Jessica Anne Turns Eight

My eldest baby is eight and what a beautiful eight she is. Her birthday was a beautiful one, starting with presents in the morning and then we went to a Barbie Musical and the Haunted House. She apparently had a good day and that's what it's about, right?

It's hard to believe that it was eight years ago when our lives were so richly blessed with her arrival. She has always been my spunky independent fire child whom can melt and break my heart at the same time. This Saturday will be her actual birthday party, (she chose to have it late so her cousin could come), but that is her motto. Her friends are her life. She is extremely close to her cousins Nikita Phoebe and Emily, and she has friendships that are so strong it's amazing. Samantha and Yasmine are her newest friends each coming from other countries recently and she has adopted them and they act like they have known each other all their lives. It's especially touching to see her interact with Yasmine because Yasmine knows no english but that doesn't stop them from communicating. Jessica just takes her under her wing and treats her like a precious piece of porclein and they are inseperable. I think she's just someone that because of her fire and drama and energy that you are just drawn too. It's always been that way, even when she was very small.

The night she was born is a blur, we were at Gil's dad's memorial when I went into labour. We knew it might be awhile so after the service we went to our friends house to wait it out. Gil went out to get food and friends kept track of my contractions. It was like an episode on Sienfield actually. We finally went to the hospital and one of our friends tagged along I had to tell Gil to tell him to go home cause I wasn't having the baby with him there. Gil fell asleep and my dearest sister Paige helped me through the contractions. When she was born after an hour and a half of pushing I just collapsed. They put her on my belly and I remember thinking where did all that black hair come from.

Which of course shows you how well I was thinking considering Gil's dad, mom, and two sisters have black hair. Her hair went red at first and now is a dark lucious brown. She has beautiful features and will be a knock-out in her teens. We had better buy the baseball bats now.

She is my smart smart child. It's not that the others are dumb but she is genius level I think. She never forgets anything, she seems to have a photographic memory, and her mind can think through such large complex things that at her age shouldn't even be on her radar. She's in french immersion because she was too quick in kindergarten with english so they suggested french immersion so she wouldn't get bored. She learned to talk before she was one, and was singing songs from the radio at one and a half. Her teacher last year referred to her as gifted, in more than one area and I must agree. It scares me how much she knows and remembers, and learns, I worry that she worries too much and I guess as my oldest I still want to protect her from everything, but she wants me to let her make her own mistakes. It's a hard balancing act for us parents and until you are a parent it's a hard one to understand.

She's always been independant and vivacious and sometimes I wish she would need me more than she does.