Last weekend we were celebrating Cannon, this weekend we were celebrating Hallie. And then we have a long break before we sing the Happy Birthday song again.
For many, a 12th birthday might look like all the others, but Hallie has really been looking forward to this day. In our church, 12 years is a right of passage – it’s the age that you graduate from the primary (little kids) and you join the young women (12-18 years old). She gets to attend a weekly youth group. Girls camp in the summer. She can now go to the temple. All things that she has been looking forward to with great anticipation. And she has finally arrived.
She came into this world crying incessantly – looking at her today you wouldn’t know she was the hardest baby. But she was and when she complains that her brothers are crying we kindly remind her that none of the kids combined have cried as much as she did in the first year of life.
I’m so glad we didn’t give her back all those years ago! She is the glue to her siblings and we remind them how lucky they are to have a sister that loves and cares for them as much as she does. She shares more than she needs to. She nurtures more than I would. She volunteers for jobs I don’t even care for. She is not only delightful, but she’s respectful. Yes, she gets angry and frustrated but she has a long fuse and a little bomb and 5 minutes later we’ve got her laughing.
She is growing up quickly and I’m enjoying every stage with her. Steve made her pinky promise that she won’t get sassy as she grows into a teenager – here’s hoping she makes good on her promise.
What a lovely young lady she is growing into, your comments as to her nature come as no surprise they show in her pictures.
I do hope that her `Pinky Promise’ with Steve does not become a problem. Hallie seems to be a young lady who believes solemnly in promises and the upholding off them. Being a teenager is a vital right of passage in finding her own way in life and to some extent separating herself from both of you. Perhaps You and Steve should `Pinky Promise’ Hallie that you will try not to cause her to many times where she finds herself needing to become `sassy.’ I’m 60 now and I clearly remember the tears I shed in my last week of being 12, I was desperate to wake on my birthday and be 20! I’d heard such awful things about being a teenager, and what a trial a teenager was to live with that I was quite literally desperate not to become one. In the end it wasn’t so bad and nor was I. Looking back I see that I wasn’t the kind of kid that was ever going to be capable of being a terrible teen, but I could have done without those years of anguish throughout my teens that it would happen on my next birthday.
I hope Hallie can continue to grow into the lovely (in every respect) young lady she is so clearly on the path too. Perhaps Hallie got her teenage angst out at the beginning when she was such a desperately unhappy and ill little girl. Happy Birthday Cannon & Hallie.
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this Birthday Song, I’ve never heard it outside of my family and no one remembers where it came from. As a Christian family I’d like to share it with you.
`A Happy Birthday to You, A Happy Birthday to You and the best that you’ve ever had. Every day of your year may you feel Jesus, family and friends to be near. A Happy Birthday to You, A Happy Birthday to You and the best that you’ve ever had’.