truth and lies

I won't lie to you. The body of this post is shamelessly cut and pasted from an email that is now a year old. It's still all true, though, except that now she is twelve. Lord.

Tomorrow, Sophie will be eleven.

Old, I say. Today, she got her haircut and asked for layers in the
front and though she had to sit in the kids' chair at Jodie's to get
the haircut, she now looks old. Adolescence is looming, I tell you.
I'd cry if I were the crying type. She pulled a curl from the
sweepings on the floor and gave it to me, because she knows I love
the perfect curl that grows from the left side of the nape of her neck.

When she was little, I could carry her from my old house to the bank
on High street. She was always tired after school and she'd fall
asleep on my shoulder and I'd balance her on the ledge at the bank to
sign checks while she slept, open mouthed, on my shoulder. The folks
at the bank always said something about how cute she was. In her
brown and fringy leather cowgirl vest and skirt that nearly fell off
because she was so skinny.

When I first started keeping her, we used to drive back to her house
in Belmont and get stuck on the bridge over the tracks at 5, as the
sun went down in the fall, and I'd tell her to look at the sky
because the clouds were so pretty and because she was a captive
audience to my awed ramblings. Sometimes she interrupts herself now
to point out the sky to me.

She mows the grass for me. For real. She is good at it now. She
always volunteers when I say there is yard work to be done and she
once mentioned casually that she liked mowing the patches of clover
the best because she liked to watch the clover leaves pop around as
she ran the mower over them.

She had me read a story she's writing for school today and said she
wanted me to edit it, not just read it. And it was remarkably free
of spelling mistakes and was funny. Truly funny.

She got a poor grade in social studies last term and she has pulled
it up and is very quietly proud. (I am loudly proud.)

She says, "I knew that," in a very sassy fashion when she is caught
unawares. Mostly, I hate this, but it is also a little endearing,

She holds the door for me when we go places.

She and H***** have the exact same color hair and Sophie is so, so
good with her.

She yells, "honk," as loud as she can when we pass the peace
demonstrators with their honk for peace signs.

She has begun to have dreams about celebrities but she still believes
in Santa.

She had her first orchestra concert yesterday, and she looked
slightly bored. And very 80's with her slouchy boots.

She is planing on buying her birthday party favors with her own
money, prompted by no one.

She washed the car windows in the freezing cold for me today when I
got gas on Harris st.

She still thinks she can teach me to ride a bike.

Tomorrow, she will be eleven.

What? You wanted to know about my RE appointment? Haha. Maybe another day. It was good.