Allegra,
Yesterday you got home from sleep away camp and I couldn't believe how grown you suddenly seemed. When we dropped you off there last weekend with your two best friends, I knew you'd be fine. It was a new experience, and you only felt partly ready for it, but you dragged that suitcase straight down the road with Addy and Dylan and barely looked back. And after a week of new friends, songs, swimming, sleeping in hammocks, you are taller. Calmer. Surer of your ability to be out there in the world, trying it all, figuring out what you love and what this life holds for you.
The years go by, and some of them seem to last forever. These past two years you have learned to read, swim, and ride a bike. You fell in love with a stuffed animal named Golden and you still love Blankie Blankie, but you agreed that for Girl Scout Camp, Blankie Blankie should stay home. She's delicate by now, and we chuckle at how the lady that made her by hand never would have guessed how important the thread she was knitting for you could have become. She used to be white, but now she's gray. Aged. Cherished. She stayed home while you had your adventure.
You still love these bits of babyhood, but you are not a baby anymore. You are just...you. You love peas and hate cheese. You catch frogs and fireflies and play Barbies. You are fiercely devoted to your two best friends, and the three of you have been showing up at each other's dance recitals and first communions. It's making our families into a little community, which has been really fun for all of us.
Summer has officially begun, and I am realizing that we only get you for another few years before your adventures get bigger and longer and farther away. I will take some pictures for you to help you remember how passionate and sure you are right now. That feeling comes and goes through life, but it helps to remember that you were born with it, Allegra. You might not always feel so brave, but so many kids your age would have been quaking in their boots at strolling into the woods for a week of camp. You climbed and camped and did all the things, taught us some new songs, unpacked your suitcase, and fell exhausted into bed last night. I'm glad to have you home again, realizing especially this morning how quickly the time is flying by when you're still a kid.
I am so very, very proud of you.
Love,
Mom
