Happy (Very Belated) Birthday, Raya

Dear Raya,

I am mortified at how very belated this birthday letter is. You turned NINE years old more than three months ago. Since then, you have already grown more by leaps and bounds, but I am going to try to dial the clock back a bit and reimagine you exactly as you were on your ninth birthday, October 11.
Where do I start? At nine, you continue to amaze us every single day.

1) You love to read and read voraciously everything that comes your way. Teachers tell us, repeatedly, that they are stunned by the size of your vocabulary and by your ability to articulate your ideas eloquently in both speaking and writing. Last night, while reading out loud to you The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, I had to stop midway through a page while you ran for a journal in order to write down a sentence that had really captured your imagination. I don't have it in front of me, but the sentence went something like, "She had never seen a real live dead person before." You laughed and laughed at the idea of a "real live dead person," and then when I told you that "live dead" was an oxymoron, you not only wrote down the sentence but also started a new page in your journal that from now on will serve as a record of all the oxymorons that you find. This little incident pretty much sums you up: you love words, and you delight in them like no other child we know. You have the instincts of a scholar and writer, and you absorb language at a pace that feels unnatural. (For the record, you read at least 132 books between October 2017 and October 2017; those are full-length middle-grade and young adult novels or works of nonfiction. For Halloween, you dressed as a "writer.")

sick days are some of your favorite days: you get to read all day!

meeting the author and illustrator of Ivy and Bean

Halloween: A Writer

2) You love to dance. Ballroom continues to excite you, and you are gaining wonderful poise and confidence. Your technique is improving, under the watchful guidance of Nastya, and you mother Paul, while trying very hard not to get impatient with him. Just as we had hoped, dance is becoming a second home for you, but books are always first.

3) Your love of books and dance come together in a most intriguing personality. You are intensely social, remembering the names and surnames of everyone at Pinewood, but you also have a profound need for solitude. If we come home from school, and there is no dance lesson, you often disappear into your room for hours. While there, you tell us, you read, listen to music, think your thoughts, and pursue stories in your head. When you were younger, we had to force you into transitions from sociability to solitude. Now you seek those transitions yourself, and you are developing a wonderful barometer for you own deepest emotional and social needs.

4) You continue to be blessed with a wonderful brother, and most of the time you are wonderful to him in return. You have a playful, loving, open, and communicative relationship. You like spending time in each other's company, and you rarely seem to compete with each other in the ways that are so common among older siblings. You feel secure in who you are, and you love and appreciate him for who he is.

he loves to beat you at chess, and you are ever so gracious about it

truly, you two do this a lot; you've been hugging since you were little!

he birds, you record

5) In addition to books and dance, you also really enjoy swimming. Although it's been yet one more expense in a growing bill of extracurriculars, we've delighted to see you gain strength and confidence in the water.

6) Your favorite friends at the moment are, by a long shot, Phoebe and Mia. You adore both girls, and you find comfort and joy in their companionship. This is a big deal because, despite being generally sociable, you are picky about friends and you have not yet found your own tribe in school. You don't seem to mind most of your peers, but you also have high expectations from those that you call friends. When you had the two girls over for your birthday, you three mostly read and wrote together. My heart broke again and again and again watching you that day. May you always have those kinds of friends.

I trust you know how much your dad, your brother, and I love you, but just in case you ever wonder, this letter is a testament to our feelings. We love you to the moon and back, and we are so thankful to be able to watch you grow.

Happy belated ninth birthday, my love.