Carmalita

Today is Carmen's 8th birthday. What can I tell you about Carmen? She is what my oldest daughter calls, 'socially gifted'. She goes to all the birthday parties in her school class (which means half the time she's the only girl at the party). The best story I have about Carmen's outgoing nature happened when she was in kindergarten. My kids go to a small country school with grades k-9. One day when I picked up my kids after school Carmen was the one to get the seat next to the sliding passenger door of the van. Just as she was about to pull the door closed a jr. high girl called out, "Carmen! You rock!" How did this much older girl know Carmen's name, let along that she rocks? That's just Carmen. By the end of her kindergarten year she had pet nick names for many of the students in many different grades that they all answered to.

Carmen likes to get dirty. She was our last kid to get the hang of the idea that food belongs on her plate, on her fork, or in her mouth (even after her younger sister). There are suitable hobbies for this type of kid: she likes cooking, gardening, painting, and pottery.

Carmen is super girly. She likes any sport that involves hair and makeup, which for her right now is figure skating (minus the hair and makeup - I'm a mean mom) She likes flashy clothes, which is hard on her tshirt and jeans mom. We usually find happy middle ground.

Carmen is dramatic. She's up or down. When she was 3 years old I was curling her hair one day, and her bangs came out of the curling iron in a ringlet. I laughed and told her there was a poem about a little girl with hair like that. I recited it for her:

There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
And when she was good she was very, very good.

And when she was bad she was horrid.

Carmen asked me what horrid means, and I told her. She then laughed and said, "That girl is just like me!"

Carmen can hardly wait to start activity days on Tuesday and to get baptized in 2 weeks. Her best friend in her primary class has a January birthday, so Carmen feels like she's been waiting forever to be eight.

Happy Birthday, Carmen!