in a book. One thing that has changed is her taste in books. She recently declared that she likes scary and suspenseful reads, and has taken an interest in my old Nancy Drew mysteries, and even slightly frightening stuff like the Goosebumps series. The many pages of Harry Potter may be just around the corner for her.

What will the next year bring to Lucie? We're so thrilled to be with her on this wonderful ride of parenting Lucie. Happiest of eighth birthdays to our sweet girl!