Louisa Is 8!

If you can believe it, my youngest girl is eight. Some of you have been following this site since before she was born, and now she's eight.

Louisa is increasingly delightful. She has just admitted she can read, though she still prefers to pretend she cannot.

Her smile is snaggle-toothed; she has lost many teeth, and one of her top front teeth is all the way in while the other is still working its way down. I call her Fang.

She is all arms and legs, one of those skinny kids who can't hold still but who caper around the house very much like baby goats. She keeps her hair pixie-short, in what she calls a "boy cut." If it weren't for all the sparkly pink she wears, she'd be mistaken for a boy much more often than she is, even though her face is truly feminine--little pointed chin, slightly pointed ears. I'm surprised she isn't mistaken for an elf rather than a boy. The short hair emphasizes her enormous eyes, which shift between gray, green and, rarely, blue. She is truly a beautiful girl, even with the milk mustache she occasionally sports.

Lou has recently discovered the joy of bad jokes that hits all of us some time between the ages of 7 and 9, and lobs them at us as often as she finds them. (Current favorite: What state has the most pencils? Pencil-vania! Get it, mom? Pencil-vania!!) She is cheerful, easily frustrated, loving, kind, impulsive and altogether a darling handful. I wouldn't trade any of the last eight years with her for anything.