Dear Eva,

On the morning you turn eleven, I am sipping coffee and procrastinating.  You've already eaten your breakfast (4 courses, a new record for you) and bounded off to pajama day at school.  Class treats in hand and with the promise of our lunch date, you shouted "I love you!" as the car door closed in your wake.  I should be assembling your cake or starting your guacamole or picking up the house for your guests.  But I opened a picture album to find you on your first birthday.  So now I sit astounded at how far you've come since being covered in blue frosting and strapped into a high chair your tiny legs barely dangled from.

Who knew that, while you sleepily chewed through your first pound of sugar, you would grow into such a devoted lover of all things except pink and K State?  When you were lugging that giant red ball through our tiny yard, I could never have predicted that you would spend the next decade in perpetual motion slowed (though never fully stopped) only by sleep and nachos.  I remember you spent your whole party clinging to me, quietly begging the family assembled in our little living room to get the hell out of your house.  Tucked under my arm, my sweet round eyed girl craved the anonymity that we thought could only come with being a little sister... Years later we realized there's a more quiet place to hide - as the middle girl.

You, my love, are hopeful and brave.  You conquer fears and inspire goals.  You are the first plan I ever made that exceeded itself before my eyes.  You challenge and you change.  You love with complete abandon and you proudly wear the love you earn in the width of your grin.

I am your quiet, you are my wild.

I love you, sunshine.

Always, 

Mama