Setting the Home Table: November 2023

“The world was moving, and she was right there with it, and she was. Rising up above the earth, moving into the universe…”- The Talking Heads

Dear 13-Year-Old Girl,

We had our neighbors over last night, while you are away at camp, they asked if turning thirteen had changed you. I think about this a lot, you growing up and becoming a more defined version of what will lead you into your adult self. While this is your first “true” teen year, over the past couple of years, like a rubber band, you have stretched and contracted, sometimes pulling so hard and then snapping back. While we certainly have moments, you seem to be settling into a quiet confidence and a growing awareness of your place and path in this world, and at least for now the pull of the band has eased and snaps back more quickly and gently- the tension easing.

7^th grade proved to be the year where you figured out how to balance your studying and other activities. I think back to those early pandemic middle school years, a double-header tsunami of frustration and worry. Now here we are, with a growing girl who studies at her desk (I knew finding that barn sale desk would make all the difference), memorizing details of important battles in our country’s fight for independence, working through the anatomy of a cell with a healthy dose of mixed fractions and integers added in. While we were the daily witness of your evolving skills, your receiving of the Blue and Gold Award at school proved that we weren’t the only ones who noticed.

“Today’s Blue and Gold is awarded to a student who has really grown into her academic maturity since starting middle school. She is organized and has figured out study strategies that really work for her. She is a great self-advocate and proactive in terms of completing good quality work.” Go you!

As I sit outside on the patio while you and “Father” (newly minted from “Daddy”), make your way back from a Phils game in DC, I am savoring this late summer evening, serenaded by crickets. In just over two weeks you will begin your last year of middle school. The four-year-old girl who learned to ride her bike in the alley behind where I sit, has a college short-list along with a plan for how she is going to get there. I am particularly excited about your plan to be a millionaire by the time you graduate high school.

With you just back from sleep away camp last weekend, we had a special week of “make-up” time. You came up to NYC with me and kept yourself busy while I had a meeting. After we had a catch-up lunch with Nancy, Dre and Colleen, all who held you as a newborn and have been there to watch you grow. Yesterday, I took off work and we had a girl’s day, with a mani/pedi followed by lunch at your favorite Blue Bell Inn. In our time together, I feel our roles shifting, and you gaining on me but not in a way that competes but complements.

The summer is winding into fall and as we begin the ramp up, I think back on all our adventures this past year, though we did not have quite the epic travel that we did the year before (that was a whirl), we experienced many new places and things. We had a quintessential fall weekend in Vermont, we made it a girl’s weekend with Grama and Aunt Kelly. Exploring Shelburn Museum, expertly hosted by their top guide, who happens to be Grama. We hiked, explored, and came home with a car full of pumpkins and gourds! Fall brought our annual Halloween party with an extra terrifying yard display and a successful trick or treat haul despite the rain. Once the skeletons and spiders were packed away, we were off to the holiday races. Our Thanksgiving table grew this year with Miss Liz and Jerome making the trip from Paris and Aunt E, Claire and Herman coming down from NYC. Everyone rolled up their sleeves in the kitchen and you whipped your famous sweet potatoes to creamy perfection. Our hearts and bellies were full, but we made room for an extravaganza of pies and treats as the Matsons joined us for desert and you crazy girls’ pumpkin-chunked our porch display into the road. Pumpkins out wreaths in!

Our Christmas was full of much, “most wonderful time of the year” celebration, kicking off with our new tradition of adding the Radio City Rockettes to our NYC Tree and shop weekend. We went with the Matsons and left quite a wake across the island and experienced a little magic of the season when after someone pick-pocketed my wallet in the Rock Center crowd, it was returned by an angel of an urban visitor determined to find me.

We continued the merry with Grandma arriving on the train for Christmas and your big Philadelphia Girl’s Choir holiday concert weekend in New Jersey and then on to Temple for a busy but lovely weekend of performance! We had so much fun, cozy at home, baking and game-playing in front of the fire!

With the ushering in of 2023 came you continuing to try new things and take on more. We found a new place in our community volunteering together at Face to Face, an outreach organization in Germantown, committed to providing resources and healthy meals to the underserved. I don’t think we have ever chopped so many vegetables or cooked in such an industrial kitchen but working side by side we grew our skills and appreciation gratitude. I am so grateful for the way you take on more but also recognize when it is too much. You lean in but know where your edges are.

Your edges are held tight by your fierce girl posse. You, Alexandra, Gray and Leila are a force of teen friendship, support, and shenanigans. Together since Pre-K, when I see you all I am reminded of why we made the decision almost ten years ago to make our move to the place that would become your home, your constant and hub. Your father just had a night out at the local pub with many of the classmates he befriended and grew up with on the same campus you now attend. How wonderful it is to hear you talk about wanting to come back to this place and even buying our house should we decide to move when you graduate. How comforting to know you have this very special hometown.

Pre-K- Class of 2028

Yes, in less than five years you will graduate high school. You already have your sights set on NYC as the place where you may attend college- NYU, Columbia, we shall see where it may be. You dream big but also hold on to the little girl who dressed up in my heels and pearls and filmed artful tutorials on make-up application. More than once this year, you have found your way into our bed yearning for “wanting to be little” again. Like the proverbial rubber band, you pull back to the days when things maybe felt a bit simpler. As I have told you in those moments of comfort in between the tears, while I too miss the littles, if we were to go back it would erase all that you have accomplished, all your hard work. And I would never give up one moment of you.

Your hard work brought more recitals this year, more early morning practices (which meant giving up many a Friday sleepover), and a spirited performance as Violet (no-shrinking) in Alice in Wonderland. With a busy first half of the year, we all found recharge and warmth in a family trip with the Cantlins to Amelia Island for spring break. A new adventure unfolded exploring this beautiful island of endless beaches, turtles, poolside delights and Easter bunnies.

Violet

Gray and Lila

Spring Break with the Cantlins

Our Florida trip provided a welcome distraction as we awaited your dad’s surgery, the culmination of months of tests to determine the plan for taking care of what we hoped and prayed would be a successful outcome. After a tough week at U Penn we were overjoyed and beyond grateful when we received the great news that all that was bad was out and we could put it behind us.

With the big bump behind, we felt almost weightless moving into summer. Farewell to 7^th grade and on to an exhale. For the first time, we under planned and under-scheduled. After the uncertainty punctuated by celebration it felt good to slide into the long summer days. On one of your first days of vacation I came up to find a pile of some of your old stuffed animals and other "things" you had moved on from outside of your bedroom door in the hallway. Another moment of you growing and asserting your place.

In early June Grauntie came to visit to see your summer PGC concert and to soak up some Philly fun and food. Then it was off to the 4^th of July fun when Good Morning America came to highlight Chestnut Hill as part of its Main Street USA celebration. You did not miss your chance to work your way into the national morning broadcast!

July rolled on with your big 13^th birthday festivities. Our family vacation to Traverse City would be the site for your official birthday but, we of course could not miss your friend celebration- so in came the big water slide which provided the perfect backdrop for your home party, in the yard where we have hosted so many epic birthdays. While this party was not as large, the water slide delivered and provided much frolic for four young girls in between the littles and the "bigs". As I watched you all throwing yourselves into the water with not a care in the world, I was grateful for these moments of pure bliss with your forever friends making more memories in our backyard.

On to Traverse City for our “Fam Jam”. What a wonderful week we had, again slowing down in our beautiful retreat on Lake Arbutus. Far away from the hustle and bustle, family time with little thought of the clock or work back at home. Zipping around the lake with you all hanging on to the tube with all your might. Exploring the legendary and mesmerizing Sleeping Bear Dunes and Northern Michigan lakeshore towns. And of course, your very special 13^th birthday celebration, surf and turf (at your fancy request) with our family. Topped off with a lemon lavender cake of dreams. It is not every girl who ushers in milestone birthday with such fantastic splendor, toasted by her family. A day to remember and capped off by you, coming down from all the flurry crawling into bed with us, sad about getting big. Snuggled between us, you fell into your slumber and woke up ready to be 13 again. Back and forth we go- little/big, finding just the right spot on your edges, the spot that provides just the right amount of comfort to fuel your ambition.

Your summer of 13 continued with a week down at Ocean City to celebrate your July birthday buddy Alexandra, an epic week where your four floated together now all in your big first teen year. Then home and back for your third year at Camp Tockwogh, this time joined by both Alexandra and Leila. Your memory book gained many pages as you worked on your sailing and watersport skills and reveled in all things "Camp." As I continue to hold on while letting go, that mid-August pilgrimage to gather you, your trunk and carload of laundry, punctuated by that first hug will always be my summer peak.

My summer peak

We put a bow on summer with a long weekend up in Vermont, visiting the Rizzos and Grandma. A perfect capstone, late August trip filled with delicious food and much family frolic. Just what we needed to squeeze in one last hurrah before the fall flurry.

1^st day of 8^th grade. Sitting on the step, same place where we have captured that smile for ten years. Bows and your navy Mary Jane sneakers replaced by your Nike Dunks. Thank you for still letting me take that photo. Off you go moving into the universe.

First Day of 8th Grade

First Day of Pre-K

As you can tell, I started writing this in August, when you were at Camp. It is now early November, the first early, dark evening as we turned the clocks back last night. There is so much in my head about you, us, and our lives. So much I want to capture while living in full. We had a long weekend in Michigan last week, you and Dad came out to meet me after a work trip so that we could catch up with Grauntie, Uncle Jer, Aunt Beth, Stella, and Zac. The world moves so fast. I am so thankful for the closeness of our extended family and hope that you, Stella, and Zac will stay close- just like Uncle Jeremy, Kelly and I have.

You are going to go far sweet girl. You will continue to have moments of greatness where it all works. Moments where the world is your oyster. But you will also have more of the moments when as I often joke, your head shoots off your body and it just feels like too much. Know that one of the most important things you have, the thing that will clap when you are great and hold you up when it’s not, is your family and friends. Continue to invest in them. Take care of them and hold them close. Be thankful for the consistency of the same house we began to make a home when you were four. Be thankful for the friends that have been by your side and grown with you, like tree branches, extending to different places but from the same shared beginning.

Study hard, read more than you scroll. Keep giving back. Fold your clothes, hang up the towels. Find more joy in giving then receiving. Check in on your family- even if it is just a text that says, “I am thinking of you today,” because it will make their day. Seek to understand different points of view. Keep honing that sharp wit of yours, you are funny, whether you like it or not. You have fantastic ideas, keep creating. Your voice and presence continue to be your ever-evolving gift. Keep talking to us. Keep your edges close, expand and alter your view and keep moving with the world, because we and it are sure lucky to have you.

Love,

Your Mom and Dad